BForArtists is a special port of Blender aimed specifically at artists. It aims to move from Blender’s keyboard focused memorization heavy user interface to a more streamlined, visual icon based approached. The net result is a new interface that is much more mouse heavy and perhaps a bit slower, but also a lot easier to learn. At it’s core, this is still Blender however, built on top of Blender 2.79. There is even a Blender keymap mode in case you need to
follow along to an existing Blender tutorial. On the topic of tutorials, BForArtist also has a comprehensive set of searchable PDF documentation that go step by step through using BForArtist. Between the release candidate and the final 1.0 release, the follow functionality is new in the 1.0 version:
Release note Bforartists Version 1.0.0 – 10.05.2018
Tools tab – Edit Panel – Hide auto smooth angle slider when Autosmooth is deselected
Added snap icon to the autosnap dropdown menu in graph editor and nla editor
Release note Bforartists Version 1.0.0 RC1 – 04.05.2018
Removed double menu entries Undo, Redo and Undo History from the object menu.
Added the quickstart tutorial link to the help menu too
Youtube Link in Bforartists needs a hint towards Youtube
Added the Liquids material library to the Material Library VX addon
Iconize Brush panel in Particle mode
Removed confirmation dialog for deleting markers in animation editors and tracking editor
Materials Library VX – added basic material library
Missing Hotkeys in UI – changed hotkey for Delete Global
Missing Hotkeys in UI – changed hotkey for Center Cursor and View All
Missing Hotkeys in UI – changed hotkey for Toggle Maximize Area
3D View – View menu – two Toggle Maximize menu items. Renamed to Toggle Fullscreen Area
Merge remote-tracking branch ‘blender/master’ into sync_blender_master
Texture Paint – Brush Panel – Blend Mode dropdown box without icons
Fixed … has no attribute draw_ … error in edit mode
Moved the Transform menu from the object related menus to the tool shelf
Removed Objects and Wireframe subtabs in the object display panel
Added the experimental keymap
Material Library VX, updated the init.py to the latest name convention changes from Blender
Fixed Primitives Creation Modals addon – missing script files warning
Materials library vx – added the Foliage library
Separated the sections in the Create tab panels into single panels. Fixed the add menu in the Misc panel.
Increased the camera clipping default for a camera object
Materials Library VX – ceramic library added
Materials Library VX – added the glass library
Material Library VX addon – added the Metal library
Removed some not necessary texture linkings in the Paint library
Materials Library VX – added the Paint library
Fixed name convention warnings in the materials_library_vx/__init__.py
Fixed name inconsistency warning for the cycles bake panel
Fixed classes names to fit Blender name conventions for panels and menus
Node Toolshelf – Renamed the classes to follow the panel name conventions
Removed the bl_idnames from the panels in the space_node_toolshelf.py . They are not needed for panels
Improve Materials Library VX addon – added preview, made preview and apply buttons bigger
Viewport Display cleanup – put World background out of subtab, rename subtab to Object related
Rename Shading panel to Object Shading panel
Remove double menu entry tilt in curve menu, Removed Mean tilt submenu
GPencil Menu in Edit Strokes mode – Removed the Transform menu. It was a double menu entry.
Gpencil menu in Edit Strokes mode – remove double menu entry Undo, Redo, Undo History
Sculpt mode, Hide/Mask menu, readd hotkey ctrl shift lmb for lasso select
Particle Edit mode – Options panel – hide settings when corresponding checkbox is off
Fix error in materials library vx addon. See Blender commit: https://developer.blender.org/rBA8d3301f66c77e7b5a1f310a311d2055dbd473e09
BForArtist is available for download for Mac OS and Windows right here. Unfortunately for Unix users, there is no current binary version and you need to build from sources.
If you are interested in learning the difference between BForArtists and Blender be sure to check out this video explaining the major differences. I also looked at BForArtists in the past available here as well as much more briefly earlier today, also embedded below: