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I want to have two copies of Blender on my machine that share no settings or preferences. One will be my development copy and the second on is the production version. I need them to be separate because I will be publishing my code to all the production systems and I need this process to be replicated locally for testing.

I'm asking this because I see that by default they are sharing '~/Library/Application Support/Blender/2.70/config'

They also share '~/Library/Application Support/Blender/2.70/scripts

This is problematic because I intend to put my addons here for the production installations. Then my dev install complains there are duplicate addons.

I'd like this to be easier, especially since it will have to be replicated every upgrade to Blender.

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  • $\begingroup$ See the wiki page on paths. You should be able to fix it by creating a config directory and a scripts directory in the portable blender directory, but it's hard to say without knowing how your two versions of blender are installed (Two self contained versions? A system version and a self contained version? Or..?) $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 19:31
  • $\begingroup$ assume the same version 2.70, for example $\endgroup$
    – Ben L
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 20:11
  • $\begingroup$ I'm using mac paths but I'd like to understand best practices for both windows and osx $\endgroup$
    – Ben L
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 20:17
  • $\begingroup$ But are you using two "portable" (self contained) installations? Or is a system installation involved too? $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 23:33
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    $\begingroup$ In osx the local config is found within the application bundle, in the finder choose Show Package Contents then open Contents and MacOS and 2.70 there should be a scripts folder there, create a config folder. Yes you need to redo this every version, I tried submitting a patch a few years ago to bring it to the same level as blender.app to make this easier but no-one could comprehend why I would want to. I now use a script to build blender that re-creates links (each compile clears the existing folder) to a startup.blend for the dev build with other copies loading from home folder. $\endgroup$
    – sambler
    Commented Apr 26, 2014 at 12:11

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At least on Windows, it is enough to create an empty folder config in Blender\2.70\.

Blender binary path is for example:
...\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe

and the version-specific folder is here:
...\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.70\

Add the config folder like this:
...\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.70\config\

Blender will note the local config folder on startup and prefer it over the user dir. If you save the startup file or user settings, startup.blend and userpref.blend will be created in your local config folder. Scripts located in the user dir won't be picked up.

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  • $\begingroup$ Can you elaborate on the addon locations? I want to use %APPDATA%/blender foundation/Blender/<version>/scripts/addons so no extra permissions are required to install. But then my dev copy picks this location up too. For the in-progress addons my dev copy points to bpy.utils.script_path_pref() $\endgroup$
    – Ben L
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 20:10
  • $\begingroup$ They need to be located in Blender\2.70\scripts\addons for a local installation. Or both in the user dir, and a second copy with everything locally to the binary (so it doesn't take the stuff in user dir). $\endgroup$
    – CodeManX
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 20:25
  • $\begingroup$ the docs refer .2.70 as LOCAL via "...self-contained bundles distributed by official blender.org builds..." Is this any different than the installer from the download page? $\endgroup$
    – Ben L
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 20:39
  • $\begingroup$ A Blender installer might create a config folder on installation (not sure on this!), but a zipped build creates one when you first save settings, add bookmarks etc. in the user folder too... What makes a Blender copy local is apparantly the config folder being near the binary. $\endgroup$
    – CodeManX
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 21:00
  • $\begingroup$ I was surprised. But this does work. Now I don't have to alter the production installs....until I'm using my own fork of blender. $\endgroup$
    – Ben L
    Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 17:51

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