abstract:The tutorial shows how to install blender. It uncovers the secrets of the blender console and it explains how to verify that blender has been installed correctly.


[machinimatrix pub installation 680 530]

intended audience:

  • blender noobs

prerequisites:

  • none

related tutorials from other sites:

  • none

Transcription

Welcome to our blender tutorial series. blender is an amazing tool for 3D content-creation. It is highly customizable and flexible and Once you understand how to use it efficiently, you can get very productive with it.

This tutorial covers the installation of blender on Windows-XP but the installation-process should be similar for any of the supported operating-systems. So, let us fetch the software now!

You find the download-link to the newest blender-version directly on the blender main page. On the subsequent download page you find binary-distributions for Windows, Linux, Mac, and others. Let us choose the Version for windows-xp with 32 bit
since this is the operating system on which we are going to install blender. You will be asked to store the installation-file to your local disk and after your download has finished you just need to locate the executable and execute it by double-click.

The Installation is really no problem at all. You simply press the return key all the time. The default settings for blender will work in most cases. But here i will install blender at my personal file-space instead of the default-location.

You can use any location you want you only need to take care that you got about 40 Mega-Bytes of space on your hard disk.

After you have specified your destination directory the installer will ask you where you want to place your user data files. You have 3 different options.

I will select the secnd option. Now blender places all user-data directly into the installation directory. But caution here! You may loose parts of your personal data when you decide to upgrade or reinstall blender.

So, lets finish the installation now and start working:
The blender-program-icon is located right on your desktop. After starting blender you see the blender default-screen. Hidden behind the default-screen you find the blender console-window. The console gives you important information about your installation.

  1. which version of python does blender use ?
  2. is this python version available on your computer ?

Here blender tells us that it could not find the correct python-installation. But since blender already includes a minimal python installation most of blender’s functionality is always available out-of-the-box.

If you have the correct version of python installed on your computer and if blender can find it, it will make use of it instead of the build-in version. And it will give you an appropriate note on the console.

We could start blender now and begin working with it. But in the subsequent tutorials we will work with primstar an add-on for the creation of second life sculpted prims. This add-on needs a full python-installation. So please stop blender for now, install the python-version mentioned on the console and finally restart blender and check again on the console if blender uses it.

Here you see the console output after python has been installed.

Now blender can use the full power of python. After installing blender you can immediately jump start into your blender art work creation. But before you start, i recommend to take a look into the basic customization-tutorial. There i show you how to configure your personal scripts-folder for blender add-on scripts.

Enjoy blender and See you later!