🧰 Blender Drag & Drop Renderer – Full Setup Guide

This guide shows you how to install, configure, and package the Blender Drag & Drop Renderer GUI as a standalone application for Windows and macOS.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This tool was built with the assistance of Large Language Models (LLMs). While we've made every effort to ensure it works correctly, there might still be bugs or unexpected behaviors. Please report any issues you encounter.

Known Issues:

• When packaged with PyInstaller, there may be problems executing Blender, particularly on Windows. See the troubleshooting section for workarounds.

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❓ Why This Tool Exists

Long render sessions in Blender can sometimes crash due to memory limitations, hardware instability, or software issues. This tool solves that problem by automatically recovering from crashes and resuming the rendering process from the last successfully rendered frame.

Instead of starting over, it picks up exactly where it left off — ensuring that even the longest and most complex render jobs can be completed reliably without manual intervention.

You simply drag and drop your .blend file, and the tool takes care of the rest.

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1. 🐍 Install Python

Windows:

• Download Python 3.11+ from python.org/downloads/windows
• During installation:
  • ✅ Check "Add Python to PATH"
  • Proceed with default settings.

macOS:

• Open Terminal and install Homebrew if you haven't:

  /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

• Then install Python:

  brew install python

Verify installation:

python3 --version

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2. 🧪 Create a Virtual Environment (recommended)

Inside your project folder:

python3 -m venv venv

Activate the environment:

• Windows:

  venv\Scripts\activate

• macOS/Linux:

  source venv/bin/activate

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3. 📦 Install Required Python Packages

Inside your virtual environment:

pip install -r requirements.txt

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4. 🗂️ Project Structure

Ensure your folder is structured like this:

application/
├── BlenderRenderGui.py   # Main GUI script
├── render_script.py      # Blender-side render script
├── config.json           # (auto-created after first run)

✅ Make sure render_script.py exists and is functional.

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5. 🛠️ Create an Executable with PyInstaller

macOS:

pyinstaller --noconfirm --onefile --windowed --name "BlenderRenderGui" BlenderRenderGui.py

Windows:

pyinstaller --noconfirm --onefile --windowed --name "BlenderRenderGui" BlenderRenderGui.py

The built app will appear in:

dist/BlenderRenderGui

• .app (macOS)
• .exe (Windows)

✅ You can now double-click to run!

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6. ✨ Optional Improvements

• Add a custom icon:

  --icon=path/to/icon.ico   # Windows
  --icon=path/to/icon.icns  # macOS

• Embed everything into a polished .app or installer (see below).

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✅ That's it! 🎉

You now have a cross-platform, standalone drag-and-drop renderer for Blender.

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💡 Bonus: Build a Polished Installer

macOS:

• Use create-dmg to generate a .dmg drag-and-drop installer.
• For system-wide installations, create a .pkg using pkgbuild or Packages app.

Windows:

• Use Inno Setup to create a wizard-style .exe installer.
• Alternatively, use WiX Toolset to generate a .msi installer.

Let us know if you want help generating those configurations!

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🧯 Troubleshooting

• If you encounter permission issues on macOS:

  chmod +x dist/BlenderRenderGui

• If the app doesn’t open:
  • Make sure Blender’s path is correctly set via the app's Setup menu.
  • Use a terminal to launch the executable and view logs.

PyInstaller Packaging Issues

If the executable can't find the render script when packaged with PyInstaller:

• Create a .spec file for better control:

  pyi-makespec --onefile --windowed BlenderRenderGui.py

• Edit the BlenderRenderGui.spec file and modify the datas list to include the render script:

  datas=[
      ('render_script.py', '.'),
      ('config.json', '.') # Include if you have a default config
  ],

• Then build using the spec file:

  pyinstaller --clean BlenderRenderGui.spec

• To include additional assets, use:

  pyinstaller --add-data "relative/path/to/file:destination" ...