Add-0ns

Question

This might be an extra silly question... but do add-ons bog Blender down in any way? Is the reason behind having the built-in add-ons disabled related to performance, or is it just to not have way too many menus/options visible while still allowing us to custom set our preferences?

I feel like at every course I follow I learn of yet another built-in add-on that must be enabled and it got me curious...

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Reply
  • Omar Domenech replied

    Yes, they take a toll for sure. I remember Shawn's Blender taking 5 minutes to load because of the many addons he had enabled. Not to mention the many addons that cause glitches and make Blender misbehave and cause all kinds of headaches. I typically have 3 or 5 must have addons enabled at a time, then what I need I enable to use and then disable it. But there is not a hard rule against addons, try things out, see how it works for you.

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  • Dwayne Savage(dillenbata3) replied

    Each addon uses resources. On slower or low end systems it will be noticable. Also, addons that come with blender are official or community. Blender Foundation has a policy that no community addon will be turned on by default. That is why node wrangler(a very very popular addon) isn't turned on by default. 

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  • Nathi Tappan(nathitappan) replied

    Got it! Makes sense! I like that... I feel like I use a few of them all the time, will try your suggestion Omar.

    And cool, didn't know that! Thanks Dwayne!

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  • Dwayne Savage(dillenbata3) replied

    Yeah I have a system that is very low end. So I turn addons on and off all the time. I created an addon that lets me do this in the n-panel of the 3D Viewport and the shader editor. If you want to use it you can download it here

    https://blenderclassroom.com/download.php

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  • Nathi Tappan(nathitappan) replied

    Thank you Dwayne! It hasn't posed a problem for me yet, probably because I just have 4 or 5 enabled that I picked up from courses here. But I'm bookmarking it for when it happens. Thanks for sharing!

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