It’s that time of year again! While there’s too many talks for even me to watch all the way through, let me share what I think my top 10 (in no particular order):

Ton highlights many of the latest features and things Blender users can look forward to. He is a great speaker; never miss it.

Jason prepped me before my presentation in April and did a great job with this presentation (also, great example of stage presence and pacing). For anyone that wonders, “Can I make money with Blender?” Or even, “How can I be a valuable artist/developer/employee?” This presentation answers these fundamental questions.

I don’t usually pay attention to “here’s my portfolio” presentations (sweats as I’m reminded of my own BCON LA presentation), but this has a good mix of humor and valuable rendering tips.

My nerdy coder self loves talks like this (regardless of how well I end up understanding it). If you are the same, great dev talk and how much effort goes into denoising.

Gizmo-based geometry nodes will make Blender tools more visual and intuitive. In my opinion, it will also lessen the need of many add-ons (in a good way). If creating tools like that interests you, look no further than this talk from the amazingly talented Simon.

Nika initially volunteered to help with my workshop. But I hadn’t realized he was giving his own presentation! He shares an overview of why extensions in Blender are such a game changer, and counter-argues why not everything should be built-in to Blender.

From the Blender Guru himself, he is back again with suggestions on improving the UI. Many good points that I relate with (I too disable the hide collection shortcuts) and sharing the importance of feedback when it comes to software development (and even game development).

Way more technical than what most people listen to, but in short: the latest hardware is best for the latest Blender version. It makes a world of difference in your stability. And thank goodness they’re converting from OpenGL to Vulkan (which will allow graphics stability in the long run).

I told you Simon was talented. Well, he played a big part in creating a tool to generate brushstrokes for the Project Gold film (which unfortunately got severely abridged due to time constraints). But the plan is for it to be released as a free extension. I had experimented with brushstroke stuff like this, but the results here a far more sophisticated!

Yes, I spoke at this conference! Just not in person. I unfortunately got sick last minute (mostly recovered now), so I recorded my presentation from home for anyone to watch. If you are an add-on developer and want to know how to convert your add-ons into extensions, give this a watch!

That’s it! Feel free to watch all these talks and more on their official YouTube playlist.