Download
Here you can download the latest Bforartists version as well as earlier versions.
Downloads Bforartists 4
Source Code Download
Developer Build
System Requirements
Older Versions
Bforartists 4
Bforartists 4 - Version 4.0.1
This release is based on the Blender main trunk with Blender 4.1.0 Alpha and Blender 4.0.1.
Released on 18.11.2023
Note: Backwards compatibility may be limited with versions of Blender/Bforartists 3.6.0 or earlier.
For addon compatibility, most continue working with every version update – but if they don’t, try use an earlier version of Bforartists. Also, kindly let your addon developer know that they are recommended to have a development version prepared and ready for developer builds of Blender to future-proof their addons – they will eventually need to update anyways. For backwards compatibility, you can find the older versions of Bforartists on Github. github.com/Bforartists/Bforartists/releases
Windows
Note: You need a version of Windows 64 Bit for Bforartists. There no-longer is support for 32 bit versions anymore.
Note: The installer is not digitally signed currently, since this would cost a lot of money. Windows may notice that this is a potentially dangerous software, and gives a warning on install. The installer is of course not dangerous. We do not provide a commercial digital signature. You can alternatively use the zipfile version when you don’t trust the installer. The contents are the same.
Linux
Note: the linux versions are built with Debian 12. This means that especially the Appimage just runs at Linux Distributions that has the same or higher GlibC version than Debian 12, which is glibc 2.35.
Note: The Flatpak build is not officially maintained by Bforartists, and is mostly automated.
Mac OS X
Note that the silicon version is experimental. Please report any issues.
Note: The default Bforartists keymap is not mapped to the oskey keys, but ctrl instead. It works fine for Linux and Windows but not with a Mac. You need to switch to the Bforartists-macOS keymap. It is mapped to the oskey keys.
Please have a look at our quickstart video tutorials. They are made with Bforartists 2, but are still valid: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZlqqMAGgMs&list=PLB0iqEbIPQTZArhZspyYSJOS_00jURpUB
When you come from Blender and want to migrate your settings and addons, then you might find this article useful: www.bforartists.de/migrate-settings-and-addons-from-blender/
Source Code download
The actual source code can be found on the Github project site:
github.com/Bforartists/Bforartists
For previous and official releases have a look in the releases tab:
github.com/Bforartists/Bforartists/releases
In case that you want to compile Bforartists by yourself, the advice is the same as for Blender. Here’s a short tutorial that shows the whole process under Linux Ubuntu 17 www.bforartists.de/data/tuts/Building_with_Ubuntu17.pdf
And here a youtube video that shows how to compile Bforartists 2 on Ubuntu 20:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUhM2YSw1gQ
Here’s the Blender advice for Linux, which goes a bit more into detail:
wiki.blender.org/wiki/Building_Blender/Linux
Here’s the advice for Mac:
wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Doc/Building_Blender/Mac
For Windows have a look here:
www.bforartists.de/data/tuts/Building_Bforartists_with_Cmake_and…
You might want to compile an older Bforartists version where the newest precompiled libs do not work. Here you can find the precompiled libs for all previous Blender versions:
svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/tags/
Developer Build
The Developer Build is an actual development snapshot. It is only available as a zip file, and it is undocumented, besides the entries at Github and the issues marked as solved in the tracker. It is meant for users that are not able to compile the source code, but wants to have a look at what the current state of development is. Or to overcome some bugs in the official release.
Note that the developer build is always one week behind. We merge the new Blender features after we create the developer build. This gives us a week to fix the issues that may arrive with the merge …
The current development build is based on Blender 4.1 Alpha !
Windows: www.bforartists.de/data/dev/devbuild-24-11-2023.zip – 379 Mb
Debian Linux: www.bforartists.de/data/dev/debiandevbuild-24-11-2023.tar.xz – 359 Mb
Note that the Debian Linux version is compiled with version 12. Another note is that Blender 4 now requires minimum OpenGL 4.3.
Note:
Use the developer builds at your own risk. It is a development snapshot, not a release version. The dev build is compiled from the master, and should work. But there may be broken or missing features. Please report them when you find something.
Don’t expect daily builds. We do our best to update the dev build once in a week. But it can happen that even this isn’t possible.
Note that there is no version hint in the developer build. It shows the splashscreen and version number from the last official release when you start it. The folder name shows the creation date. The newer, the more up to date.
