Setup Blender Extensions

Update Extensions

To learn how to update the core Blender Studio Extensions, see the Update Blender Studio Extensions guide.

Modify Update Extensions Script

Users can modify the update_extensions.py script to include external extensions not managed by Blender Studio.

Example

# Append the following lines to the end of the `update_extensions.py` script.
download_file(
   "https://projects.blender.org/Mets/CloudRig/archive/master.zip",
   download_folder_path,
   "CloudRig.zip",
)

Automatically Installing Extensions

A helper script is provided to easily generate a sha256sum for a given add-on and place it in the correct directory.

cd  ~/data/your_project_name/svn/tools
python deploy_custom_addon.py

You will be prompted to provide the path to the custom add-on you want to deploy. Once your file is verified to exist and is a .zip file, it will be copied to the shared/artifacts/extensions folder for distribution.

Manually Installing Extensions

To manually install extensions without using any scripts, simply drop the .zip file and the sha256 file of the extension into the project's shared/artifacts/extensions folder. If the zip doesn't already have a sha256 file, you can generate it yourself with the sha256sum program. For example, on Linux you can generate it like this:

sha256sum my_test_extension.zip > my_test_extension.zip.sha256

Removing Extensions

To remove extensions you are no longer using, remove both the extension's zip file and sha256 file from the project's shared/artifacts/extensions folder. The next time you run the run_blender.py script, it will remove the extension locally.

Package Blender Studio Extensions from Source

Blender extensions can be packaged directly from the Blender Studio Pipeline repository. Personal add-ons/extensions can be installed normally.

1. Enter Directory

cd ~/data/blender-studio-tools/scripts/pipeline-release # Linux/Mac

cd %HOMEPATH%\data\blender-studio-tools\scripts\pipeline-release # Windows

2. Update Git

# Windows & Linux/Mac
git checkout main # Checkout main branch
git reset --hard # Remove any changes stored in your branch
git pull --rebase origin # Pull to update to latest commit

3. Run Package Local Script

./pipeline_release.py --local # Linux/Mac

python pipeline_release.py --local # Windows

4. Copy Output to Artifacts Copy the output to ~/data/your_project_name/shared/artifacts/extensions/ to distrubte the add-ons to your project.

Gentoo Users

Flamenco is installed and updated by the package manager of your Gentoo workstation. To learn more see Update Local Add-Ons in the Gentoo section.