Packages are a way for developers to create new nodes for Serpens. These can add new functionality to Serpens. A package is a collection of one or more nodes.
You can find available packages in the Serpens addon preferences under Marketplace.
If you know enough python to develop your own packages take a look at the documentation for details on how to develop custom nodes. You can then share your package in the discord server in the marketplace channel. Feel free to sell your package or release it for free.
If you don’t know a lot of python take a look at Snippets down below.
To install a package open a Serpens addon and go to the N-Panel. Here you will find the Extensions panel under which you can see your installed packages. Select the package zip file here and restart blender to load the new nodes.
Snippets are a way to let you create reusable functions across files. This is useful if you need a specific action a lot and don't want to recreate the setup every time. You can install snippets and use them as if they were real nodes.
You can create a snippet by selecting any run function node, either interface or execute. Then go to the Extensions → Snippets panel and click Export Snippet. Note that the function name will be the name of your snippet.
Now that you got the snippet file you have multiple options:
The snippet node lets you select a snippet file. Once you do that it will load the snippet and you can use it as any other node.
You can also install the snippet in the N-Panel. This will add it to the Snippets → Other category in the Add Node menu. Now you can quickly add this snippet from any file.
The last option is to combine multiple snippets into one zip file. Simply drag the snippets you want to include into a zip file. Then follow the same install process as before, clicking Install Snippets and selecting your zip file. This will create a new category under snippets with the name of the zip file.
Now you can share a collection of snippets with other people! One place to do that is on the Serpens marketplace. Simply visit the marketplace channel on discord and say Hello there. The bot will help you to upload or link to (for commercial snippets) to your snippet and users will be able to find them in the Serpens preferences.
Node presets are a quick way to add nodes that you use often. This is especially interesting for blend data nodes that you copy from the blend data browser as they will remember their settings.
You can add a preset node by selecting a node and then clicking Add in the Shift+A Menu under Presets.
This will add the node to the list. This list is remembered across blender files. You can remove a preset by clicking the remove preset button. When you click one of your preset nodes it will add that node and set the settings to what you had set them to when the preset was added.
When adding a preset the name or label of the node will be used as the name of the preset.