3D
The pathtracer
Right-click a mesh and pick Render. It runs on your own GPU, costs nothing, and gives you a real camera and real lighting.
Right-click a mesh and pick **Render**. The pathtracer opens with your object in it, and it runs in your browser on your own GPU. Nothing about it costs credits, however many renders you make. ## Setting the shot **Camera.** Orbit to the angle you want and set a focal length. That second control is the one people skip and the one that decides whether a product shot reads as a photograph or as a render. **Environment.** Nine HDRI environments ship with it: Studio, Outdoor, Sunset, Warehouse, Night, Sundowner, Glasshouse, Church and Metro. Each has an intensity, and the environment is doing most of the lighting work. **Quality.** Four presets, from Preview through Medium and High to Ultra. They trade sample count against time. :::tip[Work at Preview, finish at Ultra] Preview is for deciding the angle and the light, which is most of what you are deciding. Switch to Ultra once when you know what the picture is. Doing it the other way round means waiting for a render you were going to throw away. ::: ## Why it takes as long as it takes A pathtracer converges. It fires samples, and the image gets cleaner as more land, so quality and time are the same dial wearing two labels. Under quality sit the controls that actually drive it: how many samples to gather, and how many bounces of light to follow. More bounces means light behaving correctly through more surfaces, which matters on glass, liquid and anything with interior reflections. On a real GPU this is quick. On a thin laptop it still works and takes longer, which is the honest trade for it being free and local. ## What comes out A render lands on the canvas beside the mesh, as an ordinary image. That means it feeds straight into any image tool. The common pipeline runs: pose and render the object, then enhance or restyle the render, then compose it into a scene with **blend-in-scene**. The geometry stays correct through all of it, because it came from the object rather than from a description of one. :::note[The render is an asset like any other] It joins the library with its own record, gets described and tagged, and can be found later by what it looks like. A render is not a temporary preview. ::: ## When to reach for something else - For an **accurate** picture of the object, the pathtracer is the answer - For a **stylised** one, render at Preview and hand it to an image tool - For **steering the look while you move the object**, use [AI Render](/docs/using-plnty/3d/live-ai-render/), which answers a different question entirelyRight-click a mesh and pick Render. The pathtracer opens with your object in it, and it runs in your browser on your own GPU.
Nothing about it costs credits, however many renders you make.
Setting the shot
Section titled “Setting the shot”Camera. Orbit to the angle you want and set a focal length. That second control is the one people skip and the one that decides whether a product shot reads as a photograph or as a render.
Environment. Nine HDRI environments ship with it: Studio, Outdoor, Sunset, Warehouse, Night, Sundowner, Glasshouse, Church and Metro. Each has an intensity, and the environment is doing most of the lighting work.
Quality. Four presets, from Preview through Medium and High to Ultra. They trade sample count against time.
Why it takes as long as it takes
Section titled “Why it takes as long as it takes”A pathtracer converges. It fires samples, and the image gets cleaner as more land, so quality and time are the same dial wearing two labels.
Under quality sit the controls that actually drive it: how many samples to gather, and how many bounces of light to follow. More bounces means light behaving correctly through more surfaces, which matters on glass, liquid and anything with interior reflections.
On a real GPU this is quick. On a thin laptop it still works and takes longer, which is the honest trade for it being free and local.
What comes out
Section titled “What comes out”A render lands on the canvas beside the mesh, as an ordinary image.
That means it feeds straight into any image tool. The common pipeline runs: pose and render the object, then enhance or restyle the render, then compose it into a scene with blend-in-scene. The geometry stays correct through all of it, because it came from the object rather than from a description of one.
When to reach for something else
Section titled “When to reach for something else”- For an accurate picture of the object, the pathtracer is the answer
- For a stylised one, render at Preview and hand it to an image tool
- For steering the look while you move the object, use AI Render, which answers a different question entirely