Hey, friends. I’ve got a question for the community. How do you handle upgrading from one Blender version to another? Specifically, in terms of add-ons, settings, and project compatibility. Have you encountered any issues with older projects in newer versions? How soon do you usually switch to the latest release? I’m currently on 4.2.4—would it be worth upgrading to 4.3? Thanks!
In short, nah, I don't bother much with updating. We have the updates in mind like that because of phones and videogames consoles. But when it comes to computer graphics and Blender, there's no such hurry. Core stuff barely change, what changes are names and UI stuff most of the time, putting something here instead of there, removing this, adding that. Old tutorials are as beneficial to watch as like the day they came out. There's a thread with a good read we always point to, linking up:
https://cgcookie.com/community/18260-learning-through-different-versions-of-blender
I mostly use the latest Versions (I use 4.4 mostly and if something doesn't work I try it in 4.3), but not because 'they are better', just trying to keep up with what changes.
I rarely Delete Versions (only Subversions) and at the moment I have about 17 different Versions lying around, so it's not so much updating for me, as adding a new Version each time.
It is, like Omar said, not a big deal whether you update or not.
In my experience, it is usually not a problem to open files, made in an earlier Version, with a more recent Blender. You can also, just to be sure, add the Version number to the name of your .blend files, so you'll always know which Version definitely works for each file.
Another option is to only update with the new lts versions ( https://www.blender.org/download/lts/), since these are stable for. two years. Personally I can't have 17 versions of blender lying around, wish I could. It is a great idea to add the version to the. file name.
While working on a project you will want to do version locking. Meaning do not change versions while you are in the middle of a project. For long term projects like an animation you will want to use an LTS version since it gets updated but there shouldn't be any breaking changes. I'm a hobbyist, but I do help people with their projects. This mean I have multiple versions blender depending on which team I'm working with. So I have 2 scripting folders. One for before 4.0 and one for 4.x. The folders are cryptically called Scripts and Scripts4.0. Under those folder is a folder called addons.(for Mac and Linux user it needs to be lowercase). Then I install all addons/extensions that are used for the multiple versions into the addons folders. There was a large change in 4.0 and 4.1 that's why I have 4.0+ separated. Then to tell Blender where these addons are go to preferences->File Paths->Script Directories(In newer versions that allow multiple script directories) and just script field in older version that can only have 1. You just point this to your script folder. Don't include the addon subdirectory. That is the folder that Blender will be looking for. For 4.2+ you can also create an extensions folder and then in preferences->extensions->Click on repository and then you can add your own extension repository by clicking the plus sign. Then point it to your extensions folder. There is no need for a subfolder since all extensions have to be in a folder now.
As for updating, it is recommended that you update between LTS. LTS versions have forward compatibility as part of their updates. There are some things that just have to be redone. For example fluid sims from 2.80 or 2.81 going to 2.82, because 2.82 introduced Mantaflow. So if you have a project from 2.80 and you want to use it in 4.4 the Blender foundation recommends you would first open in 2.83 and save. Redo anything broken. Then repeat for 2.93, 3.3, 3.6, 4.2, and finally 4.4. Most of the time you can just append the scene straight into 4.4 if it's only materials and meshes/curves/etc. There are some cases where you will need to do 3.6 before going to 4.x, because they changed the format used for meshes for higher poly count and better optimization. That is why sometimes you have to save files as 3.6 for sites like sketchfab.
ttanya53 I just counted mine. I have 22. One of them is the new NPR branch which I'm excited for it to get merged into the main branch. I keep 2.76 for some of my older projects from when I was stuck windows XP. One day I will convert their materials to so I can use them in newer versions. I switched to Linux so I could use newer version of Blender. Now that I'm looking at all these I think I'll start removing some of them.