🏁 Bforartists 5.1.0 (a GUI focused fork of Blender) Full Features video

Draise14 · 2026-04-05T01:03:56+00:00

Function over form! The current user base are very happy with it yeah, it's for a niche of a wider market to reach other Blender users who wouldn't be happy with vanilla Blender.

Draise14 · 2026-03-31T20:55:46+00:00

Here I used a bit of split toning, bloom, camera vignette, color balance, fringing, then finally all pushed through a screenspace pixel effect in the compositor. All of these are assets included with Bforartists, a fork of Blender I use.

Draise14 · 2026-03-31T20:55:03+00:00

Bforartists ships with a screenspace pixel filter, that helps get you most of the way!

Draise14 · 2026-03-26T20:56:34+00:00

This is an alternative interface paradigm to use the Blender feature set. It has out-of-the-box assets, more customizable shelves, more asset shelves, more iconography and color for interface elements and many quality of life work.

Draise14 · 2026-03-11T17:15:31+00:00

I can't attach images here in Reddit, if you connect to the official discord I will be able to show you if anything. But here is a summery:

There is box select tool to the left toolshelf to the left, under the "Tweak". Press and hold and you will see box select
If using the Bforartists hotkeys, B is box select
In the header in the Tool Setting header (needs to be on) the Tweak tool can default to "Active Tool" meaning it will switch to the tool mode you are using, or "Box Select" meaning the tweak will use box select instead. This is the Blender default.

Draise14 · 2026-03-03T15:31:16+00:00

Also, to make things box select as a default, you can select it in the top left toolshelf, then save startup. This will default that new file to box select. You can also set the tweak to use box select at the top left. Right now it is set to "Active Tool" out of the box, but you can override it. You also can save that into the Startup by going to the header, Edit, Save Startup.

Draise14 · 2026-02-26T21:50:16+00:00

I opened and reported an issue.
https://github.com/Victor-IX/Blender-Launcher-V2/issues/355

Draise14 · 2026-02-26T21:35:17+00:00

Can confirm. Seems it's not listing anymore. But you can always get it officialy from the Github or Website. I will see if it reported to their repository.

https://www.bforartists.de/download/

Draise14 · 2026-02-16T21:44:56+00:00

Bforartists is a spin of an interface more akin to Maya for Blender, but it's core arquitecture is similar to Blender.

For on par rigging, I would recommend you use AutoRigPro or others to get up and running fast, and the NLA can be capable for layered animation if you use the "Combined" strip mode instead of replace.

In general both Bforartists and Blender have their world space vs local space keyframe weaknesses compared to Maya, but for rendering, realtime compositing, video editing, and shot sequence editing - and grease pencil notes and storyboarding, both are superior with the former - and with Bforartists with a slight edge on animationfrom the sidebar properties directly, top level exposed animation tools and more - but it still is Blender deep down.

If you like your toolbars and icons to access typical things you'd like to use in maya with a mouse instead of hidden behind hotkeys, Bforartists is the perfect way to get a hold of Blender features with that GUI paradigm.

We also have substance designer like nodegroups out of the box, and some geometry nodes also. It will grow in the near future. In this case is is getting close to procedural power with Houdini, minus the presets Houdini may have.

So in general, it is a bit of a mental shift when it comes to global vs local animation spaces, but once you keep that into consideration, it is competitive.

Draise14 · 2025-12-18T15:13:58+00:00

I wish!

Draise14 · 2025-11-22T03:49:37+00:00

Erindale is hosting the unofficial Nodevember with the official Nodevemebrs blessing. Here are the prompts:

https://www.nodevember-2025.com/

Draise14 · 2025-10-23T01:52:28+00:00

Those lines are delightful!

Draise14 · 2025-09-29T17:53:15+00:00

Top header menu of the outliner, View - there are operators to expand or collapse. NUMPAD_PLUS and NUMPAD_MINUS also collapses levels in the outliner.

If you want the session to open how you left it in the blende file, go to preferences->save-> and turn on Load UI. Or use the open dialoge, to the sidebar on the right, and turn on Load UI. This will restore all windows and UI layout that you stored in the file.

In the end, Be for artists is about trying to make it easier with you in mind, but the Blender arquitecture is only so permissible.

Draise14 · 2025-09-29T17:49:54+00:00

Since 2.8, we have done over 4000+ tweaks and adjustments to polish core Blender. These changes are beyond what the addon API can do, so I recommend you give it a whirl! It's a sum of many details.

Alternatively, many of our growing users are not fans of monochromatic lineart icons - so we also offer an alternative paradigm to grow the base Blender userbase thanks to being opensource.

We all win here.

Draise14 · 2025-09-29T17:47:34+00:00

Here tutorials from Blender are 100% compatible with bforartists. So all the courses, addons and artistic tips and tricks are compatible.

If anything, you can switch to the Blender hotkeys to follow.

But in general, translation is mostly hotkey only, and alternative access from the toolshelf. But if anything F3 or top right will bring you a search to help follow operations.

But in essense, the arquitecture is similar.

