Bforartists 2 ships
The Bforartists team has released Bforartists 2, the new stable version of its usability-focused fork of Blender.
The 2.0.0 release makes it possible to use the Bforartists project’s changes to the open-source 3D software’s user interface and workflow with the new functionality introduced in Blender 2.80 and above.
An alternative redesign of Blender’s UI to that in Blender 2.80
Bforartists is a fork of Blender intended to improve the software’s usability, particularly its user interface. Work on the project began in 2015, with the first stable release, Bforartists 1.0, in 2018.
The subsequent release of Blender 2.80 also made a lot of UI and workflow changes to the main fork, although they’re different to those in Bforartists.
The homepage of the Bforartists website has a summary of the differences between the two interface redesigns: its key changes include use of coloured icons and greater tonal contrast in the colour theme.
Which is better comes down to personal preference, but if you prefer the Bforartists UI, but want to use the other new functionality introduced in the Blender 2.8x updates, Bforartists 2.0 enables you to do that.
System requirements and availability
Bforartists 2.0.0 is available for 64-bit Windows under a GPL licence. It is based on the Blender 2.83 alpha, the next major update to the main branch. Future updates will be released alongside those of Blender.
There are no binaries for Linux or macOS, although users can compile Bforartists 2 from source.
Bforartists 1, the previous stable release, which is based on Blender 2.79, is available for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, Linux and macOS.