System Requirements
Bforartists has the same system rquirements as Blender. So you can also have a look at the Blender page.
Minimum
64-bit quad core CPU with SSE2 support
8 GB RAM
Full HD display
Mouse, trackpad or pen+tablet
Graphics card with 2 GB RAM, OpenGL 4.3
Less than 10 year old
Recommended
64-bit eight core CPU
32 GB RAM
2560×1440 display
Three button mouse or pen+tablet
Graphics card with 8 GB RAM
Higher is of course even better. And please keep your drivers up to date.
Supported graphics cards:
GeForce 400 and newer, Quadro Tesla GPU architecture and newer, including RTX-based cards, with NVIDIA drivers
GCN 1st gen and newer. Since Blender 2.91, Terascale 2 architecture is fully deprecated, try using 2.90
Intel: Haswell architecture and newer.
Apple Silicon: macOS version 11.0 or newer
Intel: macOS version 10.15 or newer
Windows: with the release of Bforartist 2.7.0 the minimum requirements raised from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1
Older Versions
Here you can find the previous versions of Bforartists that are not longer supported. The main versions are linked here. Binary versions of older point upgrades can be found at Githhub in the posts of the single releases. Just expand the assets tab at every release. github.com/Bforartists/Bforartists/releases
Bforartists 3
Bforartists 3 - Version 3.6.2
Bforartists 3 Version 4.6.2 is based on the Blender main trunk with Blender 4.0.0.
Released on 28.08.2023
Windows
Note: You need a version of Windows 64 Bit for Bforartists. There no-longer is support for 32 bit versions anymore.
Note: The installer is not digitally signed currently, since this would cost a lot of money. Windows may notice that this is a potentially dangerous software, and gives a warning on install. The installer is of course not dangerous. We do not provide a commercial digital signature. You can alternatively use the zipfile version when you don’t trust the installer. The contents are the same.
Linux
Note: the *.deb and *.tar are built with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. This may cause problems with glibc on some distributions. This unfortunately also affects the Appimage version since using Ubuntu 22 will raise the minimum requirements for the Appimage. It will not run on older linux versions like Ubuntu 20 or the current Debian. Just equal or newer ones.
Note: The Flatpak build is not officially maintained by Bforartists, and is mostly automated.
Mac OS X
Note: Current release is 3.6.1. Next release 3.6.2 coming soon.
Note: The default Bforartists keymap is not mapped to the oskey keys, but ctrl instead. It works fine for Linux and Windows but not with a Mac. You need to switch to the Bforartists-macOS keymap. It is mapped to the oskey keys.
Bforartists 2
Bforartists 2 version 2.9.3
Bforartists 2 version 2.9.3 is based at Blender 2.93
Manual Bforartists 2: Bforartists_2_Manual .pdf – 107 Mb, 3362 pages
To save it, right click the link, and choose save target as …
Windows
Note that you need a Windows 64 Bit version for Bforartists 2. We don’t offer a 32 bit version any more!
Note also that the installer is currently not digitally signed since this would cost a lot of money. And so Windows complains about potentially dangerous software, and gives a warning on install. The installer is of course not dangerous. It just has no commercial digital signature. You can always use the zipfile version when you don’t trust the installer. It’s the same content.
Linux
There is also an AUR version of Bforartists for Arch available here:
aur.archlinux.org/packages/bforartists/
And the GIT version.
aur.archlinux.org/packages/bforartists-git/
Mac OS X
Note that the default Bforartists keymap is not mapped to the oskey keys, but ctrl instead. It works fine for Linux and Windows. But not with a Mac. You need to switch to the Bforartists-macOS keymap. It is mapped to the oskey keys.
Bforartists version 1
Bforartists 1 is based at Blender 2.79 b.
Manual Bforartists 1: Bforartists_100_Manual .pdf – 105 Mb, 2698 pages
To save it, right click the link, and choose save target as …
Windows
Note that the installers are currently not digitally signed since this would cost a lot of money. And so Windows complains about potentially dangerous software, and gives a warning on install. The installer is of course not dangerous. It just has no commercial digital signature. You can always use the zipfile versions below when you don’t trust the installer. It’s the same content.
Linux
We had unfortunately no maintainer for a Linux version at the time of Bforartists 1. There is just an older version 0.9.5 available!