# Renderers > Cycles, EEVEE, POV-Ray, LuxCoreRender, Mitsuba 3, appleseed and pbrt-v4. What each one is good at, how to run its sample scene, and which one to choose. A **renderer** calculates the final picture from a 3D scene: how light bounces, how glass bends it, how shadows fall. Animux has seven, from very easy to research-grade. ## Which one should I use? | Renderer | Choose it when | How you use it | |---|---|---| | **Cycles** (in Blender) | Almost always: realistic, fast enough, in the program you model in | Blender → Render Engine: Cycles | | **EEVEE** (in Blender) | Fast previews, cartoons, motion graphics | Blender → Render Engine: EEVEE | | **POV-Ray** 3.7 | You like describing scenes in text; classic CG, maths art, teaching | menu *Renderers → POV-Ray*, or `povray` | | **LuxCoreRender** 2.11 | Very realistic light: caustics, glass, interiors | Python scripts (`animux-vfx-python`) | | **Mitsuba 3** 3.9 | Research, spectral rendering, inverse rendering | Python or `mitsuba scene.xml` | | **appleseed** 2.1 beta | Production-style physically based rendering of `.appleseed` projects | menu *Renderers → appleseed*, or `appleseed.cli` | | **pbrt-v4** | Learning how renderers work, with the book *Physically Based Rendering* | `pbrt scene.pbrt` | All seven side by side, with full names and what each does best: [Renderer comparison](renderer-comparison.md). Beginners: **use Cycles**, explained in [Blender](blender.md#render-engines) and the [first-render tutorial](../tutorials/first-3d-render.md). !!! warning "Processor features" Cycles (Blender 5) and appleseed need SSE4.2; Mitsuba and LuxCore also need AVX. See [Requirements](../start/requirements.md#does-my-processor-have-sse42-and-avx). ## Try every renderer in two minutes Each renderer has a sample scene in `/usr/share/animux/samples`. The [self-test](../help/self-test.md) renders all of them and saves the pictures in `~/animux-selftest//`: ``` animux-selftest povray blender mitsuba luxcore appleseed pbrt gaffer ``` These are the pictures the self-test made on Animux (in a virtual machine, a few seconds each):
![Cycles (Blender 5.2): samples/blender/turntable.py](../../images/render-blender.webp) ![POV-Ray: samples/povray/animux-spheres.pov](../../images/render-povray.webp) ![LuxCoreRender: samples/luxcore/render.py](../../images/render-luxcore.webp) ![Mitsuba 3: samples/mitsuba/render.py](../../images/render-mitsuba.webp) ![appleseed: the helloworld example](../../images/render-appleseed.webp) ![pbrt-v4: samples/pbrt/animux-spheres.pbrt](../../images/render-pbrt.webp) ![Gaffer with Cycles: samples/gaffer/render.py](../../images/render-gaffer.webp) ![Synfig: frame 12 of samples/synfig/bouncing-ball.sif](../../images/render-synfig.webp)
## POV-Ray POV-Ray reads a **text file** that describes the scene, and writes a picture. ``` #include "colors.inc" camera { location <0, 2, -6> look_at <0, 1, 0> } light_source { <-5, 10, -10> color White } plane { y, 0 pigment { checker Gray White } } sphere { <0, 1, 0>, 1 pigment { color Red } finish { phong 0.8 reflection 0.2 } } ``` Save that as `ball.pov`, then either choose **3D Animation → Renderers → POV-Ray** and pick the file (the picture opens by itself and is saved in `~/Pictures/povray/`), or type: ``` povray +Iball.pov +Oball.png +W1280 +H720 +A -D ``` `+A` turns on anti-aliasing (smooth edges), `-D` renders without a preview window. Hundreds of example scenes are in `/usr/share/povray-3.7/scenes`. ![POV-Ray asks for a scene file; the sample scenes folder opens first.](../../images/povray-gui.webp) ## LuxCoreRender LuxCore is used here as a **Python module** in Animux's ready-made Python, `animux-vfx-python`: ``` animux-vfx-python /usr/share/animux/samples/luxcore/render.py ~/luxcore.png ``` Read `render.py` to see how a scene is described (camera, materials, lights) and how long it renders (a time or quality limit). LuxCore's Blender add-on (*BlendLuxCore*) is not included in r16. !!! info On Animux LuxCore renders on the **processor**. It ignores the software OpenCL drivers that come with Debian, because they made it crash. On a computer with a real OpenCL GPU driver you can let it use the GPU by starting it with `ANIMUX_KEEP_ALL_OPENCL=1`. ## Mitsuba 3 ``` mitsuba scene.xml -o out.exr animux-vfx-python /usr/share/animux/samples/mitsuba/render.py ~/mitsuba.exr ``` Mitsuba writes **EXR** images; view them with [DJV](video-tools.md#djv-review-renders-and-image-sequences) or convert them: `oiiotool ~/mitsuba.exr -o ~/mitsuba.png`. Mitsuba 3 can render in RGB or **spectral** mode, and can compute how the picture changes when the scene changes (for research and machine learning). Documentation: . ## appleseed Only the command-line renderer is included (the *appleseed.studio* editor needs Python 2.7, which Debian 12 no longer has). The menu entry asks for a `.appleseed` project, renders it and shows the result. ``` appleseed.cli "/opt/animux/appleseed/examples/cpp/helloworld/reference output/test.appleseed" --output ~/appleseed.png ``` ## pbrt-v4 The renderer from the free online book *Physically Based Rendering* (). The book explains every line of its source code. ``` cd /usr/share/animux/samples/pbrt pbrt --spp 64 --outfile ~/pbrt.exr animux-spheres.pbrt imgtool convert ~/pbrt.exr ~/pbrt.png ``` `--spp` sets the samples per pixel (quality). The Animux build runs on the processor only. Large example scenes: . ## Gaffer + Cycles [Gaffer](gaffer.md) can also render with Cycles from a node graph, the way lighting artists work in studios. ## Render times, roughly | What | Typical time per frame on a 4-core PC | |---|---| | EEVEE, 1080p, simple scene | 1–10 seconds (with a graphics card) | | Cycles CPU, 1080p, 128 samples with denoising | 30 seconds – 5 minutes | | POV-Ray, 1280×720, sample scene | a few seconds | | LuxCore / Mitsuba / pbrt, sample scenes | under a minute | A 2-minute film at 24 frames per second has **2,880 frames**. Several minutes per frame quickly means days. Test with small resolution and few samples, and use a [render farm](flamenco.md) or render overnight.