Rendering And Outputs

renderset can change the way you render in Blender. Outputs are auto-saved into pre-set paths, results are stored in render slots. The functionality is tailored towards maximum productivity.

Watch how to render scenes

renderset does not replace the native render operators

Instead of taking over the rendering operators in Blender, renderset adds new ones. You can use the usual Render --> Render Image and Render --> Render Animation but many of these features will not work if you do.

Supported render engines

renderset supports Cycles, Eevee, Octane and LuxCore out of the box. Cycles and Eevee are included in Blender. Octane and LuxCore are third-party optional renderers.

Render Current

Use this button to render only the render context that is currently active. The context is rendered even if its checkbox is not checked!

Render All

Allows you to render all "checked" render contexts in the .blend. Results are saved to paths set in Render Output Settings.

This is especially useful for those overnight renders because renderset will take care of context switching. You can keep the computer rendering, come back and just retrieve the results.

Render Slots

The first 8 render contexts in the list will also be saved into render slots. Keep in mind that the render slot ID depends on the order in the list, unchecked contexts are not skipped! If you have 8 unchecked contexts and then 8 checked, no contexts will be saved into render slots when Render All is pressed!

Render Previews

You can quickly make previews of your contexts, using the Preview Current/Preview All operators.

Preview output format

Animation previews are rendered into an .mp4 format. Still image previews will remain in the chosen format of your context.

Preview Presets

Renderset offers different presets for the previews - Workbench, Sample Multiplier and Resolution Multiplier.

Preset Name	Preset Description
Workbench	Render previews using workbench render engine
Sample Multiplier	Render previews with less samples by applying a sample multiplier (%)
Resolution Multiplier	Render previews at a lower resolution by applying a resolution multiplier (%)

After you set up your preferred preset, you may also select a folder where the previews will be stored. More about output folders can be found in Output Folder Path. You only need to set this up once as renderset will remember your settings for future preview rendering.

Compatibility with other features

Previews support rendering in multiple render passes and custom output nodes. However, it's not possible to use preview presets in combination with post render actions.

Latest preview

To open the folder with the latest preview of a context, click the button with a magnifying glass icon. All preview files can be identified by a preview_PRESET_NAME prefix in front of their name.

Render Output Settings

Setting up output paths is crucial for optimal workflow. That's why renderset is very flexible and allows a lot of possibilities.

Watch how to define Render Output Settings

You can find the Render Output Settings in renderset preferences located in Edit --> Preferences --> Addons.

Some renderset preferences are saved per-scene!

Setting up Render Output Settings, Render Options and Post Render Actions in scene A will not get transferred to scene B.

Settings are saved per-scene inside the .blend file. This allows us to use different settings across multiple projects. Use a startup .blend file with the desired renderset preferences to be the default in your projects. Share the .blend file in order to share your renderset setup.

Save output settings as default

The Save As Default button can be used to write your renderset output settings to your Startup .blend, so each newly created scene will have the settings of your choice.

Apply output settings to other scene(s) in .blend file

When using renderset with multiple scenes inside one .blend file, default output renderset settings are used in newly added scenes. Use the Apply to Other Scene(s) button to copy renderset output settings to selected scenes.

Output Folder Path

This setting allows us to set the output folder path of render contexts.

You can use plain text to set up simple output paths like C:\Users\Admin\Outputs but you can also use renderset variables for a lot more customization. To add a variable to path simply click the Add Variable button and select from one of the available variables. They allow you to use values like the current time or the name of your PC without you needing to write it manually. You can learn more about variables in Output Path Format.

List of Available Variables

• context_name
• context_render_type
• blend_parent_folder
• blend_filename
• blend_full_path
• hostname
• date_time
• frame_current
• frame_start
• frame_end
• frame_step
• camera
• world
• year
• month
• day
• hour
• minute
• second

Example

You can use C:\Users\Admin\Outputs\{blend_filename} and every time you render using renderset, a new folder with name of your blend will be created in C:\Users\Admin\Outputs and all outputs will be saved there.

