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Install

Requirements

Blender 5.2 LTS or newer. Nothing else — the solver, the robot catalog and every file-format reader ship inside the add-on, and none of it is downloaded at runtime. Kinema asks for one permission, files, to read the robot descriptions and meshes you point it at.

Downloads are per-platform

Kinema bundles a compiled maths library, so there is a separate build for each operating system. Downloading the wrong one gives you an add-on that installs and then cannot solve. Check the filename before you drag it in.

Your machine File Size
Windows (Intel/AMD 64-bit) kinema-0.6.0-windows_x64.zip ~117 MB
Linux (Intel/AMD 64-bit) kinema-0.6.0-linux_x64.zip ~136 MB
macOS (Apple Silicon) kinema-0.6.0-macos_arm64.zip ~100 MB

Intel Macs are not currently built. If you need one, open an issue.

Install the extension

Download the zip for your platform from the releases page, then:

Drag the zip file from your file manager straight into the Blender window. Blender recognises an extension zip and opens its install dialog. Confirm, and you are done.

This is the fastest route and works on all three platforms.

  1. Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions
  2. Click the dropdown arrow at the top right → Install from Disk…
  3. Select kinema-0.6.0-windows_x64.zip
  4. Kinema appears in the add-on list, already enabled

Enable long paths first

The bundled maths library unpacks into very deeply nested folders. On a Windows profile without long-path support the install fails partway through with WinError 206. See Troubleshooting for the one-line fix.

  1. Blender → Settings → Get Extensions
  2. Click the dropdown arrow at the top right → Install from Disk…
  3. Select kinema-0.6.0-macos_arm64.zip
  4. Kinema appears in the add-on list, already enabled
  1. Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions
  2. Click the dropdown arrow at the top right → Install from Disk…
  3. Select kinema-0.6.0-linux_x64.zip
  4. Kinema appears in the add-on list, already enabled

Check it worked

Press N in the 3D viewport to open the sidebar. You should see a Kinema tab down the right-hand edge.

Open it, expand the Solver panel at the bottom, and look for:

✓ PyRoki ready

That is the full solver, loaded and ready.

If it says PyRoki unavailable with an error underneath, the add-on still works — it falls back to a simpler solver — but you are missing the good one. That usually means a platform mismatch in the download. See Solver unavailable.

The first solve pauses. Once.

The solver compiles itself the first time it runs on a given robot, which takes roughly 15 seconds behind a wait cursor. Every solve after that is a few milliseconds, and editing the tool or re-adding the IK target doesn't compile again. This is normal and is explained in why the first solve is slow.

Next

You have a working install. Now load a robot and pose it.