The Asset Shelf Usability Upgrade

This is a major feature update with much love to the Asset Shelves usability with many new accumulated details and features from Bforartists and Blender. This is part of all the latest from Blender 4.5.0 and 5.0.0 to the date - with 169 new pieces of love from us.

⚠️ Warning: *.BlendFile formats from this version onwards will not be backwards compatible with earlier versions of Blender 4.5.x or Bforartists 4.4.x. It's a one way trip!

What's new

• Asset Shelf mode import properties
• Add asset with overrides automatically

• New Default Assets:
  • Blend Normals by Proximity
  • Inherit Smoothness
  • Inherit Material
  • Mesh Lines and Silhouette
  • Object/World Normal
• Group operators in the node editors are now in the toolshelf
• Cleanup and Refactor for the Node Editors sidebar add panels

• New Granular display of nodegroups in the sidebar
• Presentation Addon New Slides operator

• Node Group socket interface and operators got UX love

• Interface Updates
  • More robust columns for the tabbed toolshelf
  • Theme panel visual updates
• Updated default Hotkeys

And much much more

And also, thanks again for all artwork, love, feedback and help for making the Bforartists community what it is today!

Additional Features from this Blender 4.4.x and 5.0.x series

• New Playhead Header submenu

• Sculpt Modes - New Mask to Geometry operators
• New Color Jitter in Brushes now exposed to side bar also

• Built In attributes now show in header of Spreadsheet
• Point Cloud Edit mode is getting love
• Light properties have new settings and consistenty layout
  • Exposure and Temperature
  • Consistency with Cycles
• Collada removed (but we may have another in development)
• New Compositor nodes
  • Image Coordinates
  • Relative to Pixel
  • Texture Nodes
  • Input sockets
  • Changes to color correction nodes
• Shader
  • New Volume Coefficient Shader
• Grease Pencil Antialiasing made more explicit
• New Animation Timeline Footers
• Scenes can be saved as assets now
• Compositor Node Trees are a thing now
• New Grease Pencil operators
  • Split
  • Remove Fill Guides
  • Outline
  • Convert to Curve type
  • Mask above and below
• New relocate linked asset operator
• Per Bone type visibility
• Shape Key copying
• Camera OSL scripts included
• Performance in tesselation, subdivision, and more
• Grease Pencil Fill Guide indicators
• Vulkan Backend
• Sequencer HDR support
• Sequencer slip improved
• Drag and drop collections to surfaces
• Cursor rotation for snapping
• Asset Screenshots
• Gizmos in the Compositor

• Bforartists-4.5.0-Linux.tar.xz
• Bforartists-4.5.0-Mac-Intel.dmg
• Bforartists-4.5.0-Mac-Silicon.dmg
• Bforartists-4.5.0-universal.dmg
• Bforartists-4.5.0-Windows.zip
• Bforartists-4.5.0-x86_64.AppImage
• bforartists_4.5.0.deb
• Install_Bforartists4_450.exe
• releasenote_bforartists4_450.txt

Properties Editor

• Modifiers - UVMap- Add UV label indentation #5021
• Modifier - Mirror - Add UV label indentation #5018
• Modifiers - Array - Add UV label indentation #5019
• Light - Float Normalize property left #5110
• Collection - Float View Layer visibilty props left #5220
• re-enable the Tools tab #5205
• Output - Add social media dimensions presets (and remove doubles) #5188
• Light - Collapse temperature settings when disabled #5111
• Output Properties - Color management - align prop left #4839
• Light - Add radius slider back #5112
• Render Tab - Grease Pencil - Clarify the SMAA cryptic labels and tooltips #5037
• Modifiers - Code Cleanup #5073
• Material Tab - Add icons to material operator buttons #5015
• Modifiers - Envelope/Outliner icon #5084

Geometry Nodes

• Toolshelf - Mesh - Read - is Edge Smooth typo #5282
• Toolshelf - Deprecated - Depreacated Typo in Rotate Euler entry #5276
• Utilities - Fields - New Field "get info" nodes #5004
• Grease Pencil - Write - New Grease Pencil Color and Depth nodes #4995
• Group Tab - Group Sockets - Float panel toggle toggle left #5076
• Mesh - Write - New Set Mesh Normal node #4996
• Input - Scene - New Camera Info Node #5002
• New Import File nodes #4560

3D View

• Sculpt mode - Mask - New mask operators needs iconography #5305
• Brush menu in sculpt mode has no operators #4970
• Vertex Paint - Sample Color and duplicate #5292
• Object - Apply - Visual Geometry to Objects #4986
• Default tool mode should be "Active Tool" #3073
• The camera icon is offset #5139

