Step 3: Add-ons and colour

Which add-ons your scene needs at render time, how to get them onto the machine, and how to ship a custom OCIO config.

The render machine runs stock Blender. Anything else your scene needs at render time has to be sent with it. This step tells you what we detected in the file and lets you add what is needed.

Detected add-ons

Parsing the .blend turns up custom properties left behind by add-ons. Each detection carries two labels:

Confidence

certain means a property unique to that add-on was found. likely means the name strongly suggests it. possible means custom data was found that we could not attribute to anything known.

Render impact

needed at render means the output depends on the add-on running (shader nodes, drivers, a simulator, an exposure pipeline), so without it the render fails or looks wrong. creation-only means it helped build the scene but does nothing at render time, so you can ignore it. render impact unclear means it depends on how the add-on was used in this specific scene.

Detection is a hint, not a verdict. It reads what was left in the file, so an add-on used only through geometry that has since been applied may still show up, and an add-on that leaves no trace may not.

Installing an add-on on the render machine

From the catalogue

Common render-time add-ons we already host. Pick one and it is installed on the machine, no upload from you. Entries declare which Blender versions they support and are flagged if your file's version is outside that range.

Upload your own .zip

Any add-on, exactly as you would install it in Blender. The zip is checked in your browser before upload: it must contain a real add-on (an __init__.py with bl_info, or a blender_manifest.toml extension), and you get a clear error rather than a broken render if it does not.

Reuse a recent upload

Add-on zips you have uploaded before are offered on later jobs and are not re-uploaded. Manage them from the same picker.

Colour management (OCIO)

If your scene uses Blender's built-in colour management, there is nothing to do here. If you point Blender at a custom OCIO configuration (AgX variants, OpenDRT, ACES, camera log spaces), the render machine needs the same config or your colours will not match.

Upload it as a .zip containing your config.ocio plus its LUTs. The zip is validated in your browser first, and the config path it found is shown. On the machine the zip is extracted and OCIO is pointed at it before Blender starts, so every colour space and view transform you declared is available.

• One config per render. Blender only honours a single OCIO environment variable.
• Configs you have uploaded before can be reused without re-uploading.
• The add-on detects a custom config automatically and uploads it with a single opt-out checkbox.