Blender 5.1
Key topics
The Blender community is discussing the upcoming release of Blender 5.1, currently in alpha, with comments highlighting both excitement for new features and concerns about the release process and existing limitations.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Moderate engagementFirst comment
2h
Peak period
9
0-6h
Avg / period
2.7
Based on 16 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Nov 11, 2025 at 9:58 AM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Nov 11, 2025 at 11:59 AM EST
2h after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
9 comments in 0-6h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Nov 13, 2025 at 11:35 PM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
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5.0 is about to drop, maybe you wanted to share that?
As somebody who's Blender curious but not a 3D graphics designer (I have minimal CAD experience, that's about it), I'd like to know what makes 5.0 special. The release notes are too technical and granular for me.
Modern GNU Emacs feels like a wondrous relic transported back in time from an alternate future, from a world where LISP Machines won.
FFMPEG and VLC are pretty marvelous in terms of the huge array of quirks their implementations have to cover, and how comprehensive they are in covering their core functions.
OpenSSH is doubtless one of the most useful and stable computer programs of all time, as well.
QEMU is widely regarded as an incredible achievement, too, and it's also quite useful for lots of purposes.
WINE is pretty incredible, as are various emulators for old consoles, especially the more recent 3D ones.
The world is rich with pretty amazing free software. But I think it's absolutely fair to rank Linux and Blender near the top.
While a lot of it is still sluggish and cpu-bound, some recent additions such as all the texture nodes we have in the shader tab have massively increased the range of capabilities. Blender as a more viable (even if not the most powerful) NLE is greatly appreciated.
Oh well.