Blender 5.3 has been available since November 10, 2026. The free open-source program now imports Gaussian Splats, offers an optional project system, and uses Vulkan by default on Windows and Linux. In the video sequencer, cuts automatically move up in Ripple mode, so no gaps are created.
You may already know the splat import from the beta, which TutKit covered in How to bring Gaussian Splats from your phone into Blender 5.3. Here is what the final version adds and where Blender itself names limitations.
What changes with Gaussian Splats?
Gaussian Splats are point clouds made of many soft blobs of color, which can be calculated from phone recordings, for example. Blender reads PLY, SPZ, and glTF files and stores the splats as a point cloud with its own type. The cloud can be edited with Geometry Nodes and rendered in Workbench, EEVEE, and Cycles.
According to the Release Notes, Blender uses an emissive shader by default. If you swap the Emission node for a Diffuse BSDF, splats can only be lit roughly after the fact. Blender also acknowledges limitations: the developers are still working on speed. Colors may deviate because many splat tools use sRGB, while Blender calculates in linear color space. Areas with low opacity and high radiance are affected most.
Blender 5.3: finished and preliminary
Assessment according to Blender, as of November 10, 2026
Blender names no limitation
- Ripple editing in the Sequencer
- Effect stack in the Compositor
- Carver tool for Grease Pencil
- Asset libraries as an extension
According to Blender still in progress
- Speed and colors with Gaussian Splats
- Relighting only rough
- OpenTimelineIO only as an initial version
- Add-ons per project to follow later
Source: Blender Release Notes 5.3
What does the new project system offer?
A project groups related files, shares resources, and manages settings for all files, whether you work alone or in a team. The scope includes project variables, for example for character names or frequently used paths, project-specific asset libraries and color management configurations, as well as a dedicated start screen with the most recently opened projects. According to the Release Notes, you will find the feature under File → Project. The feature remains optional; add-ons per project are only to follow in later versions.
What does Vulkan as the default mean for your graphics card?
According to Blender, Vulkan is now the default backend on Windows (except ARM) and Linux, that is, the interface through which Blender controls the graphics card. The system requirements list OpenGL 4.3 and Vulkan 1.3. Supported are NVIDIA cards from the GeForce 900 series onward, AMD cards from fourth-generation GCN onward, and Intel graphics from Kaby Lake onward. On the Mac, Blender has required an Apple chip and macOS 13 since version 5.0.
For Cycles, a new denoiser based on DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is added. It sits in the Denoise section of the Sampling settings and requires NVIDIA drivers from version 620 onward.
What changes in editing and compositing?
The video sequencer gets ripple editing with the modes Ripple, Shuffle, and Overwrite. While moving, you switch with R, S, or V. Shift+X deletes a strip and closes the gap, Shift+Q and Shift+W cut at the playhead and close the gap on the respective side. OpenTimelineIO import and export exist only as an initial version.
In the "Compositor & Effects" tab of the Properties editor, you stack effects such as Bloom, Chromatic Aberration, Film Grain, and Vignette. Each effect is its own node group, whose output passes on to the next effect. Playback on the GPU is up to twice as fast, according to Blender. Grease Pencil gets the Carver tool in Draw Mode, which cuts out shapes via Boolean subtraction.
What this means for you
Before switching, check whether your graphics card supports Vulkan 1.3, and keep your driver up to date. With an NVIDIA card, you need drivers from version 620 onward for the new denoiser.
It is best to try Blender 5.3 on a copy of an ongoing project, not on a client job shortly before delivery. For splat scenes, compare the colors with your reference, because sRGB and linear color space can diverge.
If you work with series, such as characters across several scenes, a test project is worthwhile: variables for names and paths as well as shared asset libraries save manual work as soon as several files share the same settings.
Blender released version 5.3 on November 10, 2026.
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