Do you know that Blender has lots of forks with derivate projects? Since Blender is open source, anyone with the will and knowledge can take the source code and create his version of the software.
To make a fork from Blender, you have to follow some rules dictated by GPL, which says that you have to share the source code. That will ensure anyone can access the source code the same way as you did.
How many forks does Blender have?
I do know a few of them. And here are some of the forks:
- bforartists: In this project, you will find Blender with a tweaked UI that has a more “friendly” approach. The focus is to serve users that doesn't like to use too much keyboard shortcuts.
- Fluid Designer: A Blender fork that will focus on modular design for furniture. A US based company is behind this fork, and part of their business is providing the 3D models of modular furniture models that work with Fluid Designer.
- Mechanical Blender: From all Blender forks that is one with some exciting features for architectural visualization artists. The objective of this fork is to give tools that improve modeling and handling of 3d objects with better and improved precision modeling.
- UPBGE: You probably heard at some point that the Blender Game Engine is somehow “abandoned.” A group os users decide to give a try with BGE development and made an independent fork for game development with Blender.
Having all those parallel projects is great, but you need to consider something before jump into one of them. Most likely you will need to learn a few concepts again to use one of them. Since most of them alter Blender ranging from the user interface or functionality, you must go through a learning process all over to use any of them.
Are you comfortable with learning a few things again?
If you don't mind that, go ahead and give them a try! They are all free just like Blender.
Do you know any other Blender fork that is not on the list? Share with us in the comments below.
also Armory
BioBlender is also Blender fork.