All in one, Free and Open Source 3D creation

What is Bforartists?

You can join our Discord server here: discord.com/invite/yKuR77v

Bforartists is a complete, free and opensource 3D suite to create CG content. It offers you the full 3D art pipeline to create game graphics, pre-rendered movies and stills. From modeling, sculpting, texturing, rigging, animation, rendering, up to post processing. 

Bforartists stands for “Be For Artists”. A reminder to develop for the user, not the programmer!

Bforartists is a fork of the popular open source 3D software Blender. Developed by some 3D enthusiasts to make Blender even better.

The primary goal of the Bforartists fork is to deliver a refined graphical UI and a better usability to Blender. This means a complete switch in the usage philosophy away from the hotkey centered UX towards a user friendly, discoverable and intuitive graphical UI.

Bforartists is fully compatible with the Blender files and addons. Every feature that works in Blender should also work in Bforartists. Also, every release is always up to date with the newest Blender version. The toolset is the same. Where we differ the most is the GUI and the handling of UX.

Try it out for free. You can switch from Blender to Bforartists to Blender without problems. You won’t lose anything 🙂

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Why use Bforartists, and not Blender?

Because the work on Bforartists GUI is streamlined, cleaner, organized, customizable, has consistent colored iconography, left aligned text, and many more details that make day to day work easier. Bforartists  also is 100% compatible with Blender. The files are transferable.

Give it a whirl and see! You’ve got nothing to loose.

For a deeper description of the differences have a look at our comparison page: The differences to Blender

In short, the main differences between Bforartists and Blender are:

  • An new default keymap, reduced to a minimal and necessary hotkey layout with 3D navigation that can be exclusively done by mouse.
  • Cleaned up User Interface. Lots of unnecessary double, triple or even more identical menu entries are combined, removed and/or exposed.
  • Extended User Interface. Many tools that were formerly hotkey only have a menu entry now.
  • Rearranged User Interface. Some things are better accessible now, some less frequent operators are no-longer in the way anymore.
  • Improved default settings.
  • Colored Iconography with silhuette, color coding, form and detail consistently placed everywhere.
  • A configurable toolbar with icon buttons.
  • A pinnable tool shelf with the header based tools, exposed at a top-level in panels.
  • Tabs in the toolshelf.
  • A node add toolshelf for quick point and click
  • Improved default workspace layouts.
  • Left aligned checkboxes and text where possible.
  • Indented titles for properties.
  • Better and more tooltips.
  • Better contrast on a readable standard theme.
  • Some extra add-ons to improve usability, like the reset 3D View add-on, Brush Panels or the Set Dimensions add-on with which you can scale in world coordinates in edit mode.
  • And lots of extra small details: like not so many delete confirm dialogs, quick editor toggles, scene management in the outliner, and more.

A detailed list of the changes can be found in the release notes: www.bforartists.de/wiki/release-notes

But the code is just half of the show. Another important bit are the non code things.

  • The target audience for Bforartists are hobbyists and indie developers coming in from other software. Blender tries to target Blender professionals. That’s a completely different audience and development target.
  • We also have an extended GUI reference manual. The Blender manual is unsearchable in big parts, has an odd structure mixing user experience with GUI, and still relies heavily on the Blender keymap to name a few flaws. This makes it nearly unusable as a reference for users. And that’s why we have rewritten it. With the tools, editors and operators in mind, not only the hotkeys. We also removed UX tips and tricks to keep it minimal and GUI orientated.

What our Users says:

”Just want to share some feedback on this version of Blender. So awesome. I finally feel ungimped. Whoever people who made this, you are truly magnificent people. I finally started using it today, and felt let I was using stuff I already knew from Unity and Unreal. It’s a massive relief on the brain not to have to keep translating from one system to the next. I know these software seem like a dime a dozen, but this one serves a very great purpose for people who have accustomed to certain patterns and then having extreme difficulty transferring momentarily to another. You are the greatest.” – Ronin

”superior version of blender” – Keiko Furukawa

”Great work with much enthusiasm!” – Tihomir Dovramadjiev Phd

”la interface es mucho mejor para animar gracias por eso” – Hardy Iglesias Garcia (the interface is much better to animate in, thanks for that)

”If Blender setups give you nightmares, try this.” – George Perkins

”Better than blender. Easy to learn and user friendly” – Emīls Geršinskis-Ješinskis

”5 stars” – Josh Morris

”Great! Keep up the good work!” – Runar Nyegaarden

THANK YOU! I had no idea this existed till yesterday. It’s EXACTLY what I wished for…Blender functionality without the frustratingly convoluted interface. I have stuff to do! I have no problem understanding how the tools work, but Blender gets in my way, and it pisses me off! Geeks step aside…it’s the artists turn to take the controls. Bforartists. Thanks 🙏🍷🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩” – Youtube comment

I’ve been using BforArtists a few months now and absolutely love it. Excellent, excellent job guys!” – Youtube comment

This deserves far more attention than it is getting” – Youtube comment