No. You can render directly with DEM active in both Eevee and Cycles. Bake is only needed when you want native Blender keyframes, need to export the animation, or have to use the project without DEM installed.

Yes. DEM must also be installed on the render nodes so the animation can be evaluated correctly. When installing add-ons on the farm is not possible, bake the animation before submitting the project.

Yes. Bake the DEM animation to native Blender keyframes before exporting the FBX file. Transform animations will then be exported normally. Visibility support may depend on the destination software and export format.

Yes. They will need DEM installed to open and evaluate the live animation. Alternatively, bake the animation first and send a project containing only native Blender keyframes.

Make sure DEM is installed and enabled on that computer. Live DEM animation cannot be evaluated when the add-on is missing or disabled.

DEM converts the final animation into standard Blender keyframes. After the bake, the object behaves like any normally animated Blender object and no longer requires DEM.

The baked animation can still be edited as normal Blender keyframes, but the original DEM layer setup is no longer available. Keep a copy of the unbaked project when you may need to continue editing the DEM layers.