Reference/Release Notes/2.81

Blender 2.81 Release Notes

Blender 2.81 was released on November 21, 2019.

Check out the final Release Notes on blender.org

2.81a Corrective Release

This corrective release does not include new features and only fixes a few serious regressions introduced in 2.81 release.

Cycles

New shaders for texturing, denoising with OpenImageDenoise, and NVIDIA RTX support.

Eevee

Shadows, transparency and bump mapping redesigned for easier setup and better quality.

Viewport

New options for look development with Cycles and Eevee.

Grease Pencil

User interface, tools, operators, modifiers, new brushes and presets and material self overlap.

Sculpt & Retopology

New sculpt tools, poly build tool, voxel remesh and quad remesh.

Transform & Snapping

Transform origins, new snapping, mirroring and auto merge options.

User Interface

Outliner improvements, new file browser and batch rename.

Library Overrides

A new system to replace proxies, to make local overrides to linked characters and other data types.

Animation & Rigging

Finer control over rotations and scale in bones, constraints and drivers.

More Features

Alembic, audio & video output, library management and video sequencer editor.

Python API

Python version upgrade, dynamic tooltip for operators, new handlers and other API changes.

Add-ons

Enabled add-ons only, glTF, FBX, import images as planes, blenderkit, rigify among others.