The Blender Foundation has officially announced the release of Blender 4.4, marking a significant update to their widely acclaimed open-source 3D graphics and modeling software. This version comes just four months after Blender 4.3 and introduces a host of new features and enhancements.
One of the key updates in Blender 4.4 is the support for integer sockets in the compositor, alongside an upgraded Fast Gaussian mode for the Blur node that promises greater accuracy. A revamped Glare node offers users more control, enhancing the overall user experience. Notably, this release also enables video rendering capabilities using the H.265/HEVC codec.
Blender 4.4 becomes the first version to employ Vulkan for rendering Cycles. The Blender Foundation indicated that this transition involved a new threading model, yielding performance on par with the previously utilized OpenGL. This update also extends GPU rendering support to NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 50×0 graphics series (Blackwell) and AMD’s RX 90×0 series (RDNA4). Additionally, HIP-RT is no longer classified as experimental for AMD hardware, necessitating ROCm 6.0 as the minimum requirement on Linux for AMD GPUs.
Further new features include the introduction of the Plane brush type—a comprehensive tool that generalizes existing flattening, filling, and scraping options, complete with controls for stabilization and influence range. Users can also select features according to traits, like 3-poles and 5-poles.
The overlays in Blender have undergone a rewrite for enhanced consistency and extensibility. The Vulkan backend has received a substantial performance boost, along with improved stability and compatibility. Furthermore, the CPU compositor has been restructured to facilitate future enhancements, and the “Render Audio” operator can now output to AAC format.
Blender 4.4 introduces additional capabilities to handle 10 and 12-bit/channel videos, alongside rendering options in the BT.709 color space. It boasts more precise YUV-to-RGB conversion for playback, quicker preview performance for float/HDR content, and the ability to edit text strips directly in the preview area.
The software now includes a feature to sort assets by catalog rather than by name, addresses text pasting issues from Blender to other applications on Linux under X11, and adds a new operator to eliminate asset previews, while implementing snapping functionality when adjusting node sizes horizontally.
For further details, visit the release notes and download Blender 4.4 as a universal binary suitable for various GNU/Linux distributions from the official website.
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