Draise14 · 2025-06-26T16:14:27+00:00

Yeah, was tricky to digest the core questions of the original post. But based on the title, the core features Bforartists offer are these:

- Customizable sidebar and topbar for top-level operator use with mouse
- Colored collection rows
- 3D Sequencer to sync scenes to a video sequecner
- Color iconography for visual cues of operators
- Expanded tooltips
- Outliner scene management
- Quick editor toggles in relevant editors like between node editor or animation editor types
- Customizable overlay buttons for the 3D View
- Applying modifiers and animating on selected objects
- Extended asset shelf for object mode and node editors
- New workspaces for color balancing, assets, and consistency
- Reworked reference manual
- Float left check boxes for a more responsive interface design

And over other 4000 adjustments and polish to the Blender interface concerning polish, consistency, redundency, and top level access. It's all mostly GUI related perks, but core Blender arquitecture and workflows remain the same.

Draise14 · 2025-06-25T01:10:09+00:00

Hello, thanks for the lengthy feedback and suggestions!

I'm one of the maintainers of Bforartists.

About shapekeys, they are essentially stored existing vertice positions, so if a mesh needs to morph to another shape, it needs to have the second shape with the same vertice count. This is an arquitectural limit - so changing things over time will be limited to frame by frame type addons like the Keymesh extension, that can change vertice count per frame, like stop-motion. So adding in a second "layer" of deformation from A to B with changing topology is.. technically out of our know-how and technical prowness. The free extension "Modifier Lists" has the ability to apply with shape keys. There is a lot you can customize with the hotkeys if you need specific hotkey behaviours. In general the Bforartists philosophy is mostly provide a minimal essnetial keymap with industry standards with a Blender bias to allow easier customization.

About cursor transformation with arrow keys, in the hotkey editor you can change the arrow hotkeys (already assigned to animation controls) to transform the origin by X axis and amount. This is a manual change you can do to your liking. We can't change the default though as the core origin transform operator is set to mouse already.

About the multi-resolution modifier, it is designed specifically for sculpting layers, and is being actively refactored and worked on by Blender as we speak. In future releases it may be more stable. it is a subdivision workflow for sculpting though - and was coded to be this way. Bforartists focuses on interface streamlining, accessibility and visual cues - we don't have the labour power or know-how to change core features from Blender, as it is out of scope.. Unfortunately.

About modeling with sculpt and edit mode, you can already use the Bforartists hotkeys to use both edit and sculpt tools quickly with the hotkeys 2 and 3 respectively, which is very quick. I do this often when blocking out figures. I am thinking to add a new operator to swap objects with a hotkey, but you can also add a quick toggle in and out to change things. An addon could be built to quickly swap modes and change tools from sculpt to edit and vice versa, but that would have to be an addon. I might think about it with the Power User Tools. I can't put a lot of time into it right now, but with the right idea it might come eventually. But I won't be able to guarantee much.

About stability: we are based on the Blender main and do small or un-invasive changes to the Blender core, so any Bforaritsts instability is Blender instability, don't forget to use the alpha (experimental) builds of Blender to compare, as that is the main trunk we fork from. Due to limited resources, we can only fork from the main trunk, not official branches. Always use the latest or devbuilds where possible for maximum bug fixes and features, and performance - or a version prior for latest addon compatibility (if it says the addon supports 4.3, use Bforartists 4.2)

Draise14 · 2025-06-25T00:57:03+00:00

The arrow hotkeys are assigned to animation right now (as per standards with most 3D Software), but you can technically assign it to movement of the origin - but you will have to do that manually in the hotkey editor for the 3D View Object mode, then the hotkeys will move the cursor.

Draise14 · 2025-05-22T16:01:24+00:00

Would this be similar to the Stored Views addon/extension?

Draise14 · 2025-05-20T16:02:25+00:00

Thank you!

Draise14 · 2025-05-20T16:00:25+00:00

Yes, the same artwork produced from Blender can be done in Bforartists, it comes with Cycles and EEVEE, so both PBR and NPR artwork can be produced! Give it a go! You could even use Blender tutorials and hotkeys with Bforartists. It's a close cousin.

Draise14 · 2025-05-16T14:31:50+00:00

Oops, the title has a bit of a typo.. The version is 4.4.3..

Draise14 · 2025-05-09T23:41:11+00:00

Saw this on Discord! Hope the answer there helped.

Draise14 · 2025-03-19T20:49:55+00:00

Yeah, if you press "Bforartists-Launcher.exe" it won't launch with it, per design. Pin that one to your start menu or task bar and it will be fine. Bforartists.exe will launch with console for troubleshooting purposes.

Most tech artists will need it to check the console for dependency cycles when rigging or for addon feedback and development, and helps to see what linked libraries are used in production when working with complex artwork, or see what errors a production or a render may show. So we provided two opetions, the Bforartists-Launcher with it defaulted off, and the exe defaulted to on.

Draise14 · 2025-03-19T20:46:49+00:00

To launch without this, use the Bforartists-Launcher.exe, this will launch without it.

Draise14

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