Blender 5.0: HDR ACES Overhaul, Faster Rendering, and a Revamped Sequencer

Blender 5.0 delivers a full HDR and wide-gamut color pipeline with ACES workflows, per-file working spaces, and improved OCIO integration. Cycles and EEVEE see major performance and quality gains, while the Sequencer is overhauled with Properties integration, scene switching, playback controls, and a Compositor modifier. Modeling, UVs, compositor, Grease Pencil, Geometry Nodes, VR, I O, and core systems receive broad enhancements aligned with the VFX Reference Platform 2025.

Key Points

End-to-end HDR and wide-gamut color management with ACES views, Rec.2100 displays, and per-file working spaces like Linear Rec.2020 and ACEScg.
Major Sequencer overhaul: properties in the Properties Editor, scene switching with time sync, slip clamping, playback controls region, and a new Compositor strip modifier.
Rendering leap: Cycles gains unbiased volume rendering, multi-bounce SSS, thin-film on metals, and non-experimental adaptive subdivision; EEVEE compiles materials far faster and improves viewport shading.
Workflow and modeling upgrades: GN-powered Array and new GN modifiers, UV Sync redesign, Sky Texture multiple scattering, Radial Tiling, Repeat Zones in shader nodes, and better multires baking.
Production readiness and I O: aligned with VFX Reference Platform 2025, strengthened OCIO ACES interop, faster FBX importer by default, modernized OpenEXR and HDR video, plus broad UI, animation, rigging, VR, and API improvements.

Sentiment

The overall sentiment regarding Blender 5.0 is highly positive and enthusiastic, with users celebrating Blender's long-term progress and specific new features like HDR support and node improvements. However, the discussion prominently features tangential, but deeply felt, sentiments of frustration and yearning for a robust open-source CAD alternative. There's also a generally skeptical but nuanced perspective on the transformative power of AI in fully replacing 3D artists and tools, emphasizing current limitations and the assistive role AI will likely play. Hacker News unequivocally agrees that Blender 5.0 is an impressive and significant release.

In Agreement

Blender's continuous progress over decades is exciting and amazing, with users noting its transformation since earlier versions.
The addition of proper HDR support, ACES color management, and new node improvements in Blender 5.0 are highly praised and considered very beneficial.
Blender offers immense tooling variety and flexibility, even as a mesh editor, and its Geometry Nodes are seen as a promising path to address 'parametric' concerns for CAD-like workflows.
AI currently serves as a useful assistant for specific tasks in creative workflows, such as upscaling footage, interpolating video frames, or generating generic looping clips, without compromising quality for artistic purposes.

Opposed

There is a significant and expressed frustration over the lack of a first-class, open-source 3D CAD kernel and tooling, with existing options like FreeCAD being criticized for being unintuitive, prone to errors, and having dealbreaker issues in its underlying Open Cascade kernel (e.g., fillets, seams, boolean operations failing).
Developing a competitive geometric modeling kernel for CAD is considered an immense, decades-long undertaking requiring sustained investment (like commercial Parasolid), making it unlikely to be achieved by pro-bono open-source efforts and perhaps only possible through government or large scientific organizations.
Blender's mesh-based approach is generally not well-suited for precise, functional CAD applications where parts need to fit real-world specifications accurately, despite some users adopting it for 3D printing.
The claim that AI will make 3D tools pointless in 10 years for CGI is largely dismissed; experts argue AI struggles with crucial aspects like continuity across shots, and 3D art's complexity, subjectivity, and less accessible high-quality training data limit AI's generative capabilities.
AI is more likely to integrate as an assistive tool or plugin within existing 3D software rather than completely replacing them, akin to how AI coding agents augment IDEs without making them obsolete.
The Blender website using a Cloudflare Captcha box on a major release day was a minor point of user frustration.