Blender 5.3 Is Getting Native 3D Gaussian Splat Support
This is not a drill.
We've been getting more and more details about what to expect from Blender 5.3, the next major release currently in development, including native dispersion support in the Principled BSDF and several new nodes for creating custom material lighting, and this is another exciting addition.
Previously, working with 3DGS in Blender required external add-ons. Blender 5.3 will bring native support for importing and rendering 3D Gaussian Splats, commonly used to reconstruct 3D scenes from photos or video. They are made up of many small, transparent primitives to recreate the shapes and appearance of objects.
Blender 5.3 lets users import 3D Gaussian Splats from PLY and SPZ files, though export isn't supported yet. Splats can be rendered using all of Blender's render engines. For a quick look at how the feature works, watch CGMatter's video:
The release notes mention three known limitations: performance isn't ideal, and rendering isn't fully correct, as Cycles and EEVEE operate in linear space. There's also a problem with Apply Transform, which doesn't correctly handle scale, rotation, or spherical harmonics.
We recently featured a great in-depth video from Christopher 3D covering dispersion, don't miss it:
Blender 5.3 is currently in alpha and is scheduled to continue until September 30. The final release is expected on November 10.