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Blender 2.80 now includes the glTF-Exporter addon, but due to some limitations, I would like to test the latest version of glTF-Blender-IO from here:

https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Blender-IO

The instructions for installing on the glTF-Blender-IO page are light on detail. Here's what I tried:

  • download the .zip and extract.
  • I'm on a Mac. Went to blender installation in Applications, and added these directories: scripts/addons/
  • from the extracted download, copied: addons/io_scene_gltf2 to the new directory in the Blender installation.
  • In Blender, open Edit : Preferences, Add-ons:
  • with all addons visible [Official, Community & Testing are all enabled], search for 'gltf'. The one I see is probably the one installed with Blender. Testing verifies this.
  • assuming I need to install the new addon, in Addons panel, click: Install... and navigate to: /Applications/blender-2.80.0/scripts/addons

From here, I have attempted to 'Install addon from file...' from several places in the subtree without success.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

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    $\begingroup$ Blender 2.80 is still in Beta with new daily builds coming out, so things are naturally and very obviously changing every day. The code on github is way too old to work with current builds. Other than that, it's generally not a good idea to download add-ons from github via "clone or download", as they are quite often missing important installation files. $\endgroup$
    – metaphor_set
    May 16, 2019 at 22:36
  • $\begingroup$ @metaphor_set Correction, we are actively working on glTF-Blender-IO, and it is being kept up to date with daily builds of Blender 2.80 Beta. We had some breakage earlier this week when the bpy.context.depsgraph Python API changed, but that has been resolved. We'll continue to keep this updated. $\endgroup$
    – emackey
    May 17, 2019 at 12:53
  • $\begingroup$ It sounds like rather than adding the latest version of glTF-Blender-IO to the Blender 2.8 installation I have, I should grab the latest Blender 2.8 beta. Thanks for clarifying. $\endgroup$
    – j13ag0
    May 17, 2019 at 13:09

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I'll start off by saying, Blender 2.80 Beta and the GitHub glTF-Blender-IO repository are going to be kept in sync at least through the end of 2.80's release and likely far beyond. So if something new goes in the GitHub master branch, usually you can wait a couple of days and see it show up in a daily build of Blender. There's a version number near the top of __init__.py that has been getting more regular updates, with the intention of making it more apparent when GitHub changes have made their way into the Blender repo.

What I'm saying is, if there's no rush on your part, you can just wait for the changes to come through on the Blender side, and not worry about downloading from GitHub.

But, if you want to try something before it gets over to Blender (such as a branch that's under development, or a fix you need right away, etc.), then yes, download the GitHub repository and install the addons/io_scene_gltf2 folder from there.

The trickiest thing about the install will be that Blender can't tell the difference between the shipped addon vs the one you downloaded. You need to get rid of the copy that came pre-installed with Blender, before you can try a new branch or version of the same addon. In your Blender install folder, look for this subfolder:

{Blender_Install_Folder}/2.80/scripts/addons/io_scene_gltf2/

This one needs to be deleted or moved completely out of the Blender install tree, before you can replace it with a new one. The addons/io_scene_gltf2 folder from GitHub can be used as a drop-in replacement here, if you like, or you can use one of the external script folder methods you mentioned above.

Quit and re-start Blender to make these changes apply. Note that you will not have to go re-enable the addon, even if it's in a different install folder. Apparently, Blender keeps a list of enabled addons by name, not by install location, so your new version of this addon will already be enabled when you launch Blender.

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  • $\begingroup$ Again, thanks for clarifying. As of today [May 17], the latest beta build of 2.80 does not have glTF in the Export menu. User Preferences are also missing from the Edit menu. For me these were clues that I should back away and work in 2.79 for now. $\endgroup$
    – j13ag0
    May 17, 2019 at 18:39
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, there will be good days and bad days on the road to 2.80 stable. $\endgroup$
    – emackey
    May 17, 2019 at 21:32

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