Blender 5.0 support

[BrendanParmer]

Blender 5.0 becomes Beta starting October 8, 2025

Compositor

Added

• The Displace node now have an interpolation option. (8b67050575)
• The compositing node tree is now its own data block, making it reusable across blend files. (bd61e69be5)
• The Split node now supports rotation. (8e966cceaa, 9a33108afc)
• The Alpha Over node now support the Disjoint and Conjoint Over operations. (0a152ddddf)
• The Translate, Scale, Transform, Rotate, Displace, Map UV, and Corner Pin nodes now has an Extension mode option. (ac82b70b87) (00ed2030cb) (b709984df6) (ea94c0be22) (481c524734) (53832755ae) (570f44a059)
• The Glare node now have a Sun Beams mode, which is similar to the Sun Beams node but is much easier to use and get high quality results out of the box. (148eb703e1)
• The Sun Beams mode of the Glare node now have a Jitter input, which speeds up the node execution at the expense of a more noisy/grainy output, which can also serve as a good control for a more artistic look. (b7742e6988)
• A new Convolve node was added. (fdf95b53fa)
• A new Compositor sequencer strip modifier was added. (73fcbaf7c4)
• A new Kernel option was added to the Glare now which convolves the highlights with the given kernel. (48ba7b7745)
• Menu sockets and Switch Menu node are now supported in the compositor. (a565e96f6c)
• A new Convert to Display node was added. For most workflows it is recommended to use the native color management options in the scene and file output nodes. But for some advanced use cases the conversion can be manually performed in the compositorn typically combined with a Raw view transform in the scene. (PR#145069)

Changed

• The Map UV node now support Bilinear and Bicubic interpolation. (bc7412860a)
• The Z Combine node was renamed to Depth Combine (b35971ad08)
• The Composite node was removed and replaced by a Group Output node whose first input needs to be a Color socket, and other inputs are ignored. (e34e6373b6)
• The File Output node was redesigned for a better user experience. (68dc278fe5)
• Most nodes now expose their menu options as inputs. (149a47ba57) (3b1faf7594) (e9638b4a0a)
• The Alpha Over node input names were renamed to Background and Foreground. (9a2c7f334b)
• The Size input of the Bokeh Blur node is now defined in pixels. (5462d90fa8)

Removed

• The Dot output of the normal node was removed. Use Vector Math Dot Product node instead. (9e0e76f8ab)
• The Texture node was removed. Use the various procedural texturing nodes instead. (383c8860a2)
• "Use Nodes" in the node editor was removed (d88d4cc8ce)
• The Composite node was removed. Use a Group Output node instead. (e34e6373b6)
• The scale inputs of the Displace node were removed. (92be913a2a)

Compatibility

• Many nodes were deprecated in Blender 4.5 LTS, and have been completely removed in Blender 5.0.
  • The Gamma node was removed. Instead, use corresponding shader nodes. For instance, replace CompositorNodeGamma with ShaderNodeGamma. (d803ee4c79)
  • Most node options that were deprecated in 4.5 are now removed. (498a2e5bcd)

Color Management

Other

• New Convert to Display compositor node. For most workflows it is recommended to use the native color management options in the scene and file output nodes. But for some advanced use cases the conversion can be manually performed in the compositor, typically combined with a Raw view transform in the scene. (details, PR#145069)
• New "Working Space" choice in the Convert Color Space compositor node, to convert to and from the current working space that images are in by default. (PR#146598)

Core

• Node custom properties #180
  • Not in scope for NTP v4.0

Geometry Nodes

Bundles

• Combine Bundle, Separate Bundle, and Join Bundle (8b3be68b3d)

Closures

• Closure Zone
• Evaluate Closure node

Volumes

• Store Named Grid and Get Named Grid nodes
• Mesh to SDF Grid, Points to SDF Grid, and Mesh to Density Grid nodes
• Voxelize Grid and Prune Grid nodes
• Grid to Mesh node
• Field to Grid node
• Grid Curl, Grid Divergence, Grid Laplacian, and Grid Gradient nodes
• Grid Info, Voxel Index, Sample Grid, and Sample Grid Index nodes
• Set Grid Background and Set Grid Transform nodes
• SDF Grid Boolean node
• Mean Curvature node
• SDF Grid Laplacian node
• SDF Grid Median node
• SDF Grid Mean node
• SDF Grid Offset node
• SDF Grid Fillet node
• Advect Grid node

Viewer

• The Viewer node has been updated to support viewing non-geometry data. Additionally, it supports a dynamic number of input values now. (5ffc5df4f6)
  • We'll need to add auto_remove support once #147907 is resolved

Tangents

• There is a new UV Tangent node which gives access to tangent vectors on a mesh. By default, the node outputs tangents created using the MikkTSpace library. Those tangents are compatible with other places in Blender, especially those used by render engines. (eef9a1b9ae)

Miscellaneous

• New String to Value node (ad83a1017f).
• The Pack UV Islands node now has a "Shape Method" option (aced349e3d).
• Displaying the "Manage" panel in the modifier is now optional. This allows for cleaner looking modifiers in cases where this panel is not needed. It can be toggled per modifier and the default is set on the node group (fc4fc2d16c)
• Some built-in nodes have menu input sockets now (f7f18cd0c7, 76a861ab41).
• The shader Gamma node is supported (d803ee4c79).

Python API

Nodes

• Deprecated compositor nodes were removed. (#140355)
• Deprecated combine and separate nodes were removed. (#135376)
• Point density texture node was removed. (#140292)
• sun_direction, turbidity, and ground_albedo inputs from the Sky Texture node were removed. (ab21755aaf)
• Tree interface items can be looked up by identifier. (6f2988f0af)
• world.use_nodes is deprecated and will be removed in 6.0. Currently it always returns True and setting it has no effect. (PR#142342)
• material.use_nodes is deprecated and will be removed in 6.0. Currently it always returns True and setting it has no effect. (PR#141278).
• scene.use_nodes is deprecated and will be removed in 6.0. Currently it always returns True and setting it has no effect. (PR#143578).
• scene.node_tree was removed, use scene.compositing_node_group instead (PR#143619).
• Renamed Compositing Color node output socket from "RGBA" to "Color" (fff3af04c4)
• The compositor Gamma Node CompositorNodeGamma was replaced by its Shader Node counterpart ShaderNodeGamma.

Inline Shader Nodes

• There is a new API for retrieving an inlined shader node tree to support closures, bundles and repeat zones in external render engines. Additionally, this inlines node groups and eliminates reroute and muted nodes, which simplifies export of shader nodes. (c3f49cd24e).
  • Doesn't seem like we'll need to do anything here, but something to look into and learn more about

Rendering

Shader Nodes

• Like geometry nodes, shaders now support closures and bundles. (PR#141936)
• Like geometry nodes, repeat zones can be used to execute shader nodes multiple times. (PR#141936)
• The Menu Switch node is support in shader nodes as well now (02bdc709c2). It behaves the same as in Geometry Nodes.
• New multiple scattering mode for more accurate results. (PR#140480)
• The new Radial Tiling node is a building block for creating shapes and tilings, with rounded corners. (PR#127711)
• The Point Density Texture node was removed.

User Interface

Node Editor

Drawing

• The label of node groups can be optional now, resulting in a cleaner UI in some cases (ef92735a95).

Dynamic Output Visibility

• The visibility of group outputs can depend on group inputs now. There is a new Enable Output node to control this behavior. Note that visibility is only affected if this node is controlled with a menu input, not just with a boolean input. (b186e60759, e3e7bd670a)