A file-based bridge between Blender and Affinity Photo. Send an image, a render, a viewport paintover or a whole material's textures to Affinity, keep working, and every save you make there reloads back into Blender automatically. Affinity has no plugin API, so there is nothing to install on the Affinity side — the bridge exchanges ordinary files through a folder both apps can see, and watches that folder for you.
Requirements - please read before buying
-
Windows only. The add-on detects and launches Affinity Photo through Windows paths and processes. macOS and Linux are not supported.
-
Blender 3.3 - 5.2 - Extension on 4.2+, classic add-on on 3.3-4.1.
-
Affinity Photo is required and sold separately. You need your own licensed copy from Serif. No Affinity Photo licence is included with this product - it is the Blender-side bridge only, and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a reseller of Serif.
-
separately by its vendor.
-
Network: none. Blender and Affinity Photo exchange files on your own machine - the add-on opens no network connection.
Installation
Blender 4.2+ (Extension): Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Add-ons ▸ drop-down ▸ *Install from Disk…* → pick universal_bridge_affinity-x.x.x-blender4.2-5.2.zip, then enable it. Blender 3.3–4.1: Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Add-ons ▸ *Install…* → pick universal_bridge_affinity-x.x.x-blender3.3-4.1.zip.
The panel is in the 3D Viewport sidebar (press N) under the Universal Bridge tab. Open the add-on preferences to confirm Affinity was detected, or set the Affinity Executable path by hand (Photo.exe / Affinity.exe).
Getting started
- Open an image in the Image Editor, or select an object with a textured material.
- Click Edit Image in Affinity — the file opens in Affinity and Blender starts
watching it.
- Paint / retouch in Affinity, then Save (Ctrl+S over the same file).
- Blender reloads the image in place — no clicking Get.
To pull *new* files the other way, save or export from Affinity into the bridge folder (Open Inbox Folder shows where it is) and either click Get Latest from Affinity or turn on Watch Inbox for hands-free auto-import.
Edit Image & live reload
-
Edit Image in Affinity opens the active image — the Image Editor's image if
one is shown, otherwise the active object's material base-colour texture. Packed or unsaved images are written into the bridge folder first.
-
A watcher polls the file about once a second; the instant Affinity saves it,
Blender reloads the datablock (or keeps versions — see *Send & Get settings*).
-
Stop Watching Edits ends the watch, and the viewport status overlay shows how
many files are being watched while a session is live.
Send Render, Passes & Viewport
-
Send Render — saves the current Render Result and opens it in Affinity; edited
saves come back onto a reloadable stand-in image.
-
Send Render Passes (Layered) — renders the enabled passes of the active view
layer and opens them as one layered PSD (each pass its own layer), dropping the individual pass PNGs alongside. Enable passes in View Layer Properties first.
-
Send Viewport (Paintover) — OpenGL-renders the viewport and opens it in Affinity
for a quick paintover.
Materials & Textures
-
Send Textures — opens every image texture on the active object's material
(base colour first), each one watched so it reloads live on save.
-
As PSD — stacks those same textures into a single layered PSD instead.
-
New Res — the resolution used by *New Texture with UV Guide* (512 / 1024 /
2048 / 4096).
-
New Texture with UV Guide — creates a blank document at the chosen resolution
with the selected mesh's UV layout as a guide layer, assigns the paint layer to the material's base colour, and opens it; painting reloads onto that texture.
-
Import PSD / Image to Material — loads a flattened PSD (or any image) and wires
it into the active material's base colour.
UVs & height maps
-
Edit with UV Layout — opens the active texture together with the selected mesh's
exported UV layout so you can paint against the seams (they arrive as a separate file alongside the texture).
-
Edit as Height, Return as Normal — opens the active image to paint a height/bump
map; on save the bridge wires it into the material through a Bump / Normal-Map node automatically (and sets its colour space to Non-Color).
Get files back (Inbox)
-
On Get — what happens to an incoming file: Load Image (into Blender's image
list), Assign to Active Material (wire it into base colour), or Import as Plane (an alpha-blended plane at the 3D cursor).
-
Watch Inbox (auto-import) — auto-imports any image Affinity saves into the
bridge folder, applying the On Get action. The first scan only baselines existing files so old ones don't flood in.
-
Get Latest from Affinity — imports the newest file in the bridge folder on demand.
-
Open Inbox Folder — opens the bridge folder in Explorer so you can Save As /
Export into it. (Affinity has no plugin API, so this is how files come back.)
Layers & reference
-
Import Layer Folder as Planes — one plane per image in a folder (alpha kept,
stacked in order) — pair it with an exported-layers folder from Affinity.
-
As Camera-Facing Reference — instead of stacking flat, place the planes in a
*Reference* collection, shadeless and tracking the active camera.
-
Copy Image to Clipboard — puts the active image on the system clipboard to paste
into any app.
Send & Get settings
-
On Save — Reload In Place updates the Blender image with every save;
Keep Versions copies each save to name_v001, _v002, … and loads it as a new image instead.
-
The panel header shows whether Affinity is running and how many files are being
watched.
Shared Universal Bridge tools
Registered once and shared with every other bridge you own, on the same tab:
-
Command Palette — a pop-up menu of every bridge action.
-
Send History — the recent sends, each with a one-click Re-send.
-
Preflight — flags unapplied scale/rotation, missing UVs, missing materials,
n-gons and non-manifold edges, with Fix buttons where it's safe.
-
Naming — apply a convention to the selection (low / high / LOD / UCX / socket).
-
Selection Sets — save and restore named selections.
-
Version Exchange Files — keep a copy of each sent file in a
versions subfolder.
-
Batch (Send Each Collection) — send every scene collection with meshes, one at
a time.
Preferences
-
Show Affinity Panel — show or hide the Affinity panel in the Universal Bridge tab.
-
Affinity Executable — Photo.exe / Affinity.exe; auto-detected when left empty.
-
A Detect App button re-scans for the install, and the panel notes that this is a
file-based bridge with nothing to install in Affinity.
Troubleshooting
-
"No image found" on Edit Image → open an image in the Image Editor, or select an
object whose material has a base-colour texture.
-
Affinity not found → set the executable in the add-on preferences, or click
Detect App after installing Affinity.
-
Nothing comes back after saving in Affinity → save over the *same file* that was
opened (Edit Image), or Save/Export INTO the bridge folder and use Get Latest / Watch Inbox (Open Inbox Folder shows where).
-
"No render yet" on Send Render → render once (F12) first.
-
No render passes produced → enable passes in View Layer Properties, then try again.
-
Store-app installs → if a direct launch is refused, the bridge falls back to
opening the file with its default app; setting the real Photo.exe path avoids this.
Button icons
The buttons in the bridge panels use a drawn icon set rather than Blender glyphs borrowed from elsewhere. Preferences ▸ Button Icons controls it:
-
Brand Colours (default) — each bridge in its own colour.
-
Mono — every icon in one accent colour you pick.
-
Blender Built-ins — no custom icons at all, exactly as before.
Colour-code Status keeps the link and modifier icons green / amber / red, where the colour is the message; turn it off and they take your accent too. Blender's own glyphs are kept wherever they are already the familiar thing — the trash can, the folder, the warning triangle — so the panels still look like Blender.
Support
Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/SuSqbZMDk5 (link is also on the panel and in preferences). Include your Blender and Affinity versions.
Part of the Universal Bridge line. Works on its own, and the free Universal Bridge Manager hub add-on is included with your purchase.
Tachyon Studio
