[SOLVED] Blender - Unable to enable Cycles

xcausex · 2011-11-20 21:47:10

I use Blender a lot, and the recent developments with the new Cycles rendering engine have got me pretty excited and I'd really like to start using it, but as of yet I've been unable to get it working.

I have been trying to use both the offcial Arch package of Blender as well as a number of binary packages from graphicall.org. The Arch version doesn't seem to be compiled with Cycles support, and the Cycles folder is missing from /usr/shared/blender/2.60/scripts/addons.

The Graphicall packages though have been built with Cycles support and have the Cycles folder in the relevant sub-dir, but it doesn't show up as an addon option in my users preference window when I run those versions.

I've found that if I move a copy of the Cycles folder from one of the Graphicall packages into the above mentioned /usr dir then the Cycles option does appear in the addon list, for both the Arch version as well as the Graphicall versions, but in all cases it remains greyed out and unselectable.

What I would like to know is if anyone has managed to get it to work on Arch yet (Preferably on an x86_64 system) and if so, what steps have you taken to do so?

If no one has, is there any chance that the official Arch package could be updated to include Cycles by default? It is now a part of the main trunk, and to the best of my knowledge is included with all the releases available from the Blender Foundation website. So it should be included in our package as well.

Last edited by xcausex (2011-11-21 06:42:26)

lifeafter2am · 2011-11-20 23:31:11

I use the SVN version and compile it using CMAKE. The latest SVN will have cycles.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2 … Arch/CMake

xcausex · 2011-11-21 00:32:46

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

Blender is definitely one of those programs that get updated enough to be worth it for me to build on a regular basis, though it would still be nice if the version in the repos would be more complete with the features it includes. That version seems to have just the bare minimum included, a lot of the newer additions seem to take a while to find their way in.

xcausex · 2011-11-21 06:41:56

Just to update and tidy this thread up, building does in fact produce the desired results. I followed that linked tutorial earlier and everything went quite smooth and it had Cycles enabled by default.

Cycles is pretty neat and in a lot of ways a fair bit more intuitive to work with than the old Blender internal renderer. Now for them to just get OpenCL support worked out so I can make use of my ATI card for rendering, things are pretty slow atm with just my dual core CPU.

For those who prefer GIT over SVN here is a link to a mirror a friend pointed me to:
http://gitorious.org/blenderprojects

Fullblender is probably the version you would want to use to build from:
http://gitorious.org/blenderprojects/fullblender

If any of you are unfamiliar with Cycles and would like to learn more, I would highly suggest this video overview from BlenderGuru.com:
http://www.blenderguru.com/videos/intro … -to-cycles

Arch Linux

#1 2011-11-20 21:47:10

[SOLVED] Blender - Unable to enable Cycles

#2 2011-11-20 23:31:11

Re: [SOLVED] Blender - Unable to enable Cycles

#3 2011-11-21 00:32:46

Re: [SOLVED] Blender - Unable to enable Cycles

#4 2011-11-21 06:41:56

Re: [SOLVED] Blender - Unable to enable Cycles

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