Blender add-on

The add-on panel

Every section of the sidebar panel, top to bottom, and what each control does.

The same panel appears in two places by default: the 3D viewport sidebar (press N, tab blender.farm) and Properties > Render. It changes shape depending on what is going on, this is the full set.

Account

Your email and current credit balance. The balance refreshes when you connect and after a job. To disconnect, go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > blender.farm Render, the same place you connected from.

The four steps

Setup is split into the same four numbered steps as the browser, in the same order: 1 Scene, 2 Files, 3 Add-ons, 4 Render. Click a number to jump, or use the arrows at the bottom. Nothing is locked behind a wizard, and the launch button on step 4 does its own checking.

The line under the tabs names the step you are on and links to the page explaining it. Anything needing attention on another step, such as a file that could not be found, shows as a red row you can click to jump straight there.

Step 1: Scene

The saved .blend's name and size, then one block per scene in the file. A single-scene file just shows its settings. See Rendering several scenes for what a multi-scene job does.

The tickboxmulti-scene only: Whether this scene is part of the job. Only the scene the file opens on is ticked to start with, so uploading a multi-scene file never quietly costs several renders. All / None / Just the first are above the list.
Engine: Read from the scene. Cycles and EEVEE are supported.
Frames (Start / End)editable: Seeded from that scene's own frame range and re-synced every time you open a file. Type your own values to render a subset. The frame count is shown underneath, and the file's own range appears below it once you change anything.
Resolutioneditable: A percentage of the scene's resolution, so you can render a half-size test without editing the file. The resulting pixel size is shown underneath.
Samples: Cycles samples, or EEVEE render samples. Informational; change it in Blender's render properties.
Outputeditable: What this scene comes back as. Defaults to Same as the .blend, which follows the file's own output settings however you change them later. Pick a format to override it for this job only. See Output format.
Reset to the file: Appears only once something differs from the file, and puts that scene's range, resolution and format back.

The fields follow the fileOpening a .blend reloads every scene's range, resolution and format from that file, and re-ticks only the scene it opens on. An override lasts for the session but is replaced the next time a file is opened, which is exactly when the panel should follow the file rather than your last edit.

Step 2: Files

Scan asks Blender for every external file the render needs. Found files are ticked with their size; sequences collapse to one line with a pattern and file count.

On a file with several scenes the list is grouped by which scene needs what, and a file used by more than one gets its own group. Files only a scene you did not tick uses are counted separately as skipped, and are never uploaded. Tick that scene in step 1 to bring them back.

Anything missing is shown in red with a Locate button. Point it at the real file (or, for volume and cache entries, the folder), and the relocation is remembered across re-scans so the upload uses your corrected path.

Missing files block the launchIf a file one of your selected scenes needs is not on disk, the add-on refuses to submit. Blender renders perfectly happily without a cache or a texture, so the result comes back looking finished with those parts simply absent, and you have paid for it. Relink them, or tick Render without them under the list to go ahead deliberately. Files belonging only to scenes you are not rendering never block anything.

Where is this used?

The magnifier button on any row, found or missing, answers the question a filename alone cannot: what is still pointing at this file. It asks Blender for its own reference map and traces the route, so you get chains like Image "wood.png" to Material "Table" to Object "Table" to Scene "Main", along with every scene the file reaches and a button that selects the objects using it.

This is what tells you whether a missing file is worth hunting for. A texture reaching a scene you are rendering matters; one reaching only a material nothing uses any more is a leftover, and the popup says which of the two you have.

It will not guessOn a file too large to trace fully, or a datablock deleted since the last scan, the popup says it could not tell rather than reporting the file as unused. Same rule as everywhere else in the add-on: over-uploading costs bandwidth, under-uploading costs a render.

Packed files are not dependenciesThe add-on packs images, fonts and sounds into the .blend before uploading, so they travel inside the file itself and never appear in this list. What stays external, and what the per-scene split therefore saves, is linked .blend libraries, Alembic and USD caches, and VDB volume sequences.

Step 3: Add-ons and colour

Every non-built-in add-on you have enabled, each with a checkbox. Ticked add-ons are zipped and installed on the render machine so the scene renders the way it does locally.

Add-ons your file does not use are unticked for you. Most enabled add-ons are modelling tools: they change geometry when you click them and do nothing at all while the render runs, so there is no reason to install them. The add-on works out which ones matter by asking your scene rather than guessing, and a tick appears next to any it found a reason for. Hover a row to read that reason.

All: Upload everything you have enabled. The old behaviour, and the safe fallback if a render comes out wrong.
None: Upload nothing. For a scene you know is plain Blender.
Needed: Only the ones with a proven reason: your file uses their nodes, they run code during renders, or a driver calls them.

It will not quietly get this wrongAnything the add-on cannot classify stays ticked rather than being dropped. And if an add-on really was needed, the render machine notices that a node type failed to register and stops before rendering, rather than handing you an image with flat grey where a material should be.

Underneath, which OCIO config the scene is using. On Blender's bundled config there is nothing to do. On a custom config, the file name is shown along with a default-on Upload OCIO config checkbox, so matching colours needs no action, only an opt-out.

Step 4: Render

Files: How many files and how many bytes the job will send, updated after a scan, with any skipped by your scene selection counted separately.
Scenes and Frames: How many scenes are ticked and the total frame count across all of them. With more than one scene ticked, each is listed with its range and format.
Skip re-uploading unchanged fileson by default: Fingerprints each file and reuses anything you have uploaded before, from either the add-on or the browser. See Step 4: Upload and launch.

What it will cost

Estimate works out roughly what the job will cost before you send anything. It reads your scene settings and geometry; it does not render, upload, or spend a credit to do it.

You get a likely figure and a range. The range is the honest part. Cycles decides how many samples each pixel actually needs while it renders, which is not knowable from the outside, so plan for the top of the range rather than the middle. EEVEE uses exactly the sample count you set and predicts a good deal better.

An estimate, not a quoteYou are billed for the time the render actually takes, never for the estimate. Treat it as a guardrail against a nasty surprise rather than a price: it is there to catch the job that costs forty credits when you expected four.

It also checks the scene against the render card's memory, which is the part worth reading carefully. Going over is a heavy slowdown on Cycles, and on EEVEE it usually means the render fails outright rather than running slowly. Warnings about volumetrics, motion blur steps and your credit balance appear here too.

Anything under five minutes costs the same 0.25 credits whatever the estimate says, so a short job needs no thought. See Credits and billing.

The launch button stays disabled until the file is saved, at least one scene is ticked, and the total frame count is inside the per-job limit. The reason is printed just above it.

Preferences

Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > blender.farm Render holds the connection state and Panel location, which is set to both places to begin with. Pick a single one if the second is in your way.

The server address lives under Advanced and has one correct value for everybody; it exists for pointing a development build at a non-production dashboard. If it is ever set to anything else, the preferences page says so in red and offers a one-click reset, whether or not that section is folded open.