After using various beta's, svn's and release candidates, Blender 2.46 has finally been released. It was released on May 19 2008.
I had been very busy on the release date of Blender 2.46, so I didn't get a chance to use it on day of release and took a little while to get acquainted with Blender 2.46.
First though a little background on the whys and wherefores of Blender 2.46 (The Bunny Release).
The first thing to know is that Blender 2.46 is the result of work done while making the next Peach Open Movie, which has the ambition of making a totally open movie, which is to be released under the creative commons license and be made available to the public. Features and requests that were needed or wanted for the "Big Buck Bunny" movie were added to Blender 2.46 to allow the movie to be made with the features and workflow patterns required. It will be the second movie, the first was "Elephants Dream" and it was the movie that spawned the release of Blender 2.44 (Blender 2.45 was a bug fix release). The purpose of both of the movies is not only to generate a free creative resource but also to both demonstrate and push the features and development of Blender as a 3D suite and use it as a test bed to improve Blenders features.
Blender 2.46 can be seen as a stop gap measure until the release of Blender 2.50 (which has been mooted for July release, however I will believe that when I see it).
The latest version of Blender can be downloaded here and if you wish to download the statically linked versions here.
I've been playing with Blender 2.46 for a while now and it is extremely good. I especially like new option to determine the orientation of newly added mesh when it is first created and added. Also the new View display names for the 3D view port are also a very useful feature.
The new features are many and varied a list of some of the major additions can be found on the www.blender.org site here.
So if you don't have it Blender 2.46, go and get it now!
