Blender 5.0 crazy new features

Blender 5.0 The Next Big Leap

Just like the legendary 2.8 update, Blender 5.0 feels like another massive turning point. The devs are cooking up features that push Blender into serious competition with the big-name software out there. The official release is expected around late November, but we don’t have to wait until then to get a taste. Developers and artists are already testing out these updates and dropping demos that are making the community buzz. Let’s check them out:

🎬 Compositor for Video Sequencer

Slavo showed off something pretty wild the compositor now works directly with the Video Sequence Editor (VSE). This brings Blender closer to tools like DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut. You can now do your color correction, grading, and post effects right in the compositor and instantly see the results inside the sequencer. Real-time post-production in Blender is finally here.

🔗 Merging VSE and Compositing

Viadvena demonstrated how the compositor is becoming a modifier you can slap onto clips. Just like adding geometry nodes to a mesh, you can attach compositor node trees directly to your footage. Multiple clips can each have their own node setups, and you can even share node groups between them. This opens the door to some seriously flexible post-production workflows all inside Blender.

⚡ Geometry Nodes Presets

Andrew Price (yep, Blender Guru himself) showed off the brand-new presets system for geometry nodes and the compositor. Instead of painstakingly building setups from scratch every time, Blender 5.0 adds drag-and-drop templates: arrays, scattering, color presets, LUTs, and more. It’s similar to the asset browser, but faster and more integrated. Think of it like Blender giving you a toolbox of ready-to-use building blocks that you can still customize.

🎛️ Compositor Presets + Convolve Nodes

We’re also getting a brand-new Convolve node for the compositor. This node makes it incredibly easy to apply custom filters, like bokeh patterns, directly in your renders. Instead of being locked to standard blur shapes, you’ll be able to design your own out-of-focus effects think star-shaped highlights, hexagonal lens blur, or any pattern you can imagine. It’s a simple addition, but one that gives artists a ton of creative freedom when it comes to cinematic depth of field and stylistic effects.

✏️ Motion Blur for Grease Pencil

Grease Pencil artists, rejoice. Motion blur is now natively supported. No more faking it with smear frames Blender handles it automatically, giving animations that extra cinematic feel.

🌤️ Multiple Scattering Sky Texture

The sky texture finally gets an upgrade. With multiple scattering, your skies look richer, and the lighting in your scenes feels way more natural. Perfect for those sunrise/sunset renders where realism really counts.

🔮 Lens Distortion with Transparency

Thomas again with another gem the lens distortion node now preserves transparency. That means you can distort just the foreground layer without messing up your background. Super handy for compositing effects.

🔁 Radial Tiling

A new tiling node is coming to geometry nodes, shaders, and the compositor. Before, you could only tile on X/Y grids, but now you can tile radially around a point. Think of it as a node-based array modifier perfect for patterns, mandalas, or even trippy motion graphics.

🎨 Pixel Art Painting in Blender

Blender 5.0 will let you paint pixel art directly in the texture paint mode. Pixel art is huge in indie game development, and now you won’t need outside software to create it. Simple, powerful, and very cool.

🌞 HDR Viewport

HDR support is coming to the Blender viewport! You’ll be able to see brighter highlights and a wider dynamic range directly while working, giving you a much more accurate look at how your renders will shine.

🔒 Closures in Blender

Closures are a big new concept coming to Blender’s node system. Right now, when you build geometry node setups, everything executes immediately in one flow. With closures, you’ll be able to “wrap up” parts of your node tree as independent chunks of logic that can be reused or executed later.

Think of them like functions in programming: instead of repeating the same steps everywhere, you can package them up, pass them around, and call them when needed. This means node setups can become cleaner, more modular, and easier to share. It also hints at future workflows where geometry nodes could behave more like a full programming language inside Blender.

🎬 ACES 2.0 Built-In

ACES 2.0, the gold standard for color management in VFX, is now natively in Blender. This is huge for studios and artists who need accurate, film-quality color pipelines.

🚀 Final Thoughts

Blender 5.0 is shaping up to be one of the most exciting releases in years. From real-time VSE compositing to HDR viewports and pixel art painting, it’s clear the devs are listening to what both pros and hobbyists want. Late November can’t come soon enough.