Welcome to the Blockbench 4.0 beta!
This is an early version of the upcoming 4.0 update, which introduces tabs, poly editing, any many other features.
You can find the latest version of the beta here: https://github.com/JannisX11/blockbench/releases
To test this beta, download the required installation files from below, or enable the setting "Update to Pre-releases" inside Blockbench. Enabling this setting will tell Blockbench to always update to the latest pre-release, allowing you to test the latest features. Please note that pre-release versions may be unstable and have more issues than release versions.
Please report issues you find in the beta, make sure to specify the correct version.
Also, please let me know any feedback you might have, especially regarding poly mesh editing and the new UV editor, so that I can make sure to make them as intuitive as possible before release. We can talk about feedback in #bb-feedback on the Discord server.
Changes
Poly Editing
Polygon mesh editing is the biggest new feature in Blockbench 4.0. Meshes can be created in the "Generic Model" format.
You can go to Edit > Add Primitive to generate a simple mesh shape. Switch the selection mode in the main toolbar and select parts of the mesh. Then use the regular transform tools to modify the mesh. You can right click the mesh to find more options to manipulate the mesh, like extruding or cutting faces.
Obligatory disclaimer that this obviously isn't for Minecraft and won't work with Minecraft.
Mesh editing features that are still planned for 4.0
- Template generator for solid face colors
- "Normal" transform space to move faces in the direction they are facing
- Fill tool support
Tabs
- Multiple models can now be opened in Blockbench at the same time
- Use the tab bar at the top to switch between tabs
- If you have multiple tabs open, you can press the search icon next to the tab bar to find and jump to a specific tab.
New UV Editor
The UV editor was rewritten in this update to be more user friendly. The main change is the ability to view and modify the UV mapping of multiple faces at once.
The UV editor window has been removed because it's functionality to edit multiple faces simultaneously now exists in the panel.
UV Editor features that are still planned for 4.0:
- Area select tool
- UV Editor tab that allows editing of specific face attributes, such as cullface, tint, material etc.
- The Copy-Paste tool is not working at the moment and will work once again in the final release
Theme Selector
You can now switch between themes directly in Blockbench. The selection consists of default themes (Default Dark, Default Light, Contrast), curated community themes, your own themes that you can import from files on your computer, and optionally one theme that you are currently editing.
Once you have selected a theme, you can tweak it in the "Options", "Color Scheme" and "Custom CSS" section.
If you have a cool theme, you can already submit it on JannisX11/blockbench-themes during the beta phase.
Other Changes
- Add texture meshes for Bedrock Models
- Improved design of preferences windows, added navigation sidebar
- Added new "Wheel" color picker
- Area selection now works in the 3D view. If you are using the middle mouse button to navigate, simply use the left mouse button to select an area. If you are using the left mouse button to navigate, hold control while pressing the left mouse button to select an area.
- Added setting to not export empty bones
- Some number sliders now show show their value in a bar within the slider, including the brush opacity and softness slider
- Add "Select All" and "Select None" buttons to animation import dialog
- Added option to load models from blckbn.ch link
- #902 Add spacing option in toolbars
- #367 Add line break option in toolbars
- Uniform keyframe scaling is now an option that can be toggled per scale keyframe
- Enabled advanced toggles in the outliner will now be remembered between restarts
- The outliner now auto-scrolls when dragging nodes
- OptiFine CEM shadow size and bone "attach" field are now supported
- Added "Ignore Inherited Scale" option for locators
- Added Find/Replace option, works in group, element and animation names as well as keyframe values, with regular expression support
- Plugins are now sorted by popularity
- Importing a bbmodel file with an invalid format (due to a missing plugin) now shows an error message
- Plugins in the plugin browser now display their current version
- #116 Added poseable display reference model (player)
- #618 Add Erase-Mode toggle for Fill and Shape tool
- Added outer ring to rotation gizmo, to allow rotation on screen space
- Action Control now supports more tasks, including changing settings, switching tabs, opening recent models, or installing plugins
- You can now press "i" to hide everything except the selection
- Improved screenshow dialog, now shows a full size preview as well as the resolution and format