Blender - 3D modeller (Xenial & newer)

Blender 3.4.1 builds (plus 2.93.14 LTS & 3.3.3 LTS) for Xenial & newer.

*** Please always see https://launchpad.net/~savoury1 for general updates about this Launchpad site before contacting me or reporting any bugs! ***

*** Big thanks to the few (0.25% of all users) who have donated to support this project, you have helped keep it alive to now! To the 99.75% of users who have not donated: please do so if you can as a significant increase in support is still needed for work on these PPAs to continue long term. ***

If software at this site is useful to you then please consider a donation:

*** Donations: https://paypal.me/Savoury1 & https://ko-fi.com/Savoury1 ***
*** Also https://patreon.com/Savoury1 & https://liberapay.com/Savoury1 ***

*** For older updates about builds see "Updates" after "Install" below ***

* Note: The blender and blender-{293,lts} versions can be co-installed on the same system, as some blender* files are packaged as blender-{293,lts}* to ensure no file conflicts between the three packages. Plus they also use unique config paths (~/.config/blender/{2.93,3.3,3.4} for 293, LTS, main).

These are fresh builds with as many features enabled as possible. Making use of work by Irie Shinsuke [1], Thomas Schiex [2] & Debian's multimedia packaging team (thank you all!) and developing that work further this is a fairly complete and up-to-date Blender build. Packages found here that are not in default Debian/Ubuntu repos include: Alembic, Open Image Denoise, Open Shading Language, Partio, Ptex, & Universal Scene Description (USD).

==========================================================================
                  Blender - fresh builds (Xenial & newer)
==========================================================================

alembic-io (1.8.4), armadillo (10.8.2), arpack (3.8.0), blender (3.4.1), blender-293 (2.93.14 old LTS), blender-lts (3.3.3), boost1.74 (1.74.0 Focal build has both Python 3.8 & 3.9 libraries), c-blosc (1.21.1), cfitsio (4.0.0), charls (2.3.4), coin3 (4.0.0), collada-dom (2.5.0), dcmtk (3.6.6), embree (3.13.4), expat (2.4.7), freeglut (3.4.0), freeimage (3.18.0), freexl (1.0.6), gdal (3.4.1), gdcm (3.0.14), geos (3.10.2), hwloc (2.8.0), ilmbase (3.1.6 = imath), jasper (4.0.0), libde265 (1.0.9), libdeflate (1.14), libevent (2.1.12-stable), libgeotiff (1.7.0), libheif (1.14.2), libraw (0.20.2), libsdl2 (2.0.22), libwebp (1.3.0), llvm-toolchain-14 (14.0.6), mpdecimal (2.5.1), nanovdb (32.3-3), netcdf (4.8.1), ogdi-dfsg (4.1.0), onetbb (2021.7.0), opencollada (1.6.68), opencolorio (2.1.3), opencolorio1 (1.1.1), opencv (imath builds), openexr (3.1.5), openimagedenoise (1.4.3), openimageio (2.3.21.0), openjpeg2 (2.5.0), openpgl (0.4.1-beta), openscenegraph (3.6.5), openshadinglanguage (1.12.8.0), opensubdiv (3.5.0), openvdb (9.1.0), partio (1.14.6), poppler (22.02.0), poppler-data (0.4.11), proj (8.2.1), ptex (2.4.2), pugixml (1.12.1), pystring (1.1.3+git20220723), python3.10 (3.10.9), python3.9 (3.9.16), qhull (2020.2), robin-map (1.0.1), snappy (1.1.9), spatialite (5.0.1), superlu (5.3.0), tbb (2020.3), tiff (4.4.0), uriparser (0.9.6), usd (22.11), yaml-cpp (0.7.0)

Focal only: libdecor-0 (0.1.0 for libsdl2), numpy (1.19.5 with both Python 3.8 & 3.9 modules), pyside2 (5.14.0+really5.13.2 downgrade, due various use cases being broken by pyside2 5.14 plus Qt 5.12 in default Focal repositories, eg. missing pyside2-uic binary)

