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Scene Renderer Panel

The Scene Renderer panel holds the render settings of the active Scene tab: the render mode, path-tracing denoising and sampling, the Rasterized lighting effects, the post-processing that both modes share, and performance statistics. This page lists every field, with its default and range.

For what the two render modes are and when to use each, see Rendering. For a task-oriented guide to the path-tracing settings, see Path Tracing.

In short

Open the panel with View → Scene Renderer. Pick a page from the list on the left, or step through the pages with Up and Down. The panel shows the active Scene tab. Most settings are saved with the project and apply to every Scene tab; the render mode and view mode belong to the active Scene tab, and a few settings are saved with the scene.

Opening the panel

Choose View → Scene Renderer. The panel opens docked on the right by default, with a list of pages on its left side. Click a page to show it, or press Up and Down while the panel has focus.

The panel works on the active viewport: the Scene tab you clicked into most recently while editing. If you have several Scene tabs open, click into the one you want before changing its render mode or view mode. Project settings change every Scene tab at once.

Page Applies to Contents
Rendering Both modes Render mode, then the path-tracing or Rasterized settings for the current mode
Ambient Occlusion Rasterized Contact shading in creases and between nearby surfaces
Reflections Rasterized Screen-space reflections
Bloom Both modes Glow around bright areas, and lens dirt
Depth of Field Both modes Post-process focus blur
Anti-Aliasing Both modes SMAA edge smoothing
Shadows Rasterized Shadow map quality, distance and cascades
Statistics Both modes GPU timings and workload of the viewport

In Path Traced mode the Ambient Occlusion, Reflections and Shadows pages show a short note instead of their controls, because path tracing calculates occlusion, reflections and shadows from the scene geometry.

Each section below says where its settings are saved. For a summary, see Where settings are saved. Changes made during Play apply straight away. During Play, though, the settings saved with the scene, such as bloom Intensity, change the running copy of the scene and go back when you stop.

Upgrading from 2026.2

The SSR page is now called Reflections, and the options of the old Visualization page are on the Rendering page. Most fields were renamed; for example, Bloom's Knee is now Threshold softness, and the ambient occlusion ShadowTolerance is now Strength. Upsample Scale is no longer in the panel.

Rendering

The top of the page holds the render mode. The sections below it depend on the mode in use.

Field Default Description
Render mode The scene's default: Path Traced for new scenes, Rasterized for scenes from earlier versions Rasterized favours speed; Path Traced calculates lighting and reflections with rays. Belongs to the active Scene tab, which remembers it; the same choice as the toolbar's Rasterized and Path Traced buttons. Path Traced is greyed out on GPUs without hardware ray tracing and on macOS.

Path Traced settings

These fields appear only while the viewport is path traced. View mode belongs to the Scene tab; the other settings in this section are saved with the project.

Field Default Range Description
View mode Lit Lit image or a diagnostic view. Denoising runs only in the Lit view. See View modes.
Environment multiplier 1 0 to 100 Scales the scene's environment light in path-traced Scene tabs, on top of the scene's environment intensity.

The Denoising section:

Field Default Description
Denoiser NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction None, ReBLUR, ReLAX or NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction. Shows the denoiser actually in use. NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction requires an NVIDIA RTX GPU with DLSS support; without one, it is greyed out and ReBLUR is used. See Choosing a denoiser.
DLSS Mode Quality Shown with NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction. Quality, Balanced, Performance, Ultra Performance or DLAA. DLAA renders at the full viewport resolution; the other modes render fewer pixels and upscale.
Internal resolution Read-only. Shown while DLSS is active: the resolution rendered before upscaling.
Temporal anti-aliasing on Shown with ReBLUR and ReLAX. Uses earlier frames to smooth jagged edges and shimmer after denoising. Can soften fine detail during motion.

With ReBLUR or ReLAX, a read-only line below these fields shows the denoiser's GPU memory use.

The Sampling section opens with a note that its settings apply to this viewport session and that recording quality is configured separately. In fact they are saved with the project and apply to every Scene tab; recordings do have their own settings.

