blender-rendering

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from review. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: blender-rendering
description: Render Blender scenes with the right engine and settings — Cycles for photoreal, EEVEE for speed/stylized, sample counts, denoising (OptiX/OIDN), light path tuning, color management (AgX/Filmic), file output (PNG/EXR/MP4), animation rendering. Use whenever the user asks to "render this", "produce an image", "render a frame / animation", "make a final image", "save the render", or any output-generation request. Make sure to use this skill even if the user does not say "render" — also covers "make a picture", "save the result", "produce a final image", "export as image".
when_to_use: Any image or animation render output request in Blender.
allowed-tools: Read Bash mcp__blender__execute_blender_code mcp__blender__get_scene_info mcp__blender__get_object_info
---

# Blender Rendering

Render efficiently. The defaults are wrong for production; the recipes below are tuned for the common cases.

## Engine decision tree

```
Need photoreal? Caustics? Accurate SSS? Glass-rich?
├── YES → Cycles (path tracer)
└── NO  → Need speed? Stylized look? Animation iteration?
          ├── YES → EEVEE
          └── NO  → Cycles (default fallback for photoreal)
```

**Quick rule**:
- Stills, archviz, product, hero shots → **Cycles**
- Animation previews, motion graphics, stylized → **EEVEE**

## Reference-look handoff

If the goal is to match an original/reference image rather than make a generally attractive render, chain-load `reference-look-calibration`. It owns measurement of hue/saturation/value, object extent, glow/aura color, and before/after look metrics. This skill should then apply the requested material/lighting/render changes within that calibrated target.


## Recipes

### Recipe 1 — Cycles production preset (256 samples + denoise)

```python
import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.render.engine = 'CYCLES'
scene.cycles.device = 'GPU'

# Sampling
scene.cycles.samples = 256
scene.cycles.use_adaptive_sampling = True
scene.cycles.adaptive_threshold = 0.01
scene.cycles.adaptive_min_samples = 32

# Denoising (recommended)
scene.cycles.use_denoising = True
scene.cycles.denoiser = 'OPENIMAGEDENOISE'   # safe default; switch to 'OPTIX' on NVIDIA RTX

# Light paths (defaults are reasonable; bump transmission for glass-rich scenes)
scene.cycles.max_bounces = 12
scene.cycles.transmission_bounces = 12

# Resolution
scene.render.resolution_x = 1920
scene.render.resolution_y = 1080
scene.render.resolution_percentage = 100

print('render:cycles_production_preset')
```

### Recipe 2 — Cycles draft preset (faster iteration)

```python
import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.render.engine = 'CYCLES'
scene.cycles.device = 'GPU'
scene.cycles.samples = 64
scene.cycles.use_adaptive_sampling = True
scene.cycles.adaptive_threshold = 0.05
scene.cycles.use_denoising = True
scene.render.resolution_percentage = 50    # half res for tests
print('render:cycles_draft')
```

### Recipe 3 — EEVEE preset

```python
import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene

# Engine name changed across versions:
#   Blender ≤ 4.1:        'BLENDER_EEVEE'
#   Blender 4.2 only:     'BLENDER_EEVEE_NEXT' (transitional; replaced)
#   Blender ≥ 5.0:        'BLENDER_EEVEE' (the new EEVEE replaced the old)
# Try the new name first; fall back if it doesn't exist on this Blender.
try:
    scene.render.engine = 'BLENDER_EEVEE_NEXT'
except (TypeError, ValueError):
    scene.render.engine = 'BLENDER_EEVEE'

# EEVEE settings (eevee namespace exists in 4.x and 5.x)
if hasattr(scene, 'eevee'):
    scene.eevee.taa_render_samples = 64
    scene.eevee.taa_samples = 16
scene.eevee.use_gtao = True            # screen-space AO
scene.eevee.gtao_distance = 0.2
scene.eevee.use_bloom = True            # glow
scene.eevee.use_ssr = True              # screen-space reflections
scene.eevee.use_ssr_refraction = True   # for glass
scene.eevee.use_volumetric_lights = True
scene.render.resolution_x = 1920
scene.render.resolution_y = 1080
print('render:eevee_preset')
```

**EEVE