MULTIPLE BLENDER INSTANCES

Transcription

1 MULTIPLE BLENDER INSTANCES Jose E Velazquez aka (Lobo3433)

2 Multiple Blender Instances Running multiple Blender instances has numerous advantages that would benefit the new and experienced users alike. How often have you come across a video or written tutorial that was in an older version of Blender and you have the latest build install but cannot figure out how to follow the tutorial? The interface has changed or a feature that was in one location of Blender but has been moved to another location in the latest build. This frustration is what I feel has at times given Blender the reputation that it has a steep learning curve. Or you just installed the latest version and there are still bugs in the latest version and you cannot either open a blend files or it just does not seem to work right out of the box so to speak. This is where having a Multiple Blender instances environment can come in handy. Now you need to take into consideration how much space you are willing to dedicate to setting up your multiple instances since depending on Blender versions they are between 92mb up to 301mb my current Blender instances takes up about 1.5gigs but I have over 20 terabytes of space. But another advantage of Blender is that it can even be run off a simple jump drive and with the prices of jump drives being so ridiculously low you can do this with either a simple jump drive, external or internal drive. Now you are wondering that cannot be done with exe files or the standard windows installer from Blender.org we are going to build these simple instances with Blender Zip files which are fully functional versions of Blender that require no installation. *Note that if you have many 3 rd party add-ons that are not standard with in Blender builds you may have to install those separately and make sure the add-ons are supported by the Blender build you want to use them in.* OK let s do some planning 1. How many versions do you want to run? I recommend that to cover most planned usage between 3 and 5 instances should be used and picking versions that had the most significant changes from one version to another.

3 2. Decide if you are going to use space on an internal hard drive or are you going to use a flash drive (I am not familiar with Macs but feel that most of what I will be describing can be similarly achieved within a Mac environment.) 3. When choosing the versions, you are going to use make sure that if you have a 32bit operating system you only download the files ending in 32, 64bit versions of Blender will not run on a 32bit OS but 32bits will run on a 64bit OS Now we will download the versions of Blender we want to use from This is the archive of all available Blender versions since it is creation. As I stated earlier you should pick the version that had the most significant change from one version to another. The ones I recommend and let me stress you can choose any version but I highly recommend that last most stable build in the version. You will notice that each version may have an a or b after its release name a b would be the last most stable release of that version. Also, when choosing versions choose the best one suited for your operating system. For instance, if you decide that to grab version 2.49b which was the last major release prior to the whole Blender revamp that was introduced in version 2.5 you will find none of the 2.49 version supported 64-bit operating system except for the Linux version. Version Recommendation 2.49b (optional), 2.57b most stable of the 2.5 releases 2.63a significant bug fixes and many tutorials were made using this version. 2.65a Many improvements to the Cycles Render engine 2.68a Good stable release many bug fixes great many tutorials created for this release 2.72b, 2.75a and 2.77a personal favorites of the 2.7 releases And the current version 2.78a (optional)

4 The above recommendations I feel will give you the most productive environment for both learning and working with in Blender. I encourage that you ask others for their favorites as well one of the biggest advantages of Blender is its community. Once you have decided which versions you want to use let s go and create a simple folder either on internal drive or flash dri ve or even external hard drive. I am going to use a simple flash drive to set up my Multiple Blender Instances. Create a simple folder on your jump drive or internal drive I choose to name it simply Blender Zips. Now if you have not done so already download the versions you will be using do so and place all the downloaded zip files into your newly created folder. Also, I highly recommend that you also download the Blender manual so you can even have access to it offline and the downloadable version can be found here:

5 Your folder should now look like this once you have moved or downloaded your zip files Now the next steps are to extract your zip files I going to be specific about this for it makes it easier for creating launching short cuts more effective in my opinion. I use 7-zip as my zip file extractor it is free and can open most compressed file formats you will encounter today. Right click on the zip and if you are using 7 -zip scroll down to highlight and choose extract here option. Repeat this for each zip in your folder

6 Now your folder should look something like this Now we want to create simple shortcuts to each folder so we can run all our different instances so let s go into our first folder and create our shortcuts. Once in the folder look for the blender.exe ri ght click scroll down till you see create shortcut then once the short cut is created right click and rename the shortcut to blender_ (type version number here) so it should look like blender_2.49b.exe you will be doing this for each version you have a folder for.

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9 Then cut the newly created short cut and paste it in to the root of your flash drive or hard drive depending which option you have chosen. Highlight the newly created shortcut then using ctrl X to cut then going back to the root of the drive ctrl V to paste You will repeat the last step for each of the versions you have chosen to use for your Multiple Instances

10 Your new Multiple Blender Instances should look like below. Now you can double click on any of your instances and have Blender open in up in that version. I have found that being able to run different version of Blender has truly helped me learn the software especially since so many tutorials are made with different versions plus it is a good practice in case you upgrade to a newer version and it might still have a bug or two you can still have a previous version to fall back on. Unlike many current software which tends to overwrite former versions Blenders unique nature of not needing to be installed and can be run right from a zip file makes it a truly unique, versatile and productive. Building yourself this multiple Blender structure will in my opinion reduce your learning curve and as Blender grows with new versions you grow with Blender.

11 I hope this tutorial helps you with Blender and I welcome feedback positive and negative so I can provide more tutorials in the near future. Feel free to contact me through my Renderosity site mail or in the Renderosity Blender forum. Lobo3433 Blender Forum Moderator Sit Facebook