[denim7]

Hi! Great UI. Super cool. But I have found serious bugs (several/many) in Bforartists. In every release.
I realised that every(?) release is based on Alpha versions of Blender.
Bugs I found in Bforartists: Serious Open GL issues, such as: circle select tool flickers, knife tool not working properly (sometimes not snapping to vertices, not highlighting etc)
outline of objects only partial,
messing up files (recently vertex groups, ie. bone weights, stopped working for one armature and had to open the blend file in original blender to re-rig the character), alpha clipping issues which I believe seems to be irretrevable, and meshes need to be retextured/re-created from scratch.

It says on official Blenders website: Do not use Alpha versions, they can (will) mess up your files.
Why are you building based on Alpha versions?
Please build using LTS releases, at least some.

Love the software, but Alpha versions are unreliable & annoying.
Blessings/ Daniel

[BFA-Reiner]

Hi denim7,

Because we have no other choice 🙂

We are aware of the bug problem. That’s the reason why we usually not release a new Bforartists version until Blender releases one. Since this means that the number of bugs in the Blender master should be at a minimum.

Yes, i know, we have some Blender bugs onboard since we rely on the Blender Master. And we have of course thought of this. But we can’t base Bforartists at a Relase version or even a LTS one, sorry. This would complicate the workflow a lot. And we don’t have the forces to work on two or three products simultaneously. Plus the LTS version would mean to be two years behind, in worst case.

Most bugs are harmless, more in the range of annoying. We always release a point release version in case we really run into a show stopper bug with Bforartists. There will be a Bforartists 2.9.2 shortly since we have such a case at the moment. But this is a very very rare case. We had this in the last six years two or three times. And there is always the next developer version of Bforartists in case everything else fails.

Kind regards

Reiner

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[Draise]

Yeah, it’s the way Blender works with the Master, though on official releases, the master is very close to the stable release branches, so the bugs from 2.93 are also in our releases though we work from the master. So.. most often every week we merge in the fixes from the master, meaning sometimes you’ll get more stable fixes in the devbuild, and still have the latest code that was from the LTS.

LTS may sound like more stability, but in reality it’s just code (with it’s bugs) frozen in time so if something breaks, it will be known and fixed from a development version that has gone ahead with more development (the master) – but it still is about as buggy as the master at that time. Any LTS fix goes to master on a regular basis as they merge any LTS fixes to master. So.. LTS stability bleeds to the master, which is what we fork from. So ultimately, to maintain multiple branches is like rolling back features and some new bug fixes and code that would ultimately make the relevant branch irrelevant over time, meaning any code to an LTS branch and fork we do ultimately becomes not future proof, nor stable when the new code is introduced into “LTS pipelines”.

So.. think of Bforartists more like a rolling release, where the Devbuild has the latest LTS code and fixes, along with the latest fixes still max 2 weeks behind bleeding edge Blender development (to allow for blender devs to fix things), and the stable official releases like an “LTS” with a shelf life of 6 months or so. because the 2-3 year Blender LTS branch is exactly that, a frozen development build in time with some showstopper bugs fixed (which we also do where possible.. ) – and these long term LTS releases will ultimately make addons and pipelines broken over time anyway, just with a bigger walls to crash into when you need to upgrade to the next LTS when the times comes.

So.. try out the dev builds, report where thing could improve. And the release we just did has the same LTS code as the Blender LTS 2.93, essentially the day we merged was the day 2.93 LTS released, meaning.. it also has the same instability. Now we have a few weeks of fixes merged in already with BFA 2.9.1, and possibly 2.9.2

What could be helpful, is reporting these bugs to Blender, and writing down how to reproduce them. So it can bleed back into Bforartists.

What I do recommend though, is use a single devbuild (latest) when you start a project, then don’t upgrade the build till you’ve finished the project. This DOES break things when upgrading mid project. But using a devbuild in production has the most features, most bug fixes, and most often can be the most stable release for production (till it’s not due to official release timing and a really big code refactors they sometimes do). Example, 2.93 LTS builds has known override bugs, known geometry nodes bugs, and many other issues compared to the 3.0 builds of today. I would not use 2.93 LTS for production with a stick, specially if I needed Library Overrides or Geometry Nodes in production. A few weeks has made the code that was 2.93 more stable today with 3.0. And this is the devbuilds of Bforartists today.

:dance:

[denim7]

Ok, thanks to both of you, guys, for your indepth explanations. I am not a programmer but thanks for letting me get an insight into the process of forking Blender. I understand from your texts that you know what you are doing.
Keep up the good work, I’ll try the devbuild.
I’m grateful for you both taking the time to explain things to me. I don’t understand everything that was written but at least I understand that you are taking the correct precautions/decisions in this work. I agree with what you are saying, it seems very correct. =)

Blessings // Daniel

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[shaley]

Just wanted to add my thanks for your explanation here. I also wondered why you chose use alpha releases that were likely to be buggy – turns out, there are very good reasons.

Thanks also for the project in general – it makes Blender useable. I simply couldn’t use it before finding Bforartists. Blender has the most insanely illogical UI that I would always end up quitting in frustration. BFA returns the pleasure to making the work.

Cheers

Stephen

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