Installation for Mac users¶

Installation¶

Clone BRender repo¶

Go to any desired directory of your choice within the terminal.

Clone the repo:

$ git clone https://github.com/haykh/brender_astro.git

The library and all the necessary files will be downloaded to the current directory.

Warning

We’ll next download and install the main Blender app. This requires several hundreds MB of disk space, so be prepared.

Installing and configuring Blender¶

Download Blender app from here.
Drag and drop Blender app to the Applications folder.

Note

We then need to adjust some of the Blender import/export files. You can do it manually following steps 3-6, or if you have version 2.79 you can simply download the already fixed files and replace the original ones (see step 7).

Navigate to the following folder:

$ cd /Applications/blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.**/scripts/addons/io_scene_obj/

where 2.** is your Blender version, which in my case is 2.79.

Open import_obj.py and add these two lines:

# ...
elif line_id == b'tf':
    # rgb, filter color, blender has no support for this.
    pass
elif line_id == b'em': # ADD THIS LINE (BRender)
    context_material.emit = float_func(line_split[1]) # ADD THIS LINE (BRender)
elif line_id == b'illum':
    illum = int(line_split[1])
# ...

In the same file comment out the following line:

# ...
if emit_value > 1e-6:
    if use_cycles:
        print("WARNING, currently unsupported emit value, skipped.")
    # We have to adapt it to diffuse color too...
    emit_value /= sum(context_material.diffuse_color) / 3.0
# context_material.emit = emit_value # <- COMMENT THIS LINE OUT (BRender)
if not do_ambient:
    context_material.ambient = 0.0
# ...

Save the file and open export_obj.py. Add this line and save the file:

# ...
    elif mat.use_transparency and mat.transparency_method == 'RAYTRACE':
            fw('illum 9\n')  # 'Glass' transparency and no Ray trace reflection... fuzzy matching, but...
    else:
            fw('illum 2\n')  # light normaly
    fw('em %.6f\n' % mat.emit) # ADD THIS LINE (BRender)
else:
    # Write a dummy material here?
# ...

For the sake of convenience, I added those two .py files for Blender 2.79, so you can just download and replace the original ones which are in here /Applications/blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.79/scripts/addons/io_scene_obj/.

Configuring Blender’s bundled python¶

For Blender version 2.79 (on Mac) do:
```
$ bash setup_python.sh
```

from the setup_python/ directory (where the get-pip.py file is). This will install pip using the get-pip.py file (from the same directory as the .sh file) in the bundled python and will then install h5py which is necessary for loading hdf5 files in the Blender.

For newer/older versions you can try adjusting the directory in the .sh file, but since the python version can change, this might not work. Anyway, in general the idea is to have Blender’s bundled python run the get-pip.py file (to install pip), and then run the newly installed Blender’s bundled pip to install h5py. Something like this:
```
$ /path/to/blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.XX/python/bin/python get-pip.py
$ /path/to/blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.XX/python/bin/pip install h5py
```

Blender setup¶

If you haven’t cloned this repo yet, it’s time to do it:

$ cd /any-folder-you-like/
$ git clone https://github.com/haykh/brender_astro.git

Then navigate to initialize_blender/ inside the cloned repository and open init_script.py.
Modify the path in the 2-nd line writing the correct path to the downloaded BRender repo.

Open bash_profile with $ open -e ~/.bash_profile and add the following line with a correct path to the downloaded repo:

alias blender='/Applications/blender.app/Contents/MacOS/blender -P /path/to/brender/initialize_blender/init_script.py'

Restart the terminal. Now if we do $ blender in the terminal, the Blender app will launch pre-running the init_script.py, which imports the module and does a quick setup of lighting.
From cloned BRender repo copy initialize_blender/mac/startup.blend file to /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/Blender/2.**/config (if the folder doesn’t exist - create it). This will set a default working screen that (for me) fits the best for script-based visualization.

Now once you run:

$ blender

from the terminal, you should see two Blender windows (especially convenient if you use two screens).

(left) code editor in case we want to run or edit a large script
(right) python console that uses Blender’s bundled Python 3 (most of the time we’ll be using this console)
(down) code editor log

(left) 3D viewport with all the objects of our scene
(middle) rendered image will be displayed here, which is now just empty
(right) Properties tab with all the material and object properties

You can also configure your own workspace layout (consoles, 3d viewports etc) and save it as default by doing Ctrl+U.