Requirements & installation

Requirements

• Blender 4.2 through 5.2. Every version in that range is covered by the headless test suite.
• Windows, macOS, or Linux.
• No other add-ons required. Pillow is bundled as a wheel inside the package, so there is nothing to install with pip.

Packages are built per Blender version: each zip carries only the Pillow wheels that Blender can load and pins its own version range, which keeps the download about half the size of a universal build.

Blender	Python	Bundled wheel
4.2 – 5.0	3.11	Pillow 11.2.1 cp311
5.1 +	3.13	Pillow 11.2.1 cp313

Installation

Where to get it

Proto Color is available on Superhive. Download the zip that matches your Blender version from the table above — each one carries only the wheels its Blender can load.

Installing the add-on

1. In Blender, open Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Add-ons.
2. Use the dropdown in the top-right corner and choose Install from Disk….
3. Pick the protocolor_prototools zip for your Blender version.
4. Enable it in the list if it is not enabled already.

Then press N in the 3D View and open the ProtoTools tab.

Upgrading from the standalone add-ons

Proto Color replaces the two separate add-ons PROTO:COLOR (protocolor_trinhtools) and PROTO:PALETTE (protopalette_trinhtools). They are different extension ids, so Blender will happily run all three at once and you will get duplicate panels — uninstall both old ones.

Your files are safe: operator ids, property names, and scene keys are unchanged, so existing .blend files and muscle memory keep working.

Where things are stored

What	Where
Saved palettes	%APPDATA%\Blender Foundation\Blender\<version>\config\protocolor\palettes\
Generated swatch icons	Blender's user data directory

Neither lives in the add-on folder, which can be read-only under the 4.2+ extensions system. Palettes being config files rather than scene data is also why a palette saved in one .blend is available in every other one.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later, as required for Blender extensions.

Next: getting started.