Building Blender¶
Instructions¶
Steps to build Blender from scratch for each operating system.
Resolving Build Failures¶
Most building problems are not actually errors in Blender's source code, although you can never fully rule out that possibility. See troubleshooting page for possible causes and where to get help.
Build System¶
Blender uses the CMake build system.
make wrapper¶
For quick setup, the make wrapper takes care of setting up CMake
automatically, and has quick commands for various tasks. It must be run
from the Blender repository root directory. The most important commands
are:
make help # List all available commands.
make update # Update source code, add-ons and libraries to latest versions.
make # Build Blender.
make test # Run automated tests.
Output¶
By default, make outputs the build and project files to to
../build_<platform>. The Blender executable will be located in
../build_<platform>/bin.
To change this location, see make help or manually run cmake. Be
sure to generate the build files in a directory other than the source
directory.
Customization¶
Many CMake options can be set to customize the build. See Build Options for how to configure them.
Setup for Developers¶
For efficient development of the Blender C/C++ code, install and set up an Editor or IDE to navigate and edit the source code.
For efficient debugging and faster builds, see Build Options for Developers.
Compiler Versions¶
| Compiler | Official Release Version | Minimum Supported Version |
|---|---|---|
| Linux GCC: | 11.2.1 | 11.0.0 |
| Linux Clang: | - | 8.0 |
| macOS Xcode: | 15.0 | 12.0 |
| Windows Visual Studio: | 2019 (16.11.26) | 2019 (16.9.16) |