
----------------------BLENDER FOR FREEBSD-----------------------------------

INSTALLATION

Prerequisites
=============

	* Minimal pc configuration:
	  PC with 32MB, 16bpp capable video card, 90Mhz Pentium

	* FreeBSD Version 2.2.6-RELEASE
  	  =============================
	  
	  Other versions may work, but have not been tested

	* XFree86 3.3.x
	  =============
	  
	  Again, other versions may work, but have not been tested
	  
	* Mesa 3.0
	  ========	  
	  
	  If you don't have Mesa-3.0, get it from the packages collection
	  ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/packages-2.2.6/All/Mesa-3.0.tgz
	  
	  After you have fetched the library type the following commands (as root):
	  
	  pkg_add Mesa-3.0.tgz

	* Mesa 3.0
	  ========	  

	  Or compile it yourself: get the tar.gz at ftp://iris.ssec.wisc.edu/pub/Mesa/beta/

1. Uncompress

Move to the directory in which the blender installation directory should be
created. Now type:

	tar zxvf blenderBSD_1.30.tar.gz

Now a directory 'blenderBSD_1.30' has been created.
It contains the executable and the primary files to start with.


2. Add environment variables

To be able to find it's data files, Blender needs an environment variable that
will point to it's installation directory.

	For the csh use:
	
	  setenv BLENDERDIR name_of_directory

	For sh:

	  export BLENDERDIR=name_of_directory

The name_of_directory has to be the FULL path, starting with '/'.

Further environment variable syntax will be of the csh, substitute the sh syntax
if appropriate for your shell.

You may want to enter this into your .cshrc or .login (or .profile) file, so it
is automatically set when you login. The executable itself can be copied
to any location.

3. Mesa installation

If you don't have the Mesa package installed, make sure that the 
shared library version has version number 13.6, if it doesn't 
(the default target for the Mesa make process makes version 
number 2.6), link your existing libraries as follows:

	ln -s libMesaGL.so.3.0 libMesaGL.so.13.6
	ln -s libMesaGLU.so.3.0 libMesaGLU.so.13.6

and then run 'ldconfig -m /your_library_path_for_Mesa'

Experiment with these variables for speed, see also the Mesa documentation


	1. Turn off dithering, 
		setenv MESA_NO_DITHER
		
	2. Explicitely specify your visual
		setenv MESA_RGB_VISUAL "TrueColor 24"

	3. Choose a swapbuffer method, real 24 bit visual don't have
	   proper optimisation in Mesa, in that case the Ximage method
	   will be extremely slow, then choose the Pixmap method.
	   
		setenv MESA_BACK_BUFFER "Pixmap"
		setenv MESA_BACK_BUFFER "Ximage"

