Blender Addons - How To Pick And Install The Best Ones? (2024)

Blender addons are secondary scripts created by the Blender community to improve or extend some of the official Blender functionalities.

It might often happen that during your project development you are missing some crucial options that would make your work much, much easier.

Chances are, someone before you already had this issue and came up with an idea to create a Blender addon to make the work easier for folks like you in the future.

Some of the plugins available on the market are free and sometimes included in Blender itself (they just need to be enabled), while the others are paid. A standard price for a plugin is around $80, but everything depends on the complexity of the plugin.

How to install Blender add-ons

If you want to use one of the built-in Blender add-ons, you can simply enable it in the Add-ons section in the Blender.

To install a third-party Blender add-on, you have to:

  1. Download the add-on to your desktop device
  2. Go to the Add-ons section in the Blender preferences

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  1. Click Install button

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  1. Pick the add-on using the File Browser

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  1. Enable the add-on from the 'Add-ons' section level

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This should do the job. As mentioned, Blender comes with a set of pre-installed add-ons you will find in the add-ons menu. For those, all you have to do is to enable them.

Lists of Blender add-ons

Blender-addons.org

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A great list of Blender add-ons can be found on blender-addons.org.

They are neatly ordered in separate categories to help you easily find the necessary tools for the job.

A good tagging system enables fast browsing and picking only the plugins that are free or paid.

Free Blender Add-ons

Here you have a List of the top 10 free blender plugins! Enjoy!

Add-onUsaeg
Bool toolA simple add-on that adds shortcuts for creating booleans.
Node wranglerIt add a lot of handy shortcuts that can be used to quickly make common node connections or add common node combinations.
EasyFXIt adds an interface in the image editor with traditional UI elements. We can enable and disable different effects and adjust them from this separate UI.
Animation nodesIt is a node system that allows you to create all sorts of motion graphics in Blender.
F2It allows to fill with less geometry selected and it uses mouse position to determine the direction to fill.
Amaranth toolsetSimply, it is a collection of features that makes life easier in many areas of Blender.
UV SquaresIt takes selection in the UV editor and creates square faces that are correctly aligned.
Power sequencerIt has a lot of extra editing tools and shortcuts that make video editing much easier in Blender. For example, concatenate strips and align audio.
Camera ManagerIt helps to manage multiple cameras in the same scene and render them after one another in one go.
MB-LabsIt creates characters models.

Blender Market

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This website is very similar to Blender-addons.org but with a quite different search mechanism.

You can filter out the add-ons with price, license type and user rating.

The cool thing about Blender Market is that most of the purchases you make will be contributed to the Blender community - helping the people behind Blender hire new developers and build new functionalities. It's w win-win situation.

Conclusion

Blender add-ons can help you in your day-to-day work or solve a specific project challenge for you. Chances are, most of the issues you will face we're already solved with add-on!

This article is here to help you in installing those add-ons and picking the best ones for your project.

In case you think something is missing, let us know in the comments!

Keep it always accessible for everyone

Those drives can be shared between your Renderro Cloud Desktops, allowing instant access to all your work, for all your team members.

With team resources management, you are always in control of the access and permissions to all Renderro resources.

Work on powerful Cloud Desktop

Moving your work to Renderro Cloud Workplace means access to incredibly fast Cloud Desktops that can run any software you would normally run on Windows 10 machines.

You can switch between computers at any time with a single click to adjust the power to the task at hand.

Blender Addons - How To Pick And Install The Best Ones? (2024)

FAQs

How do I install Blender Add-ons? ›

Open the Preferences ‣ Add-ons ‣ Install… and select the file. Now the add-on will be listed and you can enable it by pressing the checkbox, if you want it to be enabled on restart, press Save as Default.

How do I manage Add-ons in Blender? ›

The Add-ons section lets you manage secondary scripts, called “Add-ons” that extends Blender's functionality. In this section you can search, install, enable and disable Add-ons.

Where can I get Blender Add-ons? ›

If you have a full Blender checkout, you can go into the release/scripts/addons or release/scripts/addons_contrib directory, and it's as if you are working in the Blender Add-ons or Blender Add-ons Contrib repositories directly.

What is the best Blender addon for rigging? ›

Auto-Rig Pro is a comprehensive solution for rigging and animating your 3D models in Blender. This powerful addon simplifies the rigging process by automating complex tasks, enabling you to create advanced, customizable rigs in mere minutes.

How do you save selected in Blender addon? ›

Add-on functionality

To save the necessary objects into a separate *. blend file, just select them, and in the main menu choose “File – Export – Save Selected”. And specify the location of the file to save. The selected objects will be saved to the specified file.

Can you sell Blender Add-ons? ›

Sharing or selling Blender add-ons (Python scripts)

You are free to sell such scripts, but the sales then is restricted to the download service itself. Your customers will receive the script under the same license (GPL), with the same free conditions as everyone has for Blender.

Is Blender kit addon free? ›

BlenderKit community provides you everything needed to create beautiful 3D artworks. Download models, materials, HDRs, scenes and brushes directly in Blender. Support our creators by buying Full Plan or enjoy BlenderKit for free.

How do I add custom models to Blender? ›

Use Blender's file navigator panel to find your file, and click on its name. Click the Import button. It's the blue button in the lower-right corner of the Blender navigation window. This will instantly import and open the selected file in Blender.

How to add textures in Blender? ›

In the Shader editor, either click “Add” on the header or use the keyboard shortcut “Shift + A”. Hover over “Texture”, then select “Image Texture” as you see in the screenshot above. The Image Texture node will appear as a panel. Drop the Image Texture node in the Shader editor.

What professionals use Blender? ›

Many artists and studios use Blender in their workflow for various works, VFX, commercials, modeling, 3D printing, and even entire movies like I lost my body, an OSCAR nominee, made entirely with the grease pencil.

What is rigged in Blender? ›

Rigging is a general term used for adding controls to objects, typically for the purpose of animation. Rigging often involves using one or more of the following features: Armatures. This allows mesh objects to have flexible joints and is often used for skeletal animation.

What softwares are best for rigging? ›

There are many software options for 3D rigging and skinning, but some of the most popular and widely used are Autodesk Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D, and 3ds Max. Each of these programs has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on your budget, preferences, and project requirements.

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