Render Setup Dialog - Cycles Tab

Misc Rollout

Render Device - Controls whether the render will be done with the CPU, CUDA, or OptiX(RTX).

With CPU - If this box is checked the CPU will be used in addition to the GPU for CUDA renders.

Render Device Text Boxes - Selects which GPU(s) will perform the render (CUDA/OptiX only). The "Devices..." button will display a list of available devices to choose from.

These text boxes also allow some special keywords to be used in place of device IDs. These are SINGLE, which will use the first device in the list, and ALL, which will use every device.

Preview Samples - The number of samples to render for material previews. Previews are the spheres that appear in the material editor.

Sampling Rollout

Sample Count - The number of samples per pixel to render. A higher value will produce an image with less noise, but will take longer to render. This option is the primary way you will control the speed/quality trade-off for your render.

Progressive Refine - When this option is enabled the renderer will sample each pixel once before moving on to the next sample. When it is disabled, the renderer will sample each tile to completion before moving to the next tile.

Enabling this option is good for previews as it will let you see a noisy but complete image very quickly after starting a render. Disabling this option will result in slightly faster renders.

Adaptive Sampling - When enabled, Cycles will render a variable number of samples per pixel. This option can potentially save a lot of rendering time. This option works fastest with progressive refine disabled.

Adaptive Threshold - Noise threshold at which to stop sampling a given pixel when adaptive sampling is enabled. Lower values will cause more samples to be rendered. Set to 0.0 to use a default values based on your overall Sample Count.

Adaptive Min Samples - The minimum number of samples to render for any pixel in an adaptive render. If set to 0, a default value of the square root of Sample Count will be used.

Clamping

Clamp Direct - Direct sample clamp. This sets a maximum intensity that may be sampled for the first bounce of a ray.

Clamp Indirect - Indirect sample clamp. This sets a maximum intensity that may be sampled for bounces of a ray after the first bounce.

Random Seed - Sets the seed used to randomize noise patterns.

Animate Random Seed - When this option is selected, the random seed will automatically change every frame. Enabling this helps to avoid having distractingly similar noise patterns in consecutive frames of an animation.

Volume

Step Rate - Inverse of distance between sampled points in a volume shader. Higher values will be more accurate and take longer to render.

Max Steps - Maximum number of steps to sample in a volume before terminating.

Film Rollout

Filter Type - The type of reconstruction filter to use for this render.

Filter Size - Size of the filter in pixels. Larger numbers will produce a blurrier render. This option does not apply to the Box filter.

Transparent Sky - When this option is enabled the alpha channel will be used to store transparency information for the render and the sky will be black. By default the sky is considered transparent and all geometry is opaque.

Exposure - Exposure multiplier. This can be used to linearly brighten/darken the final render output. This exposure multiplier will be applied before the exposure control.

Translation Rollout

Environment

Intensity Multiplier - Brightness multiplier for the environment map.

MIS Map Size - Sets the size of the MIS map to be used for the environment. Larger values will cause the scene to render with less noise from environment light at the expense of memory usage and speed.

Lights

Point Light Size - Point lights will be translated as spherical lights with this diameter.

Texmaps

Bitmap Width - Sets the default width of baked texmaps.

Bitmap Height - Sets the default height of baked texmaps.

Blur

Motion Blur Samples - Sets the number of samples to be used for deform-based motion blur. Note that the option does not affect object-transform-based blur or camera-transform-based blur.