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.