git:20260818.b1cefdd to git:20260907.4a1e3c8

---

name: blender-rendering-workflow

description: Build, diagnose, and deliver Blender still, turntable, sequence, and animation renders with reproducible lighting, camera, color-management, compositor, and output settings. Use when a request concerns product visualization, cinematic shots, architectural renders, look development, render passes, denoising, compositing, or final image/video delivery.

---

# Blender Rendering Workflow

Treat a render as a reproducible deliverable, not a screenshot that happened to

look acceptable once.

## Establish the render contract

Before changing the scene, record:

- the intended audience, view distance, reference mood, and required story beat;

- still, turntable, image sequence, or video deliverable; resolution, frame

range, frame rate, and output format;

- render engine, device assumptions, time/noise budget, and whether the result

must match an engine or compositor downstream;

- required cameras, hero and diagnostic views, render passes, alpha, and color

management requirements;

- which lights, world, materials, volumes, and compositor nodes are part of the

authored result.

Keep these settings as named constants in the durable scene-generation script.

Do not use a viewport screenshot as final evidence when the request calls for a

rendered deliverable.

## Author for repeatability

1. Name cameras, lights, world nodes, view layers, render settings, and output

nodes semantically.

2. Set engine, resolution, frame range, sampling, denoise policy, transparent

film, and color-management explicitly; never rely on a startup-file default.

3. Frame the subject with a deliberate focal length and camera height before

increasing samples or adding post-processing.

4. Light for form: establish key, fill, rim/background separation, contact

shadow, and exposure before cosmetic effects. Keep enough neutral evidence

lighting to expose intersections and texture failures.

5. Use render passes and compositor nodes only when they improve the requested

result. Keep the uncomposited beauty output available for diagnosis.

6. For turntables and animated output, render a short low-cost preview first;

then lock camera and lighting before the final frame range.

7. For a render farm or external engine, emit a self-contained handoff manifest

listing Blender version, engine, device assumptions, assets, fonts, cache

paths, frame range, and output settings.

## Iterate with evidence

1. Render a low-sample diagnostic frame for every required camera.

2. Open the rendered images, not merely file-existence logs.

3. Check composition, silhouette separation, exposure, specular control,

shadow grounding, color balance, texture scale, noise/fireflies, clipping,

and whether the requested material reads correctly.

4. Correct scene, material, camera, or lighting causes before tuning denoise,

bloom, depth of field, or grading to hide them.

5. Render final stills or a bounded preview sequence. Open a contact sheet and,

for motion, the encoded video or sampled frames.

## Completion gate

Do not call a render complete until the source reproduces it in a clean Blender

process and the final output has been visually opened. Report exact output

paths, Blender and engine version, resolution, frame range, samples/denoise,

color management, passes, render duration, and any machine-specific limits.

Use `$blender-agent-studio:blender-asset-validation` for fixed multiview

geometry evidence; that evidence supplements rather than replaces the art

directed final render.

For glass around an emissive subject, validate the final engine rather than the

node graph alone. Keep transmission, alpha/blend behavior, refraction, exposure,

and bloom controlled so the enclosure reads as glass and the emissive subject

retains a distinct colored silhouette. An opaque or blown-white enclosure is a

render failure even when its material is technically transmissive.