# Core concepts

> Understand how organizations, projects, jobs, frames, and credits fit together in Superluminal.

- Canonical HTML: https://superlumin.al/docs/concepts
- Markdown endpoint: https://superlumin.al/docs/concepts.md
- Structured page data: https://superlumin.al/docs/concepts.json
- Last updated: 2026-08-04
- Author: Superluminal Engineering

## Related Superluminal Research

- [Blender render farm](https://superlumin.al/blender-render-farm): A Blender render farm assigns animation frames to many computers. Learn how nodes share work, what each node needs, and why submission starts inside Blender.
- [Blender render farm pricing](https://superlumin.al/pricing): Superluminal charges for GPU time used by completed frames. The current rate curve, billing formula, and 12 benchmark charges are public.
- [How Superluminal is so fast](https://superlumin.al/how-superluminal-is-so-fast): Benchmark results show how Superluminal removes delays through its Persistence Engine, concurrent output work, streaming delivery, and farm scheduler.

## Complete documentation

These docs use a small set of terms. Each section below defines one and links to the guide with more detail.

## Organization

An organization is the account boundary for projects, render capacity, credits, billing settings, and collaborators. Check the [active organization](/docs/web-ui/account#organization-context) before buying credits or submitting work.

## Project

A project groups related render jobs and supplies the isolated remote file area used by **PROJECT** uploads. When you reuse a project, later submissions skip files that did not change.

### Organization is not a project

The organization owns the balance and capacity. A project organizes production data and jobs inside that organization.

## Submission and job

A submission is the preparation work that runs on your computer: trace dependencies, package files or compare them with earlier uploads, upload data, and register a render job. It runs in [its own terminal window](/docs/blender-addon/submission-terminal). The job becomes visible only after those steps succeed.

A render job records the scene settings and frame work sent to Superluminal. It can be queued, running, blocked for funds, paused, errored, or finished. A job contains one or more frame tasks.

## Frame task

Each requested frame is a task. Frames can progress independently across render machines. The [web job page](/docs/web-ui/job-details) combines task state with previews, render layers, logs, machine assignment, and timing data.

## Upload mode

### ZIP

Creates a self-contained archive for the submission. It is the default and the safest choice for a first render, assets outside a clean project root, or files spread across drives. The add-on uploads the complete archive again for each new submission.

### PROJECT

Uses a project root and uploads files individually. Later jobs can reuse unchanged remote files. All dependencies must map beneath the project root. The trace can exclude absolute or cross-drive paths.

## Render output and previews

The web app shows optimized previews for fast review. Previews are not substitutes for the full-quality files. You download final output through the add-on's [Manage & Download](/docs/blender-addon/manage-and-download) section, and the farm [keeps render objects for seven days](/docs/web-ui/outputs#seven-day-render-object-retention).

## Credits and capacity

Credits pay for render compute. [Render capacity](/docs/web-ui/billing#render-capacity) controls how much work can run in parallel. Billing charges for successful render work at the pricing shown in the app. Keep the balance positive: when it reaches zero, the farm can stop machines that are still rendering.

- [Projects](/docs/web-ui/projects): Create, rename, open, and delete project containers.
- [Upload settings](/docs/blender-addon/upload-settings): Pick a packaging model that matches the scene's file layout.
- [Job details](/docs/web-ui/job-details): Read frame, preview, machine, timing, chart, and log panels.
- [Billing](/docs/web-ui/billing): Add credits and configure organization-scoped billing.