Render
Render the 3D scene to colour, depth, normal, and position passes.
What it does
Render captures part or all of the 3D scene onto a flat plane and outputs it as an image, along with matching depth, normals and position passes. Anything wired into Include is lifted out of the live scene and shown only on this node's plane. With Include disconnected it captures everything currently in the scene.
Depth of field, motion blur shaping, anti-aliasing and stereo are set here, per render. Ambient occlusion, bloom, outlines, the ray-tracing stack and the choice of integrator are composition-wide and live on Render Settings.
When to use it
Bringing 3D geometry into a 2D composite as a rendered image.
Per-shot depth of field, anti-aliasing or stereo instead of the viewport defaults.
A frozen, non-animating capture of the scene at a specific frame: Reproject set to Baked.
Reordering the post-effect stack for this render:
post_process_order.Extracting the depth, normals or position pass alone for a downstream effect.
| Parameter | Type | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
include | Any | List | Objects to flatten into this render's plane. Connected geometry is consumed — removed from the live scene and shown only on the plane. If disconnected, captures the whole scene. |
camera | Camera3D | — | Camera to render from. If disconnected, uses the viewport camera. |
bake_width | Number | 1024 | Pixel width when the source input is a Field or Raster (bake path). |
bake_height | Number | 1024 | Pixel height when the source input is a Field or Raster (bake path). |
reproject | String | "Live" | Live: re-render every frame (orbit-able). Baked: render once and freeze for the session. One of: Live, Baked. |
bake_frame | Number | 0 | Frame stamp for the baked capture. Change it to re-bake from the current scene state. |
pass_type | String | "Color" | Select which render pass to show as the primary color output. One of: Color, Normals, Depth, Position. |
normal_space | String | "World" | Coordinate space for normals output. One of: World, View, Object. |
position_range | Number | 10 | World units mapped to full color range |
position_offset_x | Number | 0 | Offset subtracted from world X position |
position_offset_y | Number | 0 | Offset subtracted from world Y position |
position_offset_z | Number | 0 | Offset subtracted from world Z position |
dof_enabled | Boolean | false | Blur areas outside the focal plane for cinematic depth |
dof_focus_distance | Number | 5 | Distance to the focal plane in scene units |
dof_focus_range | Number | 3 | Distance from focal plane where blur reaches maximum |
dof_max_blur | Number | 10 | Maximum blur radius in pixels |
motion_blur_intensity | Number | 1 | Velocity multiplier — higher = more blur |
motion_blur_max | Number | 20 | Maximum blur distance in pixels |
post_process_order | String | "Bloom,DoF,Outline,MotionBlu..." | Comma-separated post-process order. Reorder to change effect stacking. |
stereo_enabled | Boolean | false | Render left and right eye views for VR/stereo output |
stereo_ipd | Number | 0.063 | Distance between eyes in scene units (default 63mm) |
stereo_convergence | Number | 5 | Distance where left/right views converge (focal plane for stereo depth) |
curve_width_scale | Number | 1 | Global multiplier on every curve's authored stroke width. 1.0 = author-faithful; bump to thicken every ribbon without re-authoring per-anchor widths. Niagara Mesh Ribbon Width Scale analog. |
taa_enabled | Boolean | false | Temporal anti-aliasing smooths jagged edges by accumulating sub-pixel samples across frames |
drive_viewport | Boolean | true | When true, this Render node's pipeline settings drive the live 3D viewport. Set false for offscreen-only renders. |
position | Vec3 | (0, 0, 0) | Translation (X, Y, Z) |
rotation | Vec3 | (0, 0, 0) | Rotation in degrees (X, Y, Z) |
scale | Vec3 | (1, 1, 1) | Scale (X, Y, Z) |
anchor | Vec3 | (0, 0, 0) | Pivot offset (X, Y, Z) — rotation/scale orbit this point |
opacity | Number | 1 | Layer opacity (0 = transparent, 1 = opaque). Editable, wirable, keyframable. |
Gotchas
A Field or Image wired into Include switches Render to a simple bake: it fills Bake Width/Height at that resolution and skips the 3D pipeline. Depth of field, motion blur, stereo and Pass Type all disappear, because there is no camera, lighting or G-buffer to generate them from. Depth, Normals and Position then repeat the same baked image.
One Render node at a time should have Drive Viewport on. That node's settings drive the live 3D viewport.
Wiring geometry into Include removes it from the live scene, and it then shows up only on this Render node's plane. A Render node whose output looks empty usually shares objects with something upstream that claimed them first.
Reproject defaults to Live, which re-renders every frame and follows camera orbit. Baked freezes for the session: orbiting, scrubbing and any animation on the source stop affecting it. Bump Bake Frame to re-bake from the current scene state.
Worked example
Add a Render node. Leave Include disconnected to capture the whole scene, or wire in specific geometry to isolate that alone.
Optionally wire a Camera into Camera to render from a specific view instead of the live viewport camera.
Turn on Depth of Field and set Focus Distance to the subject to throw the rest of the scene out of focus.
Set Reproject to Baked once the shot is right, so it stops changing as you work on the rest of the scene.
For a final still, set Render Mode to Path Traced on Render Settings and raise its sample budget until the noise clears.
See also
Viewport Camera · Light · Material · Object Render Properties