Field Default Range Description
Indirect bounces 4 0 to 8 Bounces off diffuse surfaces after the first hit. 0 gives direct lighting only. Mirror and glossy reflections and glass do not count against this limit.
Bright sample limit 20 0 to 1000 Limits unusually bright bounced samples to reduce bright speckles. Direct lighting, emission and the sky are never limited. 0 turns the limit off.
Progressive refinement on Combines samples while the camera and scene stay still. Requires Denoiser None and the Lit view.
Accumulation history limit 16384 1 to 16384 The most frames progressive refinement combines before the image holds.
Adaptive sampling off Stops sampling pixels whose estimated noise is low enough. Requires progressive refinement.
Minimum adaptive samples 8 1 to 1024 Shown with adaptive sampling. Samples per pixel before a pixel may stop.
Noise target 0.02 0.001 to 0.5 Shown with adaptive sampling. Lower values refine longer.
Accumulated frames Read-only. Frames combined so far.

Rasterized settings

These sections appear only while the viewport is rasterized.

The Upscaling section, on Windows and Linux only. Its settings are saved with the project.

Field Default Description
Upscaler Off Off or NVIDIA DLSS. NVIDIA DLSS renders the viewport at a lower internal resolution, upscales it and smooths edges; in DLAA mode it keeps the full resolution. Requires an NVIDIA RTX GPU with DLSS support.
DLSS Mode Quality Shown with NVIDIA DLSS. The same five modes as the path-traced DLSS Mode: Quality, Balanced, Performance, Ultra Performance or DLAA.

While NVIDIA DLSS is active, it provides the anti-aliasing, and the Anti-Aliasing page shows that SMAA is inactive. If DLSS fails while rendering, the Log shows DLSS Super Resolution failed; restored native raster rendering. DLSS can be enabled again in rendering settings. If the message keeps appearing, set Upscaler to Off.

The Raster Visualization section. Its settings are not saved.

Field Default Description
Show Light Complexity off Tints the image with a colour gradient showing how many point and spot lights affect each part of the screen.
Show Shadow Cascades off Tints the image by directional shadow cascade, to show where each cascade starts.

The Geometry and Culling section. Its settings are saved with the project.

Field Default Description
Main-view culling on Skips objects outside the camera view.
Cascade shadow culling on Skips objects outside each directional shadow cascade.

Ambient Occlusion

Rasterized only. Ambient occlusion adds shading in creases and where surfaces are close together, using the depth of what is visible on screen. It darkens only the ambient light from the environment, not the light from light sources. The settings are saved with the project, except Occlusion only, which belongs to the Scene tab.

Field Default Range Description
Enabled on Turns ambient occlusion on or off.
Radius (m) 0.5 0.1 to 10000 Distance around each surface used to estimate occlusion.
Strength 1 0 to 1 How strongly occluded areas are darkened.
Sampling quality 1 1 to 3 Higher values average more occlusion estimates per pixel and cost more GPU time.
Half resolution off Reduces GPU cost at the expense of fine occlusion detail.

The collapsed Advanced Ambient Occlusion section holds fine-tuning controls. Most scenes do not need them.

Field Default Range Description
Occlusion only off Shows the ambient occlusion result on its own, for tuning.
Falloff range 0.62 0.01 to 1 How gradually occlusion fades towards the edge of the radius.
Radius multiplier 1.46 0.3 to 3 Multiplies Radius (m).
Sample distribution power 2 1 to 3 How samples are spread across the radius.
Thin occluder compensation 0 0 to 0.7 Reduces the darkening behind thin objects.
Visibility exponent 2.2 0 to 5 Contrast of the result. Higher values darken occluded areas more.
Denoise blur beta 1.2 0 to 30 How much each pixel keeps its own value when the result is smoothed. Higher values smooth less.
Depth mip sampling offset 3.3 0 to 30 Trades sampling precision against speed.
Denoise passes 4 0 to 8 Number of smoothing passes over the result.
Temporal noise off Changes the sample pattern every frame.
Visibility bitmask algorithm off Switches to an alternative occlusion method that uses an occluder thickness.
Occluder thickness (m) 0.5 0.01 to 5 Shown with the visibility bitmask algorithm. Assumed thickness of objects.
Bilateral upscale sigma 0.05 0.01 to 0.5 Shown with Half resolution. Edge sensitivity when the half-resolution result is scaled up.
Compare upscaling off Shown with Half resolution. Shows the result with simple upscaling, for comparison.

