Tiles writes:
Hello Friends,
There is a new Blender version available, and so we release a new version of Bforartists too. Bforartists, Version 3.1.0.
Bforartists is a fork of Blender. With the goal to improve the graphical UI and usability.
The binary downloads can as usual also be found in the download section of the official webpage. The sourcecode can be found at Github, and the release notes are here.
Bforartists 3 Version 3.1.0 is a maintenance release. It comes with all the changes from Blender 3.1.0, and with the usual changes to keep Bforartists consistent and compatible with Blender. The last release 3.0.1 was just a month ago. So the number of changes in this version is expectable low. But we will continue to improve Bforartists with every release.
Many thanks to the team and everybody involved! And have fun with the new version. Enjoy Bforartists :)
Reiner
17 Comments
It hurts that it has a lot of noise (very detailed icons), although it has very good shortcuts and tools, if there was one with the flat icons would be great.
Unfortunately flat iconography design can't accomodate 1400+ icons, so they need some colour coding. It's functional, not aesthetic.
Functional is not, I do not agree.
Thanks for your feedback :)
We know that the icons may be a bit too colorful to some. But the monochrome and in big parts even completely missing icons in Blender makes me headache. It needs simply too much attention. I don't have this problem in Bforartists.
As a note, I personally don't mind to have my own iconset in the surface or not. This iconset has now grown historically over six years. So there is surely the one or other icon that could benefit from an improvement.
You can always get involved. I welcome every improvement at the icons. I just care about to have color coded icons that are clearly and easily to distinguish. It's all about the usabiltiy :)
I agree too. I really liked the idea, but I think there is a need for them to work a little more to gain users. Maybe it could be a "theme" option for the official version.
This is technically not possible, sorry. Half of the changes in Bforartists happens at the source code, and cannot be accomplished by an addon or a theme.
Can't say I'm a fan of this at all. Most of their changes are poorly thought out or look terrible (the icons for example are absolute visual noise and terrible in my opinion) or changes they could have simply offered to upstream into Blender or could have been an addon.
Forks like these aren't healthy for the Blender ecosystem, it causes fragmentation and weakens the ecosystem. Sorry to the people working on this fork if they read this but, I hope their fork doesn't last long or gain much attention.
I totally agree with you about the visual noise that has is very colorful looks like a rainbow.
Been alive for 6 years now. Blender has monopoly on 3D opensource, so it's just healthy competition at the end of the day.
I have to disagree on all points.
I do not know what you mean monopoly when there are not really many 3D Sostsoftware OpenSource.
Well, this is exactly the meaning of a monopoly. In the open source area there is just Blender. And it has no competition.
This has changed with Bforartists. Now we have already two 3D packages where the user can choose from. And pick the one that fits his needs best. And the good thing is, they are both based at the same foundation.
I understand how a monopoly when a company eats the others for having the throne and not allowing others to arise therefore this would not be that. In addition, BFA is a difurcation and needs Blender for the moment ending up being the same as Blender only rearrange in a different way, it would be more like Linux in that case and the different flavors that this has.
A monopoly does imho not necessarily involve anything evil. It just says that there is just one player in the league. And as such he can dictate the rules. Like having monochrome icons in the UI. Or Right Click Select.
Blender and Bforartists are obviously not the same. Or you would not moan about the icons ;)
We are no branch of Blender, we are a full fork of Blender. We have our own community, our own documentation. We don't have anything to do with the Blender developers and development at any point. Except that we merge the Blender source code from time to time since we promised to deliver the same functionality than Blender.
The Linux analogy might even fit here. All Linux distibutions share the same kernel. But the distributions are also completely independant.
Anyways. These are just my thoughts at it. I respect your opinion. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and thans for the interesting conversation :)
I welcome the effort and many of the ideas in this fork. One thing that bothers me is the attitude towards the Blender devs displayed in some of their videos though. Quite passive aggressive tone there.
I think i have to chime in here to correct some misconceptions :)
There is no attitude nor any agression. There is just Bforartists. An independent project with completey different UI UX design goals. A project of love and passion.
I know that some people are already offended by the pure existence of Bforartists. Even more when i point at all the improvements in Bforartists in our release and learning videos. But these improvements are the reason for the fork. I cannot leave this parts away, sorry. Bforartists is simply not Blender. There are vital differences, and i have to point at it. I am convinced about our improvements.
We close a gap. We deliver an alternative for the users that are not happy with the Blender UI UX. We give them the power of Blender, without the need to go the sometimes a bit awkwards Blender way of using it. And we have lots of happy Bforartists users nowadays that haven't been happy with Blender before. And we don't take Blender anything away with it. These users would have left Blender anyways. Bforartists made them stay. This is imho a Win Win for both sides.
One last point, i may not be involved into the Blender development, but i still help Blender out since many years by detailed bug reports and helping Blender users with their problems in many 3D communities. And the pure existence of Bforartists made the Blender developers think. Guess where for example the icons in the tool shelf came from. Icons in the tool shelf was unthinkable when i started the fork. And this is what Draise means when he talks about a healthy competition.
For me 3D art is the connecting part. Not what software you use. I welcome everybody. I am 3D addicted since many years.
In this regards, happy Blendering!
Reiner
i welcome this..and blender themself had their own cultist dedicated to all those hidden secret and like to stare down to us mortal from higher up, not well thought critique is irony by themself when blender is sometimes unable to cope with critique from their users