If we have a blend file called my_project_1 and we use a path with this variable, the result will look like this:

C:\Users\Admin\Outputs\my_project_1\Image.png

If we then create new blend with name my_project_2 the output will look like this:

C:\Users\Admin\Outputs\my_project_2\Image.png

To get you started, renderset ships with three folder path examples. One outputs to a path relative to the input blend, the second outputs to an absolute path of your choice, the third one showcases custom formatting options for date and time. We recommend experimenting with these three and mixing them to achieve your desired output paths.

Don't Override Renders

It's a good idea to use {date_time} variable to make the part of the path is unique and make sure it will not be overwritten.

Output Filenames

This setting lets you change the names of your output filenames separately for each type of rendering (Still Image, Animation Frame, Animation Movie). By default Blender names the final output files as Composite, so the default names reflect that. Similar to output folder path, you can use variables to customize filenames, see Output Path Format for more information.

Frame variables in animation outputs

The animation-related filenames also contain info about the frames. You do not need to use them in Animation Movie renders, however, rendering Animation Frame images without including the current frame will cause each new image to override the previous one.

Post render actions

You can further automate your workflow by setting up post render actions. These actions are triggered whenever a context finishes rendering. They even allow copying output files which lets you change the filename as well.

A common use-case is copying the final Composite image to a project output folder.

See Post Render Actions for more.

Compositor File Output Nodes

When Use Compositor File Output Nodes is enabled, renderset considers all File Output nodes outputs in its naming system. This allows creating additional custom compositor setups while using renderset's file output system including Post Render Actions.

Customize Output Name for each File Output Node

The final output from the compositor nodes is prefixed by the node name. This way the setups with multiple nodes are not overwritten. The final output name consists of {NODE_NAME}_{INPUT_NAME}_{OUTPUT_FILENAME}.

In this example the final output will be: Color Burn_Red Tint_Image.png, Color Burn_Blue Tint_Image.png.

Render Options

Remembered Visibility Restrictions

Allows you to toggle which visibility restrictions for objects, collections and layer collections will be remembered by render contexts. ObjectBase.hide_viewport (eye icon) cannot be stored due to Blender's technical limitations.

This can have a negative effect on performance in big scenes!

Render Operators

Let's users use different rendering operators (currently only Turbo Tools) for creating renderset outputs.

Automatic Render Slots

If enabled, each render set context will be rendered into a render slot based on its index. This might take additional memory because it's all stored in Blender.

Auto Lock Interface

If enabled, renderset automatically locks interface for rendering. This suppresses possible crashes and makes the rendering faster. On the other hand controlling of the interface during rendering is disabled. It is heavily recommended to leave this enabled!

Automatic Render Layer Split

If enabled, renderset will automatically split renders into separate files by render pass. When enabled renderset creates Renderset Output (Layer Split) node in the compositor. You can modify the links to its inputs, but if a link is removed, renderset will automatically connect it to the Render Layers node.

Switch to Solid View before Rendering

For performance reason it's better to not waste resources on rendering viewport and final render at the same time.

Free persistent data from memory after Rendering

If enabled, renderset will automatically free all persistent data from the memory after rendering finishes.

Use Compositor File Output Nodes

If enabled, renderset will treat all outputs from user-defined compositor output nodes as renderset outputs, so they will appear in the renderset-defined output folders with renderset-defined file names. Detailed description is in Compositor File Output Nodes.

Show Context Colors

If enabled, all render contexts in the UI will display color indicators. The color of each context can be changed for distinction.

Debug Enabled

If enabled, renderset shows a new option to view internal stored debug information.

Lister Width

Width in pixels for the Context Lister window.

Formats

Blender allows a lot of different output formats. renderset supports single-frame formats such as JPG, PNG, EXR, multi-layer EXR. It also supports multi-frame formats such as AVI, MP4, MKV and others.

Dangers with multi-frame formats

While you can render multi-frame formats we discourage you from doing so. You may lose render results in case of a crash, you will lose quality because frames are not saved separately.

We recommend rendering animations per-frame, it is safer, you can resume much easier and you can always stich the animation together afterwards. It also lets you render different parts of the animation on different machines and stitch it together afterwards.

Render Passes

Passes can be used to split rendered images into i.e. colors, direct and indirect light to edit them individually, and also to extract data such as depth or normals. renderset automatically saves all the checked passes.

Official Blender documentation

Passes are not stored for each renderset context