Building Blender for OSX needs a bit of preparation. However the steps are not very complicated and if you follow the instructions carefully you should be able to build Blender.
THE BEGINNERS GUIDE TO BLENDER Jonathan Lampel blenderhd.com This page if for mandatory legal shenanigans. The content in this eBook is for informational purposes only. Any advice that I give within this eBook is my opinion based on my own personal experience. Official account for development news of Blender, the Free and Open Source 3D creation suite.
macOS version 10.12 and newer are supported.
Quick Setup
Install Xcode Development Tools
Download the newest Xcode package from the Mac App Store for your system (it's free).
Install CMake
CMake is a tool for generating build environments and it supports make and Xcode (among others).
Download CMake here and install it to the Applications folder. Then make it available from the command line:
It may be necessary to write to .bash_profile instead of .profile if the former exists.
If you have a package manager like Homebrew or MacPorts, you can also install CMake through that.
Download Sources and Libraries
Now you are ready to get the latest Blender source code from Blender.org's Git repository. Copy and paste the following instructions into a terminal window. These will create a blender-build folder off your home directory and download the latest source code, as well as addons and external libraries.
For additional information on using Git with Blender's sources, see: Tools/Git
Building
The easiest and fastest solution is to build Blender with the default settings, and simply run this in the Terminal:
After the build finished, you will find blender.app ready to run in ~/blender-build/build_darwin/bin.
Updating
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If you later want to update to and build the latest version, run:
If building fails, it sometimes helps to remove the ~/blender-build/build_darwin folder to get a completely clean build.
Build as an Xcode project
If you like to work with the Xcode IDE and build Blender from within it, you need to generate an Xcode project.
Generating the Project
Find the CMake App in your Application folde and double click on it to start it.
As you can see all you have to enter is the location of the sources in ~/blender-build/blender and a destination directory which i have chosen to be ~/blender-build/cmake (any location outside of the source directory is allowed).
Now Press the 'Configure' Button. You get another Popup:
Here you can select which generator you want to use, choose Xcode. Now press the 'Done' Button.
You get back to the previous seen but now you will see a big red list of options. You can scroll through the option list and set parameters to your needs. Click Configure again and the red highlighting should disappear. Then click Generate and your build environment will be created into the build folder.
Building Blender in Xcode
Now you can go to the folder where you generated the project, and double click Blender.xcodeproj to open it in Xcode. Choose 'Automatically Create Schemes' if asked.
1. Change the Active Scheme popup in the upper left corner of the XCode 5 project window from ALL_BUILD to Install2. Select menu Product->Scheme->Edit Scheme
- Edit Scheme is located all the way at the bottom of the list of targets. Or just Press Command-<.
4. Select the Blender App
Blender Software
from the Executable popup menu.
- You may leave the Debugger options at the defaults.
5. Click OK to save changes.
Now clicking the Run triangle next to the Active Scheme popup should now build the application and launch Blender under the debugger.
Build with CUDA support
Install CUDA Toolkit 10.1.
Then when building Blender, use make release to enable all features including CUDA.
Requirements
The official version on the website is always supported first and foremost but the developments also cover buildbot.
Hard Ops Installation
Download Hard Ops
Unzip folder to global path (recommended)
- instead of blender's own install location use the one on your PC created by Blender.
- ex: C:/Users/USER/AppData/Roaming/Blender Foundation/Blender/2.78/scripts/addons/
install from file has issues occasionally with releases it is not recommended
Locate the Addon 'Hard Ops' and enable it.
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- Set Up Addon preferences and click save user settings (ensures enabled next open)
Always save user prefs using the button below or they wont be enabled next open.
Detailed Install Instructions
When using Blender a folder is created deeply in your PC for add-ons. Putting it
here instead of the branch you are using ensures the next updates also have it
installed.
C:/Users/ USERNAME /AppData/Roaming/Blender Foundation/Blender/ 2.XX /scripts/addons
Locate Blender in your applications folder
RMB on the blender.app and select show package contents
I assume linux users know their PC.
~/.config/blender/ 2.XX /scripts/addons
Q: I can't install Hard Ops 9!
Make sure you copied the contents of the zip into the directory mentioned above. Also try reopening blender. Install from file does not work most of the time so manual installation is recommended.
Q: Hard Ops won't enable!
Try reopening Blender! Also check installation. Hard Ops latest version only works with Blender 2.78 and above. The api changes before will cause issues with old blender.
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Q: The prefs panel wont show the add on I have it installed help! Omygerd!
The way the addons are detected is the naming.
Running the following line in the script editor of blender will show all enabled add ons and their name in the system.
bpy.context.user_preferences.addons.keys()
If the naming is not exact this will cause issues. Just rename the .py to resolve the issue.
The naming is as follows.
Also the above texts are hyperlinks to their locations.