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    "title": "Add-ons and dependencies",
    "description": "Prepare textures, linked scenes, caches, fonts, color data, and render-time Blender add-ons for remote rendering.",
    "section": "Blender add-on",
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      "Blender dependencies",
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      "include enabled addons",
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    "updated": "2026-08-04",
    "body": "Dependency tracing removes most manual packaging work. It cannot prove that every external tool, license, generated path, or cache works remotely. Always render one representative remote still as part of scene validation.\n\n## What to review\n\n- images, image sequences, and UDIM tiles\n- linked or appended `.blend` libraries\n- Alembic, USD, and OpenVDB references\n- simulation and geometry caches\n- fonts, LUTs, and custom color-management data\n- audio or footage that drives animation or compositing\n- file-output node paths and view layers\n- scripts, binaries, environment variables, and network resources\n- third-party add-ons that affect evaluation or rendering\n\nThis list names common dependency types. It is not a guarantee that every format or third-party integration works in every configuration.\n\n## Include Enabled Addons\n\nThe add-on lists the non-default Blender add-ons enabled in your local installation. Select only the ones the remote render needs. The submission worker packages the selected add-ons and installs them on the render nodes.\n\n![The Include Enabled Addons list with two production add-ons selected for the render nodes](https://superlumin.al/docs/images/blender/addon-include-addons.png)\n\n*Package only add-ons that affect evaluation or rendering on the remote node.*\n\n- [Annotation 1: Tick only render-required add-ons](/docs/blender-addon/addons-and-dependencies#include-enabled-addons)\n\nInclude an add-on when it changes something evaluated at render time, for example, generated geometry, animation, a renderer integration, camera behavior, or a required node type.\n\nDo not include an add-on that only changes modeling or interface workflow and leaves ordinary Blender data behind.\n\n### Licenses and native dependencies still apply\n\nPackaging Python add-on files does not transfer a commercial license, sign in to an external service, install an operating-system library, or make a platform-specific binary compatible. Verify the add-on's farm-use terms and runtime requirements.\n\n## Caches and generated assets\n\nBefore submission:\n\n1. Bake or export data that is expected to be static.\n2. Save the scene after the bake.\n3. Confirm Blender can reopen the file and find the cache from disk.\n4. For PROJECT, confirm the cache lives under the selected project root.\n5. Scrub or render a frame that actually reads the cached data.\n6. Submit that representative frame and compare full output.\n\nDo not assume that a packed `.blend` contains every cache. Blender packing behavior varies by asset type, and some external files stay separate by design.\n\n## Linked files and paths\n\nFor PROJECT, use paths that can be written relative to the common root. If the panel reports a dependency on another drive or outside the root, choose one of these fixes:\n\n- move it beneath the production root and relink it\n- create a project-local copy when licensing and workflow allow\n- widen the project root to include it, without sweeping in unrelated data\n- submit with ZIP\n\n## Validation recipe\n\n### Open cleanly\n\nRestart Blender or reopen the scene so cached in-memory data does not hide a missing file.\n\n### Check paths\n\nUse Blender's missing-file reporting and inspect warnings in **Upload Settings**.\n\n### Render locally\n\nRender the production view layer and a frame that exercises linked data, caches, and add-ons.\n\n### Submit one frame\n\nUse the same upload mode, Blender version, image format, and experimental settings planned for the animation.\n\n### Inspect remotely\n\nCheck the web preview and logs, then download the full frame and compare it with the local render.\n\n- [Upload mode](/docs/blender-addon/upload-settings): Choose path-tolerant ZIP or reusable PROJECT mapping.\n- [Frame errors](/docs/blender-addon/troubleshooting#render-and-frame-errors): Use logs and a reproducible local frame to isolate a dependency problem.",
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        "alt": "The Include Enabled Addons list with two production add-ons selected for the render nodes",
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        "id": "what-to-review",
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      {
        "path": "/addons",
        "title": "Add-ons on render nodes",
        "description": "Select the Blender add-ons that affect a render. Superluminal packages their files, uploads them with the project, and enables them on each render node."
      },
      {
        "path": "/dependencies",
        "title": "Blender project dependencies",
        "description": "Before upload, Superluminal checks textures, linked Blender files, UDIMs, sequences, caches, fonts, and other external inputs."
      },
      {
        "path": "/compatibility/render-engines",
        "title": "Blender render engine compatibility",
        "description": "Superluminal renders Cycles and EEVEE image sequences with Blender 4.0 through 5.2. Choose the farm version and output format before submission."
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