Xenial & Bionic: curl, collada2gltf, fftw3, fontconfig, freetype, icu (66.1), jemalloc (5.2.1), json-c4, libdap, libidn2, libpng1.6, libpsl (0.21.0), librttopo (1.1.0), libzstd, mpich (3.3.2), openmpi (4.0.3), openssl, potrace (1.16), pysimplesoap, python-{boto,httplib2,imaplib2} (compat with new openssl), tesseract, xerces-c (3.2.2), xz-utils, zlib1g

Xenial only: hdf5, icu60, icu-le-hb, infinipath-psm, libfabric, libharu, libkml, libsquish, nghttp2, openmpi2 (2.1.1), rdma-core, sqlite3 (3.22.0)

Note: Many above deps for Xenial & Bionic are interconnected and have been copied here from other PPAs at this Launchpad site to make installation of the latest Blender on older series easier, without needing too many PPAs.

==========================================================================

*** Install ***

NOTES FOR ALL: Blender here is built with ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4 (the latest stable FFmpeg 4.4.x release) which PPA must also be added for install of Blender. Thus, these are the steps required for a successful installation:

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/blender
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
  sudo apt-get install blender

* Notes about OptiX: A report from a user of this PPA states that OptiX is unavailable with these Blender builds, even with OptiX kernels being built on my own local system and included in the Blender data packages. Due me having no nVidia hardware at present it is not possible for me to confirm.

Blender _cannot_ be built here on Launchpad with the OptiX headers due the combination of two reasons: highly restrictive nVidia licensing terms for OptiX headers (no redistribution of header source whatsoever allowed); and Launchpad (like Debian) disabling all network access during all builds for valid security reasons (meaning the headers cannot be accessed on nVidia's website directly during the build). Thus, if OptiX support is unavailable in these builds (even with pre-compiled ptx OptiX kernels) then you will either have to do your own Blender builds or use official Linux binaries.

* Notes about Numpy: Due Blender 3.1+ needing Python 3.10+ (Xenial is 3.5, Bionic 3.6, and Focal 3.8) Blender here is built with Python 3.10 for all series. Numpy from python3-numpy (to /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages) will therefore not work with Python 3.10 used by Blender for Focal and earlier. A workaround is to install Numpy through pip then add a user site-packages path to sys.path in a startup script (following steps outlined below).

All blender{-lts}-data packages here depend on python3.10{-distutils} to ensure a complete Python 3.10 install is available. The following commands using Python 3.10 will install pip first & then a compatible Python Numpy package (bootstrap.pypa.io is hosted by Python Packaging Authority or PyPA so it's a trusted site in terms of downloading get-pip.py to install pip):

  cd ~
  curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python3.10
  python3.10 -m pip install --target=.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages \
  numpy

Note: Copy the third wrapped command line as a single command for success.

Then a Blender startup script can be added, using the path for user config files. Use "~/.config/blender/3.4/scripts/startup" for 3.4 and create a file such as usercustomize.py (change "USER" in the below to the logged in username on your system) with contents such as the following two lines:

  import sys
  sys.path.insert(0, '/home/USER/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages')

The result will be that "import numpy" works fine after loading Blender on older series (ie. Xenial or Bionic) making Numpy functionality available.

* Notes for Xenial/Bionic: Blender is demanding software. Recent versions require many newer system libraries than shipped with these older series. Packages here are built against various other PPAs at this Launchpad site (see "Build" section below) and require various newer packages from those PPAs to successfully install. This includes requiring GCC 9.3.0 (default GCC for Focal) as Blender here is built with GCC 9.3.0 as the minimum.

Thus, installing Blender from this PPA requires extra steps for Xenial & Bionic (many dependencies from backports, graphics & multimedia PPAs are now copied here, so those PPAs should not need to be added -- if you find a dependency still missing after the below steps please do let me know!):

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/gcc-defaults-9
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/display
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/blender
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
  sudo apt-get install blender

Understand this will bring many upgrades including to GCC 9.3.0 which will be made the system default GCC version. As always, please remember that it is wise to backup first before such a major upgrade process is undertaken!

