Introducing Blender Sync
- 30 Jun 2016
- 1 min read
Blender Cloud is growing into a reliable and powerful storage solution. It is our goal to improve the workflow with Blender and today we are taking our next step in this direction: introducing Blender Sync.
How does it work
Blender Sync is part of the Blender Cloud add-on and it allows users to synchronize their Blender Startup and User Preferences files across multiple workstations, via the Blender Cloud.
First activate the Blender ID add-on (built into Blender since 2.78), and log in using your Blender ID (don't have a Blender ID yet? Go get it!). Then download the Blender Cloud add-on, install, and activate it. If you installed a previous version of the add-ons they will be automatically upgraded. You need to restart Blender for the changes to take effect.
Now you can Save an Load your preferences and settings across devices. Multiple releases of Blender are supported.
> Note: Add-ons preferences are synced, but not the add-ons themselves. Other settings that do not intentionally get synced are: CUDA device settings, DPI and file paths in the User Preferences panel.
Blender Sync is Free
We are happy to provide this functionality for free to everyone! All you need is a Blender ID.
Coming soon: Image sharing
As we roll out this first release of Blender Sync, we are already extending its functionality. Soon it will be possible to take a screenshot or a render output within Blender, and upload it automatically on the Cloud so that it can be shared with anyone.
We hope you enjoy the new Blender Sync! Let us know in the comments if you have any questions or encounter any issue.
The Blender Cloud Team
54 comments
Looks promising and could be very useful. Unfortunately, it is broken in 4.0 and noone seems to care atm ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Just joined the Blender cloud and thought this addon would come in handy to load the provided textures etc. on the Blender cloud. Sadly the addon keeps saying I am logged out as I am clearly logged in on the site.... I can restart Blender or reinstall the addon as much as I like but the problem is persistent.
@Steffan Reefman Please get in touch with cloudsupport@blender.org and we will help you out.
I can't seem to logon, to you logon within Blender?
@Mark Tierney
Sadly this doesn't seem to save themes, installed add-ons, quick favorites and much else. Maybe this synchronization should be integrated to blender's installation package?
Hello! I'm just installed the addon, and when I try do save the Blender settings throws an error with "File startup.blend too big for upload. Subscribe for unlimited space". I've logged with my Blender ID and I'm subscribed to Blender Cloud for several years, so I don't know what to do, it seems that the addon don't recognize me as subscribed.
![[deleted]](/static/common/images/blank-profile-pic.05aafa6b130a.png "[deleted]")
@Jenny Lee Installing add-ons in Blender is a basic operation.
Edit> Preferences> Add-ons> Install
- Choose the zip file from the file browser, Click "Install Add-on".
Once the add-on is installed you will need to enable the add-on by ticking the box next to the name of the add-on.
If you require further assistance information is widely available: https://bfy.tw/OsN9
@Jenny Lee This is the same for any Blender add-on, and is explained in the Blender manual.
How do you install the add on?? It's just a zip file with source code crap
Why is the folder text on the screen very small when I use Blender Cloud Addon to download?
@bise.chen Please use the Report Bug feature in Blender (in the Help menu) to report this as an issue. Be sure to also include information about your screen resolution.
I'm new to Blender and downloaded 2.83 and so far its been very painful experience. I paid for Blender Cloud with the goal of learning this software the correct way from the bottom up with the goal of not forming any bad habits. I now want to destroy everything computer related (picture the movie Office Space and replace Printer with Blender). For example, I can't get the Cloud Sync to show up in my Add-on and the instructions are in a Readme file that I had to open in notepad ( the year 1993 is calling) . You need basic instructions that go from start to finish in plain English that doesn't assume you have been in the industry for 20 years. If I need to by a Python programmer before using Blender then just tell me that and not wast my time. Signed Meltdown 101
@Elwood Slim Hi Elwood, sorry to hear that. Maybe the tutorials at https://www.blender.org/support/tutorials/ are a good match for you? There are plenty of free tutorials out there to help you get started.
I'm trying to access, pressing "save 2.82 settings", and I get Unexpected error: "None Type", object is not subscript...
@srlake3d Poke Francesco or me on the #blender-cloud channel at https://blender.chat/. That's a better way to debug things like that.
I'm not sure where to report bugs with the add-on. In 2.8x fresh install, if you install the add-on (v1.14), authenticate, then sync with settings in the cloud, it tells you to close blender and re-open. But the settings aren't restored. (At least theme settings are not). However if I disable auto-save preferences, then it does work.
I think as part of settings restore, it needs to turn off preferences auto-save. Otherwise Blender will over-write what you just downloaded upon closing the settings Window.
@Ted Schundler Thanks for letting us know!
I think that the present page instructions are not correct. The "Blender Sync" Addon DOESN'T seem to work without installing the "Blender ID authentications" Addon first.
Please be more careful when you write instructions. For me the whole page is useless. PLEASE WRITE CORRECT INSTRUCTIONS!!!!!
@fotis mouselimis You don't need to install the Blender ID add-on, it's already bundled with Blender. Please write correct complaints.
I activated Cloud add-on. Then i tried it in new unsaved project. It said:must save project first. Then i accidentally double-clicked existing Blender-project and of course lost it because blender did not ask me about if i am sure to overwrite it... Luckily that project i lost didn't have any importance :-D
Hi community. After logging IN into Blender ID authentication and installing Blender Cloud last version, when I click the box to activate de Cloud add-on it gives me a "Report: Error" - https://imgur.com/29WbUt8 - Any idea on to go through it?
@mveigamarcos The add-on was updated yesterday, make sure you're using 1.13.5 or newer.
browsing textures ends up with an error message at level of folder content !
