The new version of the tool will be introduced with Blender 4.0 this November.
The Blender Foundation announced Grease Pencil 3.0, a massive upcoming update to the software's renowned tool that allows you to draw in a 3D space.
Planned to be a complete overhaul of the entire system, the new version of Grease Pencil is set to improve performance and memory usage with large amounts of data, enhance the tool's architecture and API, and "open the door for new features and tools", aiming to lay a foundation for the next decade. According to the team, GP 3.0 is based on the same back-end as the new hair curves, designed with multi-threading in mind and allowing the support of Geometry Nodes.
Grease Pencil 3.0 features:
- Layer Groups: The ability to group layers is part of the redesign of the new data-structure Layer Groups allow the user to easily group multiple layers, collapse them in the tree, control visibility, editability, onion skinning, and more.
- Reworked Timeline: The new data-structure allows for features like frames having a start and an end as well as instancing a drawing (even on different layers). Instanced drawings share the drawings data (e.g. changing one will change the other). Grease Pencil layers now render the keyframes as boxes to indicate the amount of time the drawing is held for. Instanced keyframes are shown in a darker shade.
- Python API changes
The new version of Grease Pencil is set to be introduced with Blender 4.0 this November. You can learn more by clicking this link.
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