Bforartists 2 Reference Manual - 38 Bforartists History 38 Bforartists History Table of content Bforartists 2 History................................................................................................................................................1 Preface:...............................................................................................................................................................1 History:...............................................................................................................................................................1 Bforartists 1 History................................................................................................................................................2 Preface:...............................................................................................................................................................2 History:...............................................................................................................................................................3 Blender’s History.....................................................................................................................................................4 Video: From Blender 1.60 to 2.50......................................................................................................................5 Version/Revision Milestones..............................................................................................................................5 The start!........................................................................................................................................................5 Blender goes Open Source.............................................................................................................................5 Blender 2.5x - The Recode!...........................................................................................................................6 Blender 2.6x to 2.7x - Improvements & Stabalizing.....................................................................................7 About Free Software and the GPL..........................................................................................................................8 Bforartists 2 History Preface: It was for a while not clear if and how we continue with the Bforartists 2 development. The Blender developers did quite a few things right with 2.80. Icon buttons in the tool shelf, streamlined UI and so on. In best case Blender 2.80 would have made a Bforartists 2 obsolete. But they did also quite a few things wrong again. The hard to read monochrome icons and still a hard to read standard theme, the new tool shelf, which is one gigantic hacky solution that doubles the tool set, still a big mess full of double menu entries, and so on. But alone the toolbar from Bforartists 1 justified the further development already. It is so useful. And so the decision was made to continue with development. There was no exact date when the development started again. There was quite a few things still to do for Bforartists 1, which was at the same time preparation work for Bforartists 2 already. Manual for example. And the merge of Blender 2.80 code into the Bforartists master was also a longer process across several days. The official starting point was the release of the Bforartists 2 Manifest, which defines the will and the further development goals. - Reiner History: 18.07.2021 - Bforartists 2.9.3 released. 01.07.2021 - Bforartists 2.9.2 released. A showstopper bug made a new version necessary. 25.06.2021 - Bforartists 2.9.1 released. This release ends the development cycle for Bforartists 2 in general. 1 Bforartists 2 Reference Manual - 38 Bforartists History 11.06.2021 - Bforartists 2.9.0 released. 27.02.2021 - Bforartists 2.8.0 released. 26.01.2021 - Bforartists 2.7.0 released. 26.11.2020 - Bforartists 2.6.0 released. 24.09.2020 - Bforartists 2.5.1 released. 01.09.2020 - Bforartists 2.5.0 released. 03.07.2020 - Bforartists 2.4.0 released. 10.06.2020 - Bforartists 2.3.0 released. 26.05.2020 - Bforartists 2.2.0 released. 04.06.2020 - Bforartists 2.1.0 released. 18.04.2019 - Bforartists 2 Gold released. This release is the first productive version of Bforartists 2. 12.04.2019 - Bforartists 2 Release candidate released. 16.03.2020 - Bforartists 2 Beta 0.9.1 released. The first beta. 14.02.2020 - Bforartists 2 Alpha 0.9.0 released. 21.11.2019 - Bforartists 2 Alpha 0.8.0 released. 03.10.2019 - Bforartists 2 Alpha 0.7.0 released. 31.07.2019 - Bforartists 2 Alpha 0.6.0 released. 03.06.2019 - Bforartists 2 Alpha 0.5.0 released. 06.05.2019 - Bforartists 2 Alpha 0.4.0 released. 01.04.2019 - Bforartists 2 Alpha 0.3.0 released. 