" An error occurred: Task <Task pending coro=<download_texture_thumbnail() running at C:......-- shortend path here ... \addons\blender_cloud\pillar.py:578> cb=[gather.<locals>._done_callback(3)() at D:\Programme\Blender\2.78\pathon\lib\asyncio\tasks.py:637]> got Future <Future pending> attached to a different loop "
Version 2.78c
@kit02: Please don't use this comment system for bug reports. Having said that, I know of this issue, and I'm fixing it right now. Expect version 1.7.1 soon.
@sybren: OK, thanks !
@kit02: You can email us at cloudsupport@blender.org, or write a bug report at https://developer.blender.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/default/
@sybren: Thanks for your answer and sorry for this to be the wrong place. But as I saw the other posts I guessed it is. Furthermore I was not sure about this to be a real bug. It may have been a known usage mistake. Where is the right place to post ?
I've downloaded zip folder, unzipped, opened Blender, clicked "user preferencers" ; "Add Ons" ; searched for "cloud" and sync add-on isn't on list. What do I do?
@whogg49: Did you install the add-on in Blender?
I'm very confused about the state of these add-ons. I just installed 2.78c and they don't seem to work at all. Do we need to reinstall these? Does the ID add-on that ships with 2.78c need to be replaced? Until recently the zip download included a new ID add-on and a cloud add-on. Now it appears to include only the cloud add-on. But trying to reinstall with 2.78c is causing errors upon activation. It looks like 2.78c might not include the Python requests package...
@ocheret: Hi! Maybe we should post an update.
- The Blender ID add-on comes built-in with Blender since 2.78, that's why we removed it from our download bundle.
- Python requests should come with Blender. Are you on OSX? I've asked the developers and it seems the requests package slipped through on OSX, Windows and Linux seem fine though. They're working on it.
Thanks for reporting!
@PabloVazquez: Also, thanks for the tip about the Blender ID add-on. I did find some place in the documentation that suggests downloading it yourself (long after 2.78 was out - I read it right after 2.78b came out). I think that's the source of the confusion. I'll see if I can find it.
And, yes, and update for 2.78c would be appreciated by those of us on Macs.
@PabloVazquez: I just built the code on OS X and the problem is there as well. I'm slowly learning my way around the source tree. I would fix it myself but I can't quite figure out why the directive that conditionally includes requests for MacOS might be wrong. Anyway, glad they've acknowledged the problem. I did report it as a bug earlier.
Hello, is it possible to synch 2.78 using 2.77 settings? I just tried and it didn't work. It worked for 2.78 test builds 1 and 2, but it's not working for 2.78 candidate release.
Well over being a habit, I clicked Save user settings before restarting, I just loaded the settings, restarted directly and it works fine, my bad, sorry.
@sybren: Thanks for your reply, I need to get more coffee :)
@georges.dahdouh: It's part of the compositor. In Cycles you can just use a mix node and toggle between values 0 and 1.
@sybren: Thanks for the clarification, BTW, off the topic, do you know if Switch Node in Cycles is gone? Renamed may be? It's not there anymore, and I don't remember reading about it in the release notes!
@georges.dahdouh: Glad that you figured it out. To give a bit more context: it works just like Blender configuration. If you save on 2.78 it'll save a new copy of your settings. You can also decide to load your 2.77 settings first, then save to the cloud for 2.78.
http://www.pasteall.org/pic/105200
i am getting this error,
@pratik solanki: Can you file a bug report at https://developer.blender.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/6/? Then we can investigate this properly. At least include the version of Blender you're using, whether you're building it yourself or not, and on which OS you're running it.
Wow!!!!!!
does it save which addons are on and which addons are off , ?
@pratik solanki: yes, it does!
I'm looking forward for more possibilities, sadly in this stage it is not helpful for me. I used to sync start and user pref files with symlink to cloud like Dropbox that worked great. With symlink I had synced all addons as well, that was my biggest issue to work on two devices before. In this stage I have two disadvantages:
- addons are not synced
- synced startup file is something that I don't want to sync, with a laptop I need to use different screen (layout) because of small display.
One question - do I have to sync each new blender version?
@Filip Mond: I also would like addons synced. But when I download an addon I always place it in Dropbox so I don't lose it. So if I have an error, I can easily install it.
I would also like an option to sync startup file or to not sync it. As you said, my Surface Pro has a different screen layout because of high DPI.
At any rate this will save me headaches going from home to work!
@Filip Mond: Selective syncing is coming to a future version of Blender Sync. For now we chose to keep things simple so that we could actually release. Of course we can think of loads of features to add, but IMO it's better to release early and see which features people actually want :)
@Brandon Ayers: from your answers it seems to me you'r using dropbox to manually copy files to dropbox and if needed you manually copy files from there. Point of "symlink" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link) is to create something similar to allias for folder. So once you create symlink you continue to work as usual. OS simply redirects all tasks from original folder to new one you creates on dropbox. For more info search for "How to create symlink" depends on your OS.
Thanks so much! I have been copying my preferences to DropBox! This will save me the confusion when a hotkey doesn't work, or a script isn't there. This is just the thing that I was hoping for today to transfer preferences from my Surface Pro to my Desktop. I'll just have to figure out how to do the UI scaling.
@Brandon Ayers: Yay!
I've been testing it myself with hotkeys and theme changes specially. I like to polish my workflow by updating some hotkeys or theme settings to get them just right, but it was always a pain to keep home/work in sync. Not anymore, with Blender Sync! :D <sup>(that's supposed to rhyme)</sup>
\o/ !!
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