Batch Renders

Batches let you run multiple renders in a sequence automatically. These render jobs can use different scenes and settings that override the ones set in the scene.

Simply add and setup some render jobs, then click the Start Batch button to run the batch.

Step-by-step Workflow

1. Start by adding a new render job (click the + button in the batch panel)

2. Give it a name by changing the name property or double-clicking it’s name in the list

3. Select a scene to render, if you leave it blank it will use the current one

4. Optionally select a camera or specific view layer to use

5. Set an output path for your job. This path must be different from other jobs, if you leave it blank the path set in the output panel will be used. Remember you can’t have two jobs with the same path though.

6. Optionally set custom overrides for the job. See the Custom Overrides section to learn more.

7. Repeat for each render job you want to include

8. Optionally set batch settings by clicking the triangle icon next to the start button

9. Click the Start batch button to start the batch rendering

10. Kick back and relax :)

Render+ will switch to “Running Mode”. In this mode the job currently rendering will be automatically selected in the list and you will be able to see it’s progress and status below. You can click the X button to cancel that specific render job.

When the batch is finished the title of the panel will change to “Finished”. You can then select jobs again and check their finished and render times. When you want to go back to normal click the “close” button.

Under the hood

Render+ uses a small python application in the background called the Batch Server to manage renderjobs. The batch server communicates with the Render+ addon through a port via http. The addon takes care of starting the server, starting the batch, querying it’s status, and shutting down the server once the batch is done.

The batch server is queried every 2 seconds (by default) when running a batch. You can change this via the preferences.

Note

Render+ uses the port 7777 by default. If you are having trouble starting batches, make sure you are not running another program that uses that port at the same time. You can also change the port number in the addon preferences.

Render job panels

Basic Settings

Setting	Description
Name	An identifier for this render job
Scene	Scene to use
Camera	Camera to use (leave blank to use the current active camera)
World	World to use (leave blank to use the current active world)
View Layer	Use only a specific view layer (leave blank to use all enabled)
Animation	Render an animation instead of a still image
Custom Frame(s) Run pre-render script	Render a specific frame (for stills) Run a python script in the blendfile before rendering
Use External	Use an external blend file
Blend File	File path of the blend file to use for this job (when using external)

Custom Frame(s)

Setting	Description
Custom Frame	Render a specific frame
Frame start/end	Render a specific frame range (for animations)
Frame Jump	How many frames to jump ahead when rendering an animation

Note

Note that custom frames accepts multiple comma-separated frames like this “1,2,6,7”. It also accepts frames relative to the start and end of the frame range like this: “+2, -1”. You can also input frame ranges, which will be rendered as animations like this “2..10, 15..30”. This will

Output

Setting	Description
Output	File path to save to
Custom Size	Image Size for this job in pixels
File Format	Image/Video format to use
Render Device	Render using the CPU, a GPU or both (Cycles only)
Render Section	Render only a part of the image

Note

Some file formats may not be compiled in your version of Blender. Render+ will tell you when you select one of them.

Engine Settings

Setting	Description
Threads	Use a specific number of CPU threads
Use Turbo Tools	Use the Turbo Tools addon to render
Samples	Use a different number of samples to render (Cycles only)

If you set samples or threads to 0, Render+ will use the settings you have set in the scene. The same applies if you set Render  Device to “Default”.

If you select “Single GPU” for Render Device you will have a second menu to select which GPU to use. GPUs are detected when Blender starts. If you are rendering over a network you will have a number instead, since Render+ can’t detect the GPUs from the server. To find out the GPUs available in the server you can use the --list-gpus parameter. Refer to this page for more info.

You can also choose “Use all devices” to use all CPUs and GPUs for rendering.

Below the output setting you will also find the Show output folder button. Clicking this button will open the folder where the rendered image will be saved. Note this option isn’t available when rendering over the network.

Render+ will also ask you to avoid Blender relative paths when rendering over a network. These are paths that start with “//”. If you use this kind of paths your render files might end up in a temporary folder in the server.

Toggling Render Section will show the coordinates of the section, as well as the Get from Viewport button. If you have a border render set (:kbd:Ctrl+B in camera view), you can get it’s coordinates automatically by clicking that button.

The Use turbo tools checkbox allows you to use the Turbo Tools addon to render. This toggle will only be enabled if the addon is installed and enabled. Enabling this setting is the same as enabling Turbo Tools from the render properties panel, though only for a particular render job. Render+ will respect whatever path you set for the cache in the Turbo Tools panel while adding the render job name and index at the end. If no folder is specified, Render+ will set one up in the OS temporary folder.

Render Passes

The render passes panel lets you enable or disable the different render passes available for each render engine. Render+ will always render the full image (also known as the “Beauty Pass”). With this panel you can also render out different passes to other paths.

Toggling passes here will make Render+ create a temporary node group in the compositor that takes the render pass and plugs it into a file output node.

This change is only for rendering and isn’t saved to blend files.

Custom Overrides

Custom Overrides let you change anything in the scene, by automatically generating custom Python code for each render job.

For more information on custom overrides, Custom Overrides.

Actions

Actions let you run an action before starting a render job. This works like the actions in batch settings.

Options menu

You can move render jobs up or down using the arrow buttons. Click the three-lines icon to access the following options.

Option	Description
Duplicate	Clone the selected render job
Move to Top/Bottom	Move the current render job to the top or bottom
Enable/Disable all	Enable or disable all jobs
Remove all render jobs	Clear the batch list
Change output paths	Change output paths on all render jobs
Generate BAT files	Generate BAT scripts to run the batch without Render+ or the batch server. All necessary files are written to a folder

External Render Jobs

External render jobs render scenes from other blend files. They are marked with a file icon in the batch list. You can make any render job use an external blend file by toggling the “use external” checkbox.

You can leave the output path blank in external jobs, Render+ will use the output from the blend file. This way you can set different paths in each blend file, and then have the batch process use them automatically.

You can also select multiple blend files and create render jobs for them automatically by using the “Add External Blends” option in the batch menu.

Scripting

You may be interested in scripting to extend R+ to fit your own needs better. You can find everything batch related in bpy.context.scene.renderplus.batch. These are the properties contained in it:

Property	Description
jobs	List of render jobs
index	Int, Index of the currently selected job in the ui
use_rss	Boolean, True to write a RSS file
rss_path	String, Filepath for RSS file
write_logs	Boolean, True to write log files
use_global_size	Boolean, True to force a specific size
global_size_x	Int, horizontal global size in pixels
global_size_y	Int, vertical global size in pixels
ignore_border	Boolean, True to disable render border

Each job in the list contains the following properties:

• name

• scene

• layer

• camera

• enabled

• size_custom

• size_x

• size_y

• animation

• frame_custom

• frame_still

• frame_start

• frame_end

• output

• use_external

• blend_file (only set if use_external is True)

• overrides

Animation, size_custom and frame_custom are booleans used to enable or disable settings.

You can add new jobs with bpy.context.scene.renderplus.batch.jobs.add(). Use the python console to know more.

You can also import Render+ modules and inspect them in the python console:

>>> import renderplus
>>> import renderplus.stats
>>> renderplus.stats.is_animation()
True
>>> help(renderplus.stats.is_running)
Help on function is_animation in module renderplus.stats:
 is_animation()
    Detect if we are rendering an animation.

You may also want to run Blender from a console or terminal to watch the output. Check the manual to launch blender from a terminal