Reflections

Rasterized only. Screen-space reflections add reflections of objects visible on screen. Objects outside the view cannot appear in them. The settings are saved with the project.

Field Default Range Description
Enabled off Turns screen-space reflections on or off.
Intensity 0.7 0 to 1 Brightness of the reflections.
Maximum trace steps 70 1 to 200 Higher limits can fill in missing reflections, at a higher GPU cost.
Half resolution off Reduces GPU cost at the expense of reflection detail. It also makes refraction through glass look softer.

The collapsed Advanced Reflections section:

Field Default Range Description
Cone tracing on Blurs reflected colour according to surface roughness.
Depth tolerance (m) 0.8 0 or more Largest depth mismatch accepted for a reflected hit. Larger values can make reflections leak through surfaces.
Roughness depth tolerance (m) 1 0 or more Extra hit tolerance on rough surfaces.
Horizontal edge fade 0.1 0 to 10 Fades reflections out towards the left and right screen edges.
Vertical edge fade 0.15 0 to 10 Fades reflections out towards the top and bottom screen edges.
Camera-facing hit weight 0.1 0 to 2 Raises the minimum contribution of reflections that point back towards the camera.
Luminance boost 1 0 to 2 Amplifies already bright reflections. 0 turns this extra boost off.

Debug Images, inside the advanced section, previews the reflection images for diagnostics.

Bloom

Bloom adds a glow around bright areas in both render modes. In Path Traced mode it applies to the Lit view only.

Field Default Range Description
Enabled on Turns bloom on or off. Saved with the scene.
Bloom type Convolution (FFT) Pyramid creates a soft glow at a lower GPU cost. Convolution (FFT) adds a shaped glow and a starburst at a higher GPU cost. Saved with the project.
Glow radius (texels) 20 8 to 110 Shown with Convolution (FFT). Spread of the soft halo around bright areas. Saved with the project.
Starburst strength 0.1 0 to 2 Shown with Convolution (FFT). Strength of the rays extending from bright areas. Saved with the project.
Glare scale 5 0 to 64 Shown with Convolution (FFT). Scales the convolution glow before Intensity is applied. Saved with the project.
Intensity 1 0 to 20 Amount of glow added to the image. Saved with the scene.
Threshold 1.25 0 or more Scene brightness above which pixels contribute to bloom, measured before camera exposure. Saved with the scene.
Threshold softness 0.1 0.001 or more Smooths the transition around the threshold. Saved with the scene.
Lens dirt intensity 1 0 to 20 Strength of the lens dirt pattern in areas that receive bloom. Saved with the scene.

The Bloom type and the convolution settings apply to the Scene tabs only. Recordings use the scene's bloom settings with Pyramid bloom.

To add lens dirt, expand Lens Dirt Texture and click the preview to choose an image file. There is no lens dirt texture by default, so Lens dirt intensity has no visible effect until you choose one. The texture applies to the viewport until you close the project, and is not saved.

Depth of Field

A post-process blur in front of and behind a focus distance. It works in both render modes; in Path Traced mode, only in the Lit view. It is separate from the aperture depth of field of physical cameras, which works only in Path Traced mode; see Cameras and Exposure. The settings are saved with the project.

Field Default Range Description
Enabled off Turns post-process depth of field on or off.
Focus distance (m) 0.001 0.001 or more Distance from the camera at which surfaces stay sharp.
Blur strength 1 0 to 20 How quickly blur increases away from the focus distance.

Set Focus distance (m) after you turn the effect on: it starts almost at the camera, so nearly everything is blurred at first.

Anti-Aliasing

SMAA smooths visible edges in the final image, in both render modes. While the Rasterized NVIDIA DLSS upscaler is active, this page shows a note instead: NVIDIA DLSS provides the anti-aliasing and SMAA is inactive.

Field Default Description
SMAA enabled on Turns SMAA on or off. Saved with the project.

