Installation / Blender
- Prerequisites
- Downloading Verge3D
- Installation for Windows
- Installation for macOS or Linux
- Installation for ChromeOS
- Troubleshooting
Prerequisites
Verge3D can run on top of Blender, an open source 3D modeling and animation suite, which should be installed first (we support versions 3.4-4.4). We recommend using the latest stable version of Blender (4.4 at the time of writing) for best results. You can download Blender for free from the official website.
Downloading Verge3D
Download Verge3D for Blender for your operating system (.exe installer for Windows, or .xz archive for macOS, Linux, or ChromeOS).
Installation for Windows
Double click on the .exe file to run the installer.
Follow the link to read the recent version of Verge3D license agreement.
Choose components you want to install.
Now choose an installation folder that have enough permissions for reading and writing (or better leave it by default).
Wait until the installer finishes copying files to the target directory.
Once installation complete you'll see the following screen.
Press finish and launch Blender. If you had it running, be sure to close and open it again.
In case if you're using Blender version 4.1 or below, additional step is required. Open the Preferences window and go to the Add-ons tab. Find and enable the Verge3D addon, then close the window.
You may also launch the App Manager without running Blender by clicking on the desktop icon or using the Start menu.
Installation for macOS or Linux
Unpack the .xz archive to a directory of your choice. Make sure you have enough permissions to read/write in this folder. Installing in a system directory is not recommended. Throughout these docs we will refer to the unpacked directory as the Verge3D installation folder.
In Blender, invoke the Preferences window by selecting the corresponding option in the Edit menu.
The next steps will depend on what version of Blender you use.
Blender 4.2+
On the Get Extensions tab, click on the Repositories menu. In the opened dialog click on the Add (+) button to add a new repository.
Select Add Local Repository.
In the following dialog specify "Soft8Soft" as the repository name, activate Custom Directory, then provide the path to the "addons" folder inside the unpacked Verge3D archive. Click Create button.
Pay attention to this step. The specified folder should end with "addons", not "addons/verge3d".
Click View Details from the extension menu (v) to bring the extension settings (alternatively you could find Verge3D on the Add-ons tab).
Enable the Verge3D extension, then close the Blender Preferences window.
Installation complete!
Before Blender 4.2
On the File Paths tab, find the Script Directories panel. There click on the Add (or +) button to add the folder in which Verge3D archive was extracted. Close the Preferences window and restart Blender.
Open the Preferences window again and go to the Add-ons tab. Find and enable the Verge3D addon, then close the window.
Installation complete!
Installation for ChromeOS
To run Verge3D on ChromeOS you'll need to have Blender, which is installed via Linux development environment.
Installing Linux Development Environment
Find Developers tab in ChromeOS settings, when click Turn on near the Linux development environment:
On the next screen click Next:
Then select a user name for the Linux environment, as well as disk size. The default 10 GB should be enough in most cases. You might need to select a greater value only if you're going to develop really huge apps.
The installation process begins:
As soon it is complete, continue to the next stage.
Installing Blender on ChromeOS
To install Blender on ChromeOS, launch terminal:
Execute the following command to update the repository metadata:
sudo apt update
Then install Blender (with all its dependencies):
sudo apt install blender
Verge3D add-on also requires the numpy library (used by the exporter) and the zenity tool (to make App Manager settings dialogs work properly). Install both in the similar manner:
sudo apt install python3-numpy zenity
Blender installed! You can run it using the shortcut like any other ChromeOS application:
Blender version which comes with ChromeOS can be somewhat outdated (e.g. version 3.4.1 in ChromeOS 121+). If you want the latest Blender, download it from blender.org and install it to some folder inside the Linux environment.
Installing Verge3D
Open Verge3D .xz archive and unpack it to a folder of your choice. To simplify assignment of Verge3D folder in Blender settings, you better unpack verge3d_blender right into Linux files:
In Blender, invoke the Preferences window by selecting the corresponding option in the Edit menu, then go to File Paths:
On the File Paths tab, find the Scripts field and make it point to the folder in which Verge3D is installed. Close the Preferences window and restart Blender.
Open the Preferences window again and go to the Add-ons tab. Find and enable the Verge3D addon, then close the window.
Click on the App Manager button and proceed to the next stage.
First Run
On first run, a splash screen is shown up, proposing to setup the path to the Verge3D applications folder. You might leave it as is. In this case, Verge3D applications will be created inside the Linux environment:
Once you have done with the application folder, click Apply. Installation complete!
Alternatively, if you want to keep your applications in ChromeOS instead, do the following. Create some folder in ChromeOS Files, right-click on it and select Share with Linux in the menu. In the similar manner you can provide a folder located on Google Drive or Windows share.
Sharing the folder makes it accessible by the /mnt/chromeos/... path inside Linux:
Troubleshooting
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'numpy'
When on Linux/ChromeOS, you might see the following error upon Verge3D activation, saying that there is no module named numpy:
If you see it, install numpy with your system package manager, e.g. on Ubuntu:
sudo apt install python3-numpy
Then try activating the Verge3D add-on again.
What's Next
Familiarize yourself with the basics!
Got Questions?
Feel free to ask on the forums!