BCON24

The annual state-of-Blender from Ton Roosendaal — covering new features, foundation finances, development progress, and the road ahead. Highlights for 2024 include the completion of Blender 4.x infrastructure, Extensions platform launch, and ongoing Cycles improvements.

Simon Thommes previews gizmo-based tools built with Geometry Nodes — where Geo Nodes groups can expose interactive viewport gizmos (handles, sliders, arrows) that let non-technical users interact with complex node systems without opening the node editor. This makes Geo Nodes a platform for building custom tools as approachable as built-in Blender tools.

The progress report on Project Baklava — Blender's new layered animation system (continued at BCON25 as "Slot It Like It's Hot"). Covers the new Animation data-block, how multi-object animation works, and the timeline for getting this in animators' hands. This talk received very well-received feedback and influenced how the team communicated progress in subsequent conferences.

A deep technical dive into how Cycles denoising (OptiX, OpenImageDenoise) actually works — the algorithms, the training data, why it fails in certain situations, and what future improvements look like. Lukas is the Cycles developer who built much of the denoising pipeline.

Technical talk on why Blender crashes and how the team is fixing it. The key insight: newer hardware with Vulkan (replacing OpenGL) is far more stable. Explains the migration away from OpenGL, the state of the Vulkan backend, and why updating drivers/hardware makes such a difference in Blender stability.

The new Extensions platform is a game-changer — but should everything be built into Blender itself? Nika argues for a healthy ecosystem of well-maintained extensions rather than feature bloat, explaining why not everything should be core. A thoughtful look at software design philosophy for open-source creative tools.

Andrew Price (Blender Guru — one of Blender's most influential tutorial creators with millions of YouTube subscribers) returns to BCON with concrete, researched proposals for improving Blender's user interface. Covers frustrations like the "hide collection" shortcuts, discoverability issues, and the importance of user feedback in software development. Also applies broader lessons from game development UX research.

Simon Thommes presents his work on Project Gold — Blender Studio's animated short with a distinctive procedural oil painting aesthetic. The Geometry Nodes-based brushstroke generation system creates convincing painted textures entirely in real-time 3D. The system is planned for release as a free extension. The project's avant-première screened at the BCON24 festival on Wednesday evening.

Blender Studio artists Rik and Pablico join developer Falk David to present the new capabilities in Grease Pencil 3.0 — a major architectural rewrite of the 2D animation system. Covers performance improvements, new brush tools (including Vivien's new brush painting tool), and how GP3 enables more complex animation workflows.

Jason van Gumster (author of "Blender For Dummies," frequent Blender instructor) answers the fundamental question: can you make money with Blender? Covers the various paths — freelance, studio employment, tutorial creation, asset sales, add-on development — and how to position yourself as a valuable Blender artist or developer.

How Blender is used for photorealistic product visualization in design and marketing contexts — replacing traditional product photography with render-based imagery. Covers material accuracy, lighting for product presentation, and managing client expectations in a CG-based product visualization workflow.

A portfolio-style talk that mixes impressive renders with practical rendering tips — demonstrating the full ceiling of what Cycles can achieve when pushed properly. Covers material techniques, lighting setups, and the render settings that actually matter for quality. Received high marks for balancing inspiration with actionable content.

Pipeline and shading for "Ghosts of Ruin" — a young adults anime TV series production using Blender. Covers the full production pipeline for an NPR animated series: character rigging, stylized shading with Grease Pencil and EEVEE, render pipeline, and the organizational workflow for a serialized production.

A practical guide for add-on developers on how to convert existing Blender add-ons into the new Extensions format. Covers the changes required, how to handle dependencies via the new packaging system, and how to submit to extensions.blender.org. (Note: this talk was pre-recorded because Spencer got sick before the conference.)