Shadows

Rasterized only. These settings control the shadow maps of directional, point and spot lights. Whether a light casts shadows at all is set on the light itself; see Lights and Materials. The softness of directional shadows is set only on this page: the Directional Light's own Soft Shadows and Source Size fields have no effect.

The fields in the first two tables below are not saved: they apply until you close the project. The cascade settings note where each is saved.

Field Default Range Description
Soft directional shadows on Softens directional-light shadows near the camera. Point and spot lights have their own soft-shadow switches.
Shadow softness 1 0 or more Scales the blur of soft shadows from directional, point and spot lights.
Directional shadow bias 1 0 or more Increase it to remove shadow artefacts on lit surfaces (shadow acne). Too high a value detaches shadows from objects.
Directional shadow distance (m) 200 0 or more Distance from the camera beyond which directional shadows fade out. Lighting past this distance is unaffected.
Distance fade (m) 1 0.001 or more Width of the fade to unshadowed lighting before the shadow distance.

The collapsed Advanced Shadows section:

Field Default Range Description
Directional source size scale 1 0 or more Scales the apparent size of the directional light, which sets how soft its shadows become.
Contact hardening scale 1 0.001 or more Larger values narrow the directional shadow blur for a given distance between an object and its shadow.
Spotlight source size (m) 0.001 0 or more Size of the spot light source used for soft spot light shadows.

Inside it, the Cascade Settings section controls how the directional shadow is split into cascades, from near the camera to the shadow distance:

Field Default Range Description
Blend cascades on Blends between neighbouring cascades instead of switching abruptly. Not saved.
Cascade transition width (m) 1 0.001 or more Width of the blend between cascades. Not saved.
Cascade split distribution 0.99 0 to 1 Blends between evenly spaced cascades (0) and cascades packed towards the camera (1). Saved with the scene.
Near-plane offset (m) 0 0 or less Moves the near end of the cascades. Saved with the scene.
Far-plane offset (m) 0 0 or more Moves the far end of the cascades. Saved with the scene.
Anchor cascades to origin 0 0 to 1 Moves the cascade anchor from the camera position towards the world origin. Saved with the scene.
Manual cascade splits off Sets the cascade split points by hand with Cascade 0 to Cascade 3 (each 0 to 1; defaults 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 1). Saved with the project.

The Directional Shadow Map and Spotlight Shadow Map sections, also inside Advanced Shadows, preview the shadow maps for diagnostics. The directional preview has a Cascade index slider and a Frustum overlay option.

Statistics

The Statistics page shows what the active Scene tab costs to render.

Item Description
Mode The render mode in use and the viewport resolution.
Viewport GPU GPU time of the viewport per frame, in milliseconds.
VSync Turns vertical sync on or off for the editor window.

In Path Traced mode the page adds Path tracing GPU timings, a table of GPU times with Last (ms) and Smoothed (ms) columns, and Path tracing workload, a summary of resolutions, sampling and scene size. See Performance statistics.

In Rasterized mode the page adds two collapsed sections: Raster Statistics, with the number of draw calls and instances and the GPU time of each rendering stage, and Pipeline Statistics, with GPU counters such as the number of vertices, primitives and shader invocations.

From C

Scripts can read and change some of these settings through the SceneRenderer class in the Hazel namespace. A script works on the active viewport, the same one the panel shows. Nothing a script sets is saved.

In the editor, the viewport takes its settings from the project, the scene and the Scene tab again at the start of every frame. That replaces any bloom, depth of field or ambient occlusion value a script set in the previous frame, so such changes have no lasting effect. To change these settings for good, use the panel.

C# class Panel page Notes
SceneRenderer.Bloom Bloom Knee is Threshold softness and DirtIntensity is Lens dirt intensity. UpsampleScale has no field in the panel.
SceneRenderer.DepthOfField Depth of Field BlurSize is Blur strength.
SceneRenderer.GTAO Ambient Occlusion EffectRadius is Radius (m), and most other properties match the Advanced Ambient Occlusion fields with similar names. Rasterized only.

The render mode, the denoiser, sampling, reflections, anti-aliasing and shadows have no scripting API. See SceneRenderer for the full class.

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