If running nVidia hardware see the display PPA for more information about nVidia drivers: https://launchpad.net/~savoury1/+archive/ubuntu/display

Note for Xenial: CUDA 11.1+ requires Linux kernel >= 4.5 for bug-free functionality, just as a newer kernel is best for numerous post-Xenial release (2016 onwards) display drivers and graphics programs. See here:

https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-linux/index.html

See the same display PPA above re: kernel >= 4.5 for new display drivers.

*** Updates ***

UPDATE (7 Oct 2022): A glitch upgrading to Blender 3.3.1 for 20.04 Focal users (LP: #1992110) has been fixed today. Upgrading should now work fine!

Update (12 Sep 2022): Latest Blender 3.3.0 & 3.4.0 Alpha have pre-compiled CUDA kernels built with CUDA Toolkit 11.7.1 (most recent release). Also, a glitch preventing glTF export with compression is now fixed via a complete redo of the relevant Draco patch to make it work on Debian/Ubuntu systems.

Update (31 Jul 2022): Blender 3.2.1 & 3.3.0 Beta versions are now building successfully for Focal! Achieved by building Boost 1.74.0 with Python 3.9 rather than Python 3.8 (Focal default). To use these new Blender builds on Focal _requires_ this custom Boost 1.74.0 build here. So if any Focal user already has Boost 1.74.0 installed (from a local build or another PPA) it must be removed to successfully install and run these Blender builds here!

Update (30 Apr 2022): Builds of all three Blender versions (main, LTS, and git) are now available for Jammy. Also an additional call for donations to support the work on this PPA as there have been very few donations in over a year and a half that have specifically been for these Blender builds. If more donations for Blender don't come then work on this PPA may well end.

Update (15 Apr 2022): Due a complex issue between Focal Python 3.8, Boost 1.71, and changes in Python 3.10 (deprecated C API functions), Blender 3.1 and higher (which requires Python 3.10) is not building for Focal. Blender LTS 2.93.8 is building successfully for Focal with Python 3.9 (best Python for Blender LTS, as running LTS version with Python 3.10 has some issues).

Update (4 Jan 2022): Blender LTS 2.93.x is now packaged as blender-lts and latest release Blender 3.0.x is now packaged as blender, with blender-git moving to newest 3.1.0 alpha source. This means blender-{lts,git} now both have data files installed in versioned paths (ie. /usr/share/blender/x.x).

Update (29 Sep 2021): Blender git builds now include cycles-x branch which has been merged into master upstream. Also see notes below about OptiX.

Update (26 Feb 2021): Blender 2.92.0+ supports building CUDA kernels with a combination of CUDA 10.2 and 11.3 for SM_30 through SM_8x architectures.

Update (29 Sep 2020): Blender 2.91.0 Alpha and newer builds now with USD (Universal Scene Description) support plus pre-compiled CUDA 11.1 kernels.

*** Build ***

This PPA has build dependencies on:

  ppa:savoury1/build-tools
  ppa:savoury1/llvm-defaults-13
  ppa:savoury1/boost-defaults1.74
  ppa:savoury1/backports
  ppa:savoury1/python
  ppa:savoury1/graphics
  ppa:savoury1/multimedia
  ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4
  ppa:savoury1/display

Additionally, required by Xenial & Bionic:

  ppa:savoury1/gcc-defaults-9
  ppa:savoury1/haskell-build
  ppa:savoury1/tex-2019

Note about i386: Blender is not a good match for i386 arch and 2.90+ fails to build on i386 even after carefully removing all amd64 only configs and deps. The Blender packages built here will thus always be amd64 only, as that is clearly the target architecture for all features. Bye bye i386!

*** Credits ***

- Creators of Blender: The Blender Foundation and Blender Institute
  https://www.blender.org/about/

- Package code for Blender: Debian Multimedia Maintainers
  https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/blender

- Python 3.10 packages: Now provided by backports from ppa:savoury1/python
  with packaging hints and ideas from Felix Krull & the "deadsnakes" team
  (https://launchpad.net/~deadsnakes) whose packages were used previously.

- Package code for Alembic and Open Image Denoise: Irie Shinsuke

- Package code for Open Shading Language: Irie Shinsuke & Thomas Schiex

[1] https://launchpad.net/~irie/+archive/ubuntu/blender-builddep

[2] https://launchpad.net/~thomas-schiex/+archive/ubuntu/blender