Windows 10 Setup

Installation requirements

1. Install Python 3.9 64-bit. IMPORTANT: make sure you Add Python 3.9 to PATH! After that rebooting your computer would be the best.

WARNING: Don't use Python 3.8, PySide2 have a known bug with 3.8. Also don't use 32-bit Python.

2. Start CMD in Administrator mode and type these commands:

python -m pip install pybind11 numpy PySide2

(Fun fact: you will be redirected to Microsoft Store if python is not added to PATH properly :) Make sure it starts to downloading and installing successfully without ERROR (warnings are OK though).

If you got ERROR: Could not install packages due to an EnvironmentError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'c:\\python38\\Lib\\site-packages\\PySide2\\Qt5\\bin\\d3dcompiler_47.dll'': Quit anti-virus softwares (e.g. 360), they probably prevent pip from copying DLL files.

If you got ImportError: DLL load failed while importing QtGui: Try install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable.

3. Install Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition or later version (for C++17 support in MSVC).

4. (Optional) Install other dependencies via vcpkg:

git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git --depth=1
cd vcpkg

@rem (Optional) integrate vcpkg into your VS2019 if necessary:
vcpkg integrate install

@rem (Optional) Install OpenVDB for the extension ZenVDB & FastFLIP:
vcpkg install openvdb:x64-windows

@rem (Optional) Install Eigen3 for the extension FastFLIP:
vcpkg install eigen3:x64-windows

@rem (Optional) Install CGAL for the extension CGMesh:
vcpkg install cgal:x64-windows

@rem (Optional) Install OpenBLAS for the extension CGMesh:
vcpkg install openblas:x64-windows

@rem (Optional) Install LAPACK for the extension CGMesh:
vcpkg install lapack:x64-windows

Notice that you may need to install the English Pack for VS2019 for vcpkg to work.

For Chinese users, you may also need to follow the instruction in this zhihu post to switch to domestic source for faster download.

See also their official guide for other issues.

Build ZENO

1. Minimal build:

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

@rem Use this if you are using vcpkg:
@rem cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=[path to vcpkg]/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake

Then open build/zeno.sln in Visual Studio 2019, and switch to Release mode in build configurations, then run build -> build all (Ctrl+Shift+B).

2. (Optional) Enable OpenVDB support:

cmake -B build -DEXTENSION_FastFLIP:BOOL=ON -DEXTENSION_zenvdb:BOOL=ON -DZENOFX_ENABLE_OPENVDB:BOOL=ON

Then goto VS2019 and run build -> build all again.

IMPORTANT: In MSVC, Release mode must always be active when building ZENO, since MSVC uses different allocators in Release and Debug mode. If a DLL of Release mode and a DLL in Debug mode are linked together in Windows, it will crash when passing STL objects.

Run ZENO for development

python run.py

If you got:

This application failed to start because it could not find or load the Qt platform plugin "xxx"

Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

Are you using Anaconda? Please try using the methods in: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41994485/how-to-fix-could-not-find-or-load-the-qt-platform-plugin-windows-while-using-m

If you got:

ImportError: DLL load failed while importing shiboken2

Don't use Python 3.8, it's a PySide2 bug, use Python 3.9 (or even 3.6) instead. See also this post.