Blog 5 - Blender 4.1, New Recording Setup, and More!
Hi yes, Hello!
What a week! There's been a tone of work going on over here at DotJS HQ. Just about everything got flipped when I realized that Blender 4.1 is coming out on Tuesday. I figured I should look into what's new and what's changing in 4.1 and OH BOY, there's a lot!
Blender 4.1
Naturally I downloaded the release candidate and started playing with the new nodes. Some of them were intuitive, but when I looked at the Bake node I thought it'd be better to do what I do best and read the docs. However, I quickly found out that the new nodes aren't in the Blender Manual yet.
This was pretty surprising to me. Any time I want to know more about any node I reference the Manual. It's never failed me before, so I was stumped. Fortunately for me (for so many reasons), Blender is not only free - it's open source! So the source code has to be somewhere on their website, and therefore, documentation on the code. And that's exactly what I found.
Unfortunately the documentation I found is far more technical than we usually see in the manual. So in addition to figuring out what they're trying to tell me about the nodes and how they work, I also have to sift through the technical jargon and details about how blender works on a low level. As an example, when I was reading over how the Bake Node works I ran into several references to the cache system for the Simulation Nodes. While this is interesting, for the layman this has little to no impact on using the Bake Node. Of course this is incredibly important information for the developers and anyone who wants to really understand how all of the underlying systems of Blender work and interact, but it overcomplicates things for the average user.
Upcoming Videos
I'm actively working on the video talking about all of the new nodes and features, and it should be available here on the Solid Supporter tier later today before I release it on YouTube this weekend.
I've also been working on fixing the Transform Geometry Node Replacements Video that I released on Monday. I was way off the mark on that one, and so I'm working on fixing my mistakes and reframing the information to be useful.
New Video Style?
These two big sudden change of plans really threw me this week. I feel like I've been scrambling to catch up instead of progressing on the goals I've already set. But through this I've realized that I'm wasting a lot of time being a bit of a perfectionist (even if it doesn't look like it i.e. my greenscreen work *facepalm*). So I'm going to start experimenting with a simpler format for some of my videos. I'll still be making fun green screened videos with extra style, but I have a lot of information I'm excited about that I want to share with you all, and I just need to get that out there!
Also, I'm thinking about making Shorts (TikToks, Reels, whatever) about things I'm excited about in Blender. When I tested a feature in 4.1 that I've wanted forever I literally yelled with joy, and I wanted to share that with you all immediately. I feel like that's the sort of thing that people like in short format anyway. Sort of like Hank Green passionately coming at you with facts. So let me know if that's something you'd like to see!
That's all for this week, thanks for reading here on Patreon and I'll see you all in the next one!
Imported from Patreon. Original Post date: Mar 15, 2024
