Blender rendering addons don’t just speed up your workflow, they add whole new features to Blender, including things otherwise not possible for your average creator, This list will give a quick overview of the top ten 2024 Rendering addons for Blender 3.6 and 4.0.
How do I Install Blender Addons?
Simply go to preferences, then go to the addon section and click the install button and look for the .zip file. Here is an article if you need any help.
1. Hand-Drawn Line Generator
$5
Hand-drawn line generator adds a lot of that is missing in the default Blender tool, it is a great addon for anyone working with NPR renders.
2. Compositor Pro
$5+
This addon helps you add composite effects like film grain, flares, and dispersion in a single click.
3. Post FX
free+
Post FX adds a ton of features to Blender’s compositing nodes, include advanced colorizing tools, lens distortions, flares and more.
4. Nvidia Omniverse
free
Omniverse is Nvidia’s new real-time ray tracing render engine, which using RTX allows you to render realtime.
5. Pidgeon Toolbag
free
PTB is the result of a merge from several VERY helpful addons including:
- Super Image Denoiser
- Super Fast Render (optimizes render settings)
- Ultra-high Resolution Render (by dividing renders into pieces)
- AI Image Upscale
6. Renderman
free+
As of January, 2024 Pixar’s render engine does not yet support Blender 4.0+, but they have promised compatibility is on the way!
7. Malt Render Engine
FREE
Malt is a developing realtime render engine that is VERY customizable.
8. Cam-FX
$27.90
Cam-FX is a lens dirt and bokeh addon that is perfect for getting that cinematic anamorphic lens look.
9. SimpleBake
$20+
Simple bake makes the entire process of baking textures in Blender (which has always been weirdly complicated) a breeze.
10. Toonkit for Cycles
$49.90
Toonkit is an advanced NPR addon for cycles, that works with many styles, and uses OSL to create fully customizable shaders.
11. Super Image Denoiser (Pidgeon Toolbag)
FREE
Super image denoiser is a denoiser addon, which works with Cycles, LuxCore, Octane and Renderman. It takes super grainy images and smooths them.
12. Flared – Lens Flares
$39+
Flared gives you realtime lens flares in both Eevee and cycles.
13. Uber Compositor
$9.94
This addon contains a collection of node groups for quickly colour-grading & adjusting renders. Among other features, it has anamorphic flares, film grain, and lens dirt options.
14. Wisp Fire Shader
$10
Wisp Fire Shader gives you a super fast way to make blender’s fire simulations look realistic. It is simple, straightforward way to customize and shade fire.
15. Pro-Lighting: Skies
$47+
Pro-Lighting: Skies gives you realtime customizable HDR-like skies to light up your scenes. While not compatible yet, the team is working on making this compatible with 4.0.
16. Render Manager Addon Renderset
$15+
Renderset is a render management addon which stores various still/animation render settings in one .blend file allowing to switch between them fast to fine-tune each separately and then also render & save them one by one. It remembers your camera settings, allows you to batch render, and saves your renders into their specific files. It also remembers object visibility, so you can iterate your scenes quickly!
17. Physical Starlight And Atmosphere
$70+
This addon which creates a sky background as well as taking care of most of your ambient lighting, allows you to customize the following:
- Variable Sun size and brightness
- Binary Sun (extra rotating sun)
- Procedural Atmosphere (adjust atmosphere density, height color, and more)
- Stars (procedural or HDRI options supported)
- Basic Clouds procedurally generated (adjust scale, thickness, coverage, lighting location, and more)
- Procedural ground plane with variable height
18. Chalk Style Pro
$12
Chalk Style Pro renders ambient occlusion wireframe images almost instantaneously.
19. Sheepit Renderfarm
FREE
Sheepit Renderfarm is a free Renderfarm, that works by making you earn “Credits” before you can upload your scenes to be rendered.
To gain Credits, you must use your software to help other render, by donating your GPU. This means that whenever you are not using your computer, you can simply turn it online and start getting Credits.
20. K-Cycles
$54
K-Cycles was built to bring Cycles to the next level. It features an amazing denoiser, bloom for Cycles, lens Flares, Super fast render times, Post effects, and loads of other awesome features which can be read about on the product page.
Conclusion
I hope you found this list of Rendering Addons for Blender helpful, please share this website with anyone who you think would appreciate it and feel free to check out my other posts!