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Installing and Using MuJoCo¶

MuJoCo is a free and open source physics engine that aims to facilitate research and development in robotics, biomechanics, graphics and animation, and other areas where fast and accurate simulation is needed.

You can learn about MuJoCo here: https://mujoco.org.

You’ll first have to install the MuJoCo binaries.

Install the MuJoCo Binaries¶

First, install MuJoCo itself somewhere in your home directory. This is as simple as downloading the MuJoCo binaries, which can be found on their web page. For the release that you want, select the file that ends with “linux-x86_64.tar.gz”, for example for 2.3.0 select mujoco-2.3.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz. Right click, and copy the link address. Then you can download on one of the login nodes with the “wget” command, and untar:

wget https://github.com/deepmind/mujoco/releases/download/2.3.0/mujoco-2.3.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
tar -xzf mujoco-2.3.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

In order for mujoco-py to find the MuJoCo binaries, set the following paths:

export MUJOCO_PY_MUJOCO_PATH=$HOME/path/to/mujoco-2.3.0/
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$MUJOCO_PY_MUJOCO_PATH/bin

Install Mujoco-Py¶

First, make sure the MUJOCO_PY_MUJOCO_PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables are set pointing to your mujoco installation. You can use the “echo” command to do this:

echo MUJOCO_PY_MUJOCO_PATH
echo LD_LIBRARY_PATH

If any of these are not set properly you can set them as described above (see here for MUJOCO_PY_MUJOCO_PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH).

Next load either a Python or Anaconda module. In this example I loaded the miniforge module (run module avail miniforge to see the current list of available Anaconda modules):

module load miniforge

From here on you can follow the standard instructions to install mujoco-py, using the --user flag where appropriate to install in your home directory, or install in an anaconda or virtual environment (do not use the --user flag if you want to install in a conda or virtual environment). Here I am installing in my home directory with --user:

pip install --user 'mujoco-py<2.2,>=2.1'

Start up python and import mujoco_py to complete the build process:

import mujoco_py

If you’d like you can run the few example lines listed on install section of the mujoco-py github page to verify the install went through properly:

import mujoco_py
import os

mj_path = mujoco_py.utils.discover_mujoco()
xml_path = os.path.join(mj_path, 'model', 'humanoid.xml')
model = mujoco_py.load_model_from_path(xml_path)
sim = mujoco_py.MjSim(model)

print(sim.data.qpos)
sim.step()
print(sim.data.qpos)

Using MuJoCo in a Job¶

To use MuJoCo you’ll need to first load the same Python or Anaconda module you used to install mujoco-py. If you installed it into a conda environment or python virtual environment, load that environment as well. We recommend you do this in your job submission script rather than in your .bashrc or at the command line before you submit the job. This way you know your job is configured properly every time it runs.

You can use the following test scripts to test your MuJoCo setup in a job environment, and as a starting point for your own job:

mujoco_test.py

import mujoco_py
import os

mj_path = mujoco_py.utils.discover_mujoco()
xml_path = os.path.join(mj_path, 'model', 'humanoid.xml')
model = mujoco_py.load_model_from_path(xml_path)
sim = mujoco_py.MjSim(model)

print(sim.data.qpos)
sim.step()
print(sim.data.qpos)

submit_test.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Load the same python/anaconda module you used to install mujoco-py
module load python/3.8.3

# Run the script
python mujoco_test.py