Blender 2.6 RC2 Released!

The Blender Foundation have released the second release candidate for Blender 2.6, with the final 2.6 release being penciled in for the 15th of October!

The release addresses various issues with the 2.59 release and includes new features such 3D Audio, Motion capture addon, Recast & Detour, Weight painting tools and Vertex group modifiers

What's changed in 2.60 RC1?

Prominent features (the cool stuff)

• 3D Audio
• Animation system
• Collada
• Game engine animation
• Motion capture addon
• Recast & Detour
• Internationalization and Localization
• Texture Face properties
• Weight painting tools
• Vertex group modifiers
• Sequencer proxy support
• Python callbacks

Sequencer

• Support for proxy building again (missing feature from Blender 2.49). Additionally to the way, Blender 2.49 worked, you can select several strips at once and make Blender build proxies in the background. - r39749
• Timecode support: to fix seeking issues with files, that have:
• Varying frame rates
• Very large GOP lengths
• Are broken inbetween
• Use different time code tracks
• The proxy builder can now also build timecode indices, which are used (optionally) for seeking. For the first time, it is possible, to do frame exact seeking on all file types. - r39749
• Support for different video-streams in one video file (can be selected in sequencer, other parts of blender can also use it, but UI has to be added accordingly) - r39749

Additions

• Change sequence operator (C key) in sequence editor, to modify the filepath or effect inputs/type on existing strips - r39323
• Clear offsets operator (Alt+O) in sequence editor, to reset the start/end frames around the strip data - r39379
• Solidify modifier with vertex group option to set the thickness of zero weighted vertices - r39385
• Muting nodes with only inputs or outputs is now supported (for example file output node) - r39437
• Lamp "Cast Buffer Shadows" option now works with GLSL in the viewport and game engine - r39683
• Applying armature object transform now transforms bone roll too - r39706
• Game engine post drawing callbacks are now done per viewport instead of per scene. This is handy for things like having a different HUD for each player in a splitscreen game. To figure out what viewport you're drawing too, check the scene's active_camera. - r39729
• Outliner right click -> rename - r39867
• Outliner implementation of Toggle visibility/rendarability/selectability on right click on Groups - r39867

Python API

• bpy.types as a module for convenient imports, for example: from bpy.types import Menu - r39324
• Object.matrix_parent_inverse, inverse of object's parent matrix at time of parenting - r39424
• Optional argument for bpy_extra.io_utils.unique_name() to specify separator string - r39406
• Improved environment map texture scripting, to make exporting easier: - r39760
• Add a "is_valid" RNA property to envmaps. True if the map is ready for use, False if it needs rendering.
• Add a "clear" RNA function to envmaps. Deletes any envmap image data.
• Add a "save" RNA function to envmaps. Writes the envmap to disc with a configurable layout. (Defaults to the current hard-coded layout.)
• Updates bpy.ops.texture.envmap_save with configurable layout support as above.
• render callback info - r39821

Game Engine

• Adding two new functions to bge.render to allow users to change the anisotropic filtering level used by textures: - 39818
• setAnisotropicFiltering(level)
• getAnisotropicFiltering()

View the full changelog with 140+ fixes HERE

You can learn more about Blender 2.6 RC2, and download it for free HERE in multiple OS flavours