Hey Reader,

Before we start, we’d like to let you know that over the coming weeks we’ll be on vacation, so our support may be less responsive. We hope to recharge our batteries and come back to help you out in your learning journey with even more passion.

Now on to the regular stuff.

Today we’re starting with the release of Blender 5.2 LTS and sharing our favourite 5 new features along with our freshly updated Hotkey Sheet PDF.

Next we’ll share the full "Dance Macabre" painterly animated short, and lastly a new ‘Robots’ course from Polyfjord.

Let’s dive right in.

​Blender 5.2 LTS Released!​

The new Blender 5.2 Long Term Support (LTS) release comes with lots of new, exciting features (all of them mentioned in this video).

The new release also comes with an impressive showreel of projects made in Blender.

We also wanted to share our favourite top 5 features added in this release:

1. Sculpting has an Add Primitive tool now, just as in Object and Edit Modes, that you can access without going out of Sculpt Mode. There’s also a cool new Project brush that works a bit like the Shrinkwrap Modifier (pretty cool for clothes and wrapping objects around other objects).
2. Principled BSDF Shader has a new ‘Thin Wall’ option dedicated to thin translucent materials, such as lampshades, leaves, or sheets of paper. It not only looks more realistic but also renders faster than the previously available workarounds.
3. Grease Pencil has a new default Fill mode - called Delunay - which can detect holes and generally works more reliably than the previous ones, and it’s more intuitive and simple to use.
4. Texture Caching - a new feature that prevents your hardware’s memory limits from stopping you from rendering texture-heavy scenes.
5. Sound files can now be an input for Geometry Nodes - this opens up a whole new area of sound-driven procedural effects. Motion Graphics artists and sound designers will be delighted.

​CG Boost Hotkey Sheet updated for Blender 5.2​

We’ve updated our handy shortcut PDF to work with the new Blender 5.2 release. It’s a great companion in your Blender journey that will help you recall any shortcut you need to speed up your workflow.

It’s well organized with a clickable menu, so you can easily find the shortcut you’re looking for in a specific context, and a print-friendly version is included as well.

​Download the Hotkey Sheet PDF here​

​‘Dance Macabre’ - Full Animated Short Available​

Content Warning: The story and imagery may be shocking, as it relates to war and violence.

We’ve shared a trailer for ‘Dance Macabre’ before, but now it’s available to watch online in full length.

The painterly shots are masterfully crafted using a hybrid of hand painting and digital techniques. The contrast of this beauty with the grim and violent story of destruction and senseless violence of war makes it a powerful art statement for peace.

We sure feel it’s better to make art, not war, after watching this.

​Learn to Make Robots with Polyfjord’s New Course​

Polyfjord has just released a new exciting course; this time it’s all about making 3D robots.

Polyfjord approaches robot creation in a very unique and efficient way, starting from the rig and the mechanics of the robot, and building the mesh afterwards (already bound to the armature).

This means you’ll get a good understanding of rigging and animating 3D robots. The course also includes lessons focused on lighting and rendering as well as an add-on that greatly speeds up the modeling process.

Polyfjord prepared a special treat for you as a CG Boost newsletter subscriber. You can get a 15% discount with the coupon code below.

15% Coupon Code: cgboost2026

(Valid until Sunday 23:59 CDT)

​Get Polyfjord’s Robots Course here (affiliate link)

You can learn more about what’s inside from this video.

That’s all from us today. Have a great weekend, and till next time.

Jarosław & Zach (the CG Boost Newsletter Team)