03.03.2019 - Bforartists 2 Alpha 0.2.0 released. 04.02.2019 - Bforartists 2 Alpha 0.1.0 released. 01.12.2018 - Merging Blender 2.80 into Bforartists Master. 27.10.2018 - Bforartists 2 Manifest released. Bforartists 1 History Preface: Welcome to Bforartists, the free and open source 3D modeling, rendering and animation suite. Bforartists is a fork of the popular open source 3d software Blender. And, similar to Blender, of course also open source and under the GPL license. The primary goal of the Bforartists fork is to deliver a better graphical UI and a better usability. This means a complete switch in the usage philosophy. Away from the hotkey and 2 Bforartists 2 Reference Manual - 38 Bforartists History speed centered usage. Away from crazy decisions like RMB select. Towards a user friendly and intuitive graphical UI that can be used with a mouse and one hand when necessary. And that is much closer to the common UI standards of many other software. The idea to solve the UI dilemma of Blender and to fork it was long around since years. It was no easy decision to really start it. Blender is a code monster. And so the answer to the question shall i really start a fork was always no. But at one point it was simply enough how the user interface got threaten by the Blender developers. The answer if Blender should be forked turned from *no* to *possible with some big caveats*. And then the decision was made to fork Blender. The Bforartists project itself started officially at July the 2nd 2015. That's when the first real steps were done. History: 2.6.2015 - Decision day. The first pages for the UI proposal were written. The work at the homepage started. Which was the official start of the whole project. 2.7.2015 - The domain bforartists was registered. 13.8.2015 - The Bforartists page was finished and went live. 22.8.2015 - GitHub account was created and went live. 21.9.2015 - The first Bforartists version 0.1 was released. It was based at Blender 2.75. And contained not this much more than the changed branding. 14.10.2015 - Version 0.2 brought the changes for Blender 2.76. And that was the moment when Bforartists started to walk alone. 19.12.2015 - Version 0.2.1 introduced a new key map and a new navigation scheme. And already quite a few changes at the UI layout. Blender has a ton of missing UI entries and a ton of double and even triple menu entries. It also brought in the Blender 2.76 a and b patches to Bforartists 27.01.2016 - Bforartists 0.2.2 was mainly around a plugin to display the most needed hotkeys up left. 18.03.2016 - Bforartists 0.3.0 introduced the first incarnation of icon buttons in the tool shelf. 26.03.2016 - Bforartists 0.3.1 came with some small fixes that were overlooked for version 0.3.0. The splash screen was changed because of ongoing trolling. 02.08.2016 - Bforartists 0.4.0 was a small refinement release that was the final stroke below the try to implement Qt and new editor types. Which did simply not work. 04.09.2016 - Bforartists 0.4.1 brought mainly changes to the tool tips. Nearly every tool tip contains the tool name now too. 16.09.2016 - 0.4.2 is another small release mainly around catching some more tool tips. and small quirks. New is the Materials Library FX add-on, which is also naively included into Blender 2.78 now. 24.09.2016 - 0.5.0 is a milestone release. It marks the end of the first big development cycle. The tracker is empty for the first time since development start. 02.11.2016 - 0.6.0 brings fixes to the addons, first sub tabs in the panels, and the Mini lightlib add-on. 3 Bforartists 2 Reference Manual - 38 Bforartists History 01.12.2016 - 0.7.0 was mainly cleanup work in the Properties editor. 08.01.2017 - Version 0.8.0 brings the new Toolbar editor. 27.02.2017 - Version 0.9.0 is the merge of the actual Blender version 2.78 C into Bforartists. 13.03.2017 - Version 0.9.1 is a bug fix release that fixes some show stoppers from version 0.9.0. 10.4.2017 - Version 0.9.2 is around cleaning up the menus and connecting some loose ends. And it introduces a Mac build. 13.9.2017 - Version 0.9.3 is the merge of Blender 2.79 into Bforartists. Plus a few smaller adjustments and fixes. 14.9.2017 - An emergency release because of a showstopper bug. The bake panels were missing. 02.03.2018 - Version 0.9.6 brings the changes from Blender 2.79a, and adds 260 changes from Bforartists side. 19.04.2018 - Version 0.9.7 brings the full key map, the changes from Blender 2.79b, and lots of small improvements and fixes. More compact brush panels for example. 04.05.2018 - Version 1.0.0 RC1 marks the end of this development cycle. All initial development goals that could be fulfilled are fulfilled. 11.05.2018 - Version 1.0.0 is live. Blender’s History In 1988 Ton Roosendaal co-founded