Blender 2.7 MacOS console error

Question

I'm using Blender 2.7 on my mac (OS 10.9.2) and the console won't properly open. If I open blender.app/Contents/MacOS/blender, I get a new terminal window, but it's full of a mix of legible and illegible characters such as "œ˙Ì˛Ä&àÖÄH__PAGEZERO__TEXTÃÃ". No print statements or errors will log there from Blender, either.

Anyone know what's going on?

Thanks!

Edit: I'm also new to terminal and was trying to use "open blender" from the /Contents/MacOS directory :P. If you type "./blender" from the parent directory, it works just fine.

If anyone could shed some light on what's happening or what the difference between typing "./filename" and "open filename" is, that would be awesome.

Answer 1

Blender has various resources it needs to run that are located in the same folder as the binary, it starts with the current working directory to find them when you start blender.

In the terminal you are typing commands, there is a sequence (defined in the PATH variable) to where the command is searched for, prefixing the command with ./ is saying to run the command in the current working directory instead of searching through the PATH list for it.

The command open is meant to open editable files in a suitable editor, it would appear that it gets the idea that it can be handled with the terminal, except the new terminal will start in your home directory leaving blender unable to find it's resources. It's been a few years since I used OSX but it may also be trying to run the blender binary as a shell script. Either way open doesn't handle runnable binaries and isn't designed to.

So the difference is that open blender is like saying that you want to edit the file, but ./blender is actually running an application from the command line.

You may also find it fairly easy to create an applescript that tells the terminal to change the working directory and start blender. This can easily be saved as an application you can start from the finder. Which I think would be (untested) -

tell application "Terminal"
 do script "cd /Applications/blender/blender.app/Contents/MacOS && ./blender"
end tell

And if all you want is the python output when you run your scripts you may want to try the script here - it lets you run a script in blender's python console to catch the output.

When you want blender specific help with python scripting ask at blender.stackexchange

Answer 2

Sorry if this answer isn't quite to your question, but having to do with the subject:

listen up all mac users, here is something for you:

with my own "getting annoyed" experience and help from the idea of this guy (sambler) I made a simple app for the purpose of opening blender with terminal.

---Please try it, it is easy to install and super handy---

here is the application, if you want it and here...

..is how to use it:

1. Navigate yourself to blender.app with finder.

2. Right click on blender and select "Show Package contents".

3. Download the app and unzip it.

4. Drag the app into blender's "Contents" folder.

5. Drag the app to dock and open for the first time.

6. (optional) Dance around the room and sing about how fortunate you are to have such an app.

Alternatively here is the applescript source: (currently, with plenty of helpful comments)

set myPath to ((path to current application) as string) --find the path to blenderOpen.app
set myPath to ((characters 1 through ((length of myPath) - 1) of myPath) as string) --rip off the last ":"
set charDelete to (last character of myPath) -- rip off the "blenderOpen.app"
repeat until charDelete = ":" -- rip off the "blenderOpen.app"
    set myPath to ((characters 1 through ((length of myPath) - 1) of myPath) as string) -- rip off the "blenderOpen.app"
    set charDelete to (last character of myPath) -- rip off the "blenderOpen.app"
end repeat
set myPath to myPath & "MacOS" --find the blender runtime by appending this path

set myPath to quoted form of the POSIX path of myPath -- convert path so terminal understands
(*
why this little if statement down below?
This if statement is here because if a user
opens terminal and runs some command,
then afterwards runs our script,
we want to use a new window so as not
to interfere with the user.
However, if WE open terminal,
than we want to use the window 
that terminal just made for us.
*)

if testterminal() then
    tell application "Terminal" to do script "cd " & myPath & " && ./blender" -- tell terminal to open new window, and open blender, Voila!!!
else
    tell application "Terminal" to tell front window to do script "cd " & myPath & " && ./blender" -- tell terminal to open blender, in the current window, Voila!!!
end if


return myPath
on testterminal()
    tell application "System Events" to (name of processes) contains "Terminal"
end testterminal