The weekly developers' meeting on April 20th confirmed the release of Blender 5.1.1 on April 14th. This maintenance version fixes 71 issues detected in 5.1.0 and introduces notable improvements in asset management, color, and the Cycles engine, among other areas.
Technical Improvements: From Color Management to String Nodes 🛠️
In color management, infrastructure for wide gamut and HDR was added to the image editor and sequencer. The compositor debuts string nodes and a string to image node. Cycles now supports negative anisotropy for subsurface scattering and allows applying subpixel jitter to the camera. EEVEE ported volume shaders and support for HandleRange. Geometry Nodes updates string nodes when editing text. Grease Pencil allows deselecting linked items and exporting curves to PDF.
The Big Breakthrough: Hiding What You Don't Use So You Don't Feel Guilty 😅
The interface now hides Cycles settings when they are not in use. A relief for those who always looked at those buttons without knowing what they did, like that relative who asks about your project while you just want to finish your coffee. The sorting option in Tree View was also reversed, because sometimes the only predictable thing is chaos.