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What is Bforartists?

Bforartists is a complete, free and open source 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. This means a complete switch in the usage philosophy away from the hotkey centered usage towards a user friendly 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.

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 choose Bforartists, and not Blender?

Because our UI  is streamlined, cleaner, better organized, has colored icons, left aligned text, and much more of all those things that makes a good UI and the life easier. Bforartists is fully compatible with Blender. You can use both asides to make yourself a picture. The files are transferable. So try it, you loose nothing.

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 own keymap, which is reduced to just the necessary hotkeys and a navigation that can be purely done by mouse.
  • Cleaned up User Interface. Lots of unnecessary double, triple or even more identical menu entries removed.
  • 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 are not so much in the way anymore.
  • Improved defaults.
  • Colored and as double as much icons than Blender.
  • A configurable toolbar with icon buttons.
  • A tool shelf with the old tools too, in tabs.
  • Tabs in the toolshelf.
  • Improved layouts.
  • Left aligned checkboxes and text where possible.
  • Better tooltips.
  • Better readable standard theme.
  • Some neat add-ons to improve usability, like the reset 3D View add-on or the Set Dimensions add-on with which you can scale in world coordinates in edit mode.
  • And lots more small details like not so much confirm dialogs.

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. Blender tries to target professionals. That’s a completely different audience and development target.
  • We have a better manual. The Blender manual is unsearchable in big parts, has an odd structure, and still relies heavily on the Blender keymap to name just a few flaws. This makes it nearly unusable for users. And that’s why we have rewritten it. With the tools in mind, not the hotkeys. Without odd opinions like Angle based is better than LSCM to unwrap. Without general CG Tutorials for a tool, and forgetting to describe how the tool really works and what it does. And a structure that follows the editors and the menus.

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