Compositor

• Removed nodes API: Color Ramp + Value - Update sidebar Add panels #5103
• Remove "Use Nodes" from the header #5313
• Add - Utilities and Vector update to Toolshelf #4981
• Missing node icons for Image Info and Image Coordinate nodes #5274
• Add Texture add group to the Add sidebar #5005
• Update node Add tab with Utility and Vector nodes #5006

Theme

• Make Image editor background darker grey #5279
• Make node headers more legible (darken colors) #5108
• List Item - Remove outline #5100
• Panels have lost their color, revert #5099
• Overwriting warning color is bright red, make it less bright #4973
• Toolbar Editor - Flashing line may need a fix #5098

Keymap

• 3d view - 3d view global - wrong hotkey NDOF Roll CCW #5236
• Clip - Clip Dopesheet Editor - Delete track - change from X to DEL #5248
• Grease Pencil - Grease Pencil Weight Paint - Select Extended vs Select #5252
• Transform Modal Map - red entries #5253
• text - text global - find and replace double entry #5247
• Stencil Controls in Vertex and Image Editor need secondary #5242

Sequencer

• Preview - New Animation operators exposed to header, add icons #5155
• Preview - Remove doubles in zoom operators #5158
• Preview - Strip - Exposed Show/Hide menu, make consistent #5156
• Warn tool not found #5244
• View - Add icon to Frame to Scene Range #5157

Default Library

• Add Smart Primitives #5008
• Blend Normals by Proximity Asset #5222
• Handler conditional error #5250
• Make shaders "materials" to fit the default tab #5068

Toolshelf

• Node Editors - Panel registration order inconsistent with Add Menu #5316
• Node Editors - Missing entries within the Add panels #5289
• Missing Envelope modifier #5259

Grease Pencil

• Paint Mode - Fill brush advanced panel - Needs love (float things left #5164
• Edit Mode - New Grease Pencil outline operator #5163
• Edit Mode - Cleanup - New Fill Guides and Reproject operators #5165

Animation Editors

• Header - Playhead menu needs love #5162
• Footer - Context menu - remove footer toogle #5215
• Footer - Context menu has a missing icon #5198

Preferences

• Interface - NewSubpixel Anti-aliasing property #5264
• Editing - Sequencer - Remove use_sequencer_simplified_tweaking #5262
• Interface - New Border Width slider needs label #4998

Point cloud in edit mode

• update transform hotkeys #5235
• missing icons in the Select menu #5121
• Select menu - remove term Select from Select random #5230

Asset Shelf

• Add options to add as instance if on collection like in asset browser #4668
• Add set to world origin toggle like in asset browser #4669
• Add options to link or append options from asset shelves line in asset browser #4667

Keymap File Browser

• File Browser Main - investigate POSELIB_OT_apply_pose_asset_for_key entry #5243
• File Browser Main - double entry Apply Pose Asset #5245

Node Editors

• Group Sockets - Add the Node Socket operator to the panel add panel #5040
• Migrate and update Node tooltips to relevant documents #4989

