Blender 5.3 adds 3D Gaussian Splat support, a DLSS viewport denoiser and a new project system
Blender 5.3 is out with native 3D Gaussian Splat support, a DLSS viewport denoiser, Vulkan as the default backend on Windows and Linux, and a new project system.
Blender 5.3 is out, and its headline feature is native support for 3D Gaussian Splats. The Blender Foundation announced the release on 10 November 2026 (US time), calling it the update that wraps up 2026.
Headline feature
- 3D Gaussian Splats: import them from PLY and SPZ files as point clouds. From there you can edit and process them with Geometry Nodes, and relight and render them in Workbench, EEVEE and Cycles.
- Asset Libraries: they can now be shared as extensions, and the Extensions platform accepts libraries containing Public Domain (CC0) assets.
- Projects: a new optional project system makes Blender aware of context beyond the open .blend file, with project-wide features to match.
Performance and hardware
- On NVIDIA GPUs, a new DLSS denoiser for the viewport gives a cleaner image faster by upscaling and reusing samples from previous frames.
- Native support arrives for NVIDIA RTX Spark devices running Windows 11, including memory optimisations.
- Vulkan is now the default backend on Windows (except ARM) and Linux, with lower minimum requirements.
- Workbench can use hardware raytraced shadows on Metal and Vulkan.
Rendering
- Cycles adds dispersion and anisotropic roughness for glass and transmissive materials, so it can reproduce the rainbow effect in glass and gemstones.
- EEVEE gets Material Lighting Nodes for control over how materials react to lights, handy for non-photorealistic looks and effects like iridescence.
- EEVEE also gains panoramic cameras and the full Sky Texture sun disc.
Tools and workflow
- Geometry Nodes: new volume grid nodes are the first building blocks for custom fluid simulations, plus a low-level node for building curves with custom topology.
- Compositor: it can now use a stack of effects, like Geometry Nodes modifiers, where each effect is its own node group passing output to the next.
- Grease Pencil: Draw Mode gets selection tools and a new Carver Tool for cutting shapes with boolean subtraction. The Fill tool can fill many regions at once.
- Video Sequencer: a full ripple editing framework, a rewritten blade tool and initial OpenTimelineIO support.
- Animation and Rigging: operators to copy and paste world-space animation and convert rotation modes, plus friendlier playback.