Other

• Missing icons for right click menu #5321
• Grease Pencil , Draw mode, Fill tool - make Fill Guide discoverable #5208
• Grease pencil object in edit mode - Properties editor - Data tab, align Auto Normalize left. #5308
• Mesh object, Weight Paint mode, select menu. Remove the term select from the select linked operator #5127
• Missing/ update envelope weight paint assign operator #5301
• blender_theme_as_c.py adds path to the theme to the userdef_default_theme.c #5294
• Blender Render View vs Bforartists Render View - missing Paint mode? #5298
• Missing icon in Select menu in edit mode with a mesh object #5125
• Code marked as unreachable has been executed. Please report this as a bug. #5268
• Particle in Particle Edit mode. Select menu. put More / Less into a sub menu at the end of the select menu #5130
• Asset Browser: Make drop to origin button consistent #4984
• Shader editor: Procedural Material: Subtractmath #5238
• Video editing Preview window , view menu - put auto zoom option into the options #5231
• Video editing Preview window, View menu, double entries Zoom #5233
• 3D Sequencer: Error in addon code #4985
• Remove the term Blender from the translation files. #5219
• Name inconsistency in footer menu #5214
• Properties editor, tab area, right click context menu , missing icon #5204
• Remove double menu entries on left #5168
• New Format String node #5109
• Group Sockets, align Hide Value left #5173
• Adjust last operator, align Generate UVs left #5175
• Crash with adding a greasepencil stroke #5122
• Default to append #5114
• Online Python Reference needs an icon #5189
• New Instaces Bounds node #5003
• Open Drives Editor missing icon #5190
• New Image Info node #4980
• Brush resize secondary properties need updating #5186
• Lists require a hotkey to use #5185
• Relocate non-add operators in Group submenu #5170
• Bit Math #5169
• Snapping offset broken #5180
• Update Offline Icon #5179
• Texture paint select menu missing #5129
• Add Color Randomization #5106
• Brush properties not found #5178
• Grease pencil trace operator missing #5177
• Remove double "Final" property #5160
• Update Bforartists drawing #5132
• Add icons for new Screenshot operators #5105
• Point Density update sidebar #5104
• Drag and drop confusion between asset browser and asset shelf #5148
• Blender messing with our repo at pull request #5124
• Bforartists-Launcher on linux is pointing to the wrong executable #5136
• Node link for error state is invisible #5092
• Select menus, remove redundant term "Select" from the operators #5097
• [Bug // 4.3.1] Transformation Values Set in an Object/Bone (w/ Child Of Constraint) Won't Save into Added Keyframes when Transformations of Parent Object are Applied #5094
• Refactor: Move Repetitive Property Indentation Code into Dedicated Function? #5077
• Add Node operator: separate label #2454
• Modifier layouts shot down #5048
• Crash, Blender has stopped working ... #5063
• Sculpt Mode - Missing mask and slice properties #5303
• Grease Pencil Edit mode - Stroke menu - Simplify Stroke #5310
• Add - Empty Image - Remove from Image menu #5102
• UV Image Editor - Select menu - put More & Less into a sub menu #5267
• Dopesheet - Move new view Cache properties to the header Options #5154
• Asset - Mesh Blend by Proximity - Improve the wizard notice #5291
• Top Bar - Pointcloud api missing #5290
• Text editor - edit menu regression #5269
• File/Top bar - FBX lost it's icon #5256
• Topbar / Topbar Editor - Remove collada #5101
• Shader Nodes - Ray Portal BSDF node has no icons #5286
• Extensions/Addons - Tags broken #5263
• Exporters/Importers - Float Properties check boxes Left #4221
• UV Editor - Overlays - New Display slider label indentation #4997
• Outliner - ID Data - New linked data "Relocate" operator #5000
• Point cloud object in edit mode - tool shelf, add select hotkeys to the select group #5281
• Pointcloud - Edit Mode - new mode, new operators, needs icons #5147
• Video editing workspace - Image Menu - Transform - missing icon #5270
• Default Asset Categories - Rename Grease Pencil Tools to Grease Pencil #5261
• Animation workspace - animation toolbar is off #5206
• Keymap NLA Editor - Hotkey S for Scale #5240
• Keymap 3d view - Primitive tool modal map uses grs navigation #5239
• Default Libary - Boolean method needs to be FLOAT not FAST #5251
• Icons - Add icon for Volume Coefficients node #5237
• Editors - Tabbed Toolshelf - Width is not changing when on #4853
• Point Cloud in Edit mode - Point Cloud Menu - Delete uses hotkey X #5229
• Overwrite startup file - Blender will ... #5210
• View menus in animation editors - double menu entry Channels #5218
• Toolbar Editor - Toolbar Manager broken #5212
• Grease Pencil in Edit mode - Grease Pencil menu - Snap sub menu misses icons #5207
• Texture painting - add image slot dialog - Align props left #5200
• 3d view - sidebar - item tab in edit mode - middle aligned label #5201
• Feature - Initial add exposed asset shelves for 3d viewport and node editor #4584
• Window - Expose window operators #5036
• Spreadsheet - Move Built-in Attributes property to header (and remove double editor switch) #5107
• Crash - Dragging in a Compositor nodegroup asset to the compositor will crash #5137
• Addon - Presentation Slides - Add operator to make a new "slide" #5133
• UI - Grip Icon needs updating #5086
• Sculpting - Sidebar - Brush Settings - Stretch/Move Cloth Brush - align Lock Rotation checkbox left #4956
• Asset Browser/Shelf - Add auto-library override on drag and drop #5072

Splashscreen is kindly provided by Prashan Subsinghe, the latest winner of the Splashs Screen competition hosted in the Discord server! Thank you!

Draise, Reiner, Blenux (Juso), Znight (Trung Pham), Quackers, Eyad, Sean and all you arty supporters