6.1 Rendering and shading modes

Once you have a 3D model with materials and textures, the next step is

to get a render. To render a Blender project, you must decide which is

the engine you will want to use. The two options available in Blender

are:

Eevee (default)

Cycles

They are both great renderers that can be useful in specific types of

projects. You use Cycles for projects that demand light accuracy and

cutting-edge realism. All this quality from Cycles has a high cost in terms

of computational power.

As a result, we get longer render times with Cycles, ranging from a

couple of minutes, hours, or days for single render. The time required to

render a scene depends on several factors like your scene's complexity

and the hardware used to render.

Eevee is the new default renderer, which debuted with Blender 2.8 and

can work with real-time visualization. Eevee's technology is closer to

what we find in modern 3D games, where you will see a less realistic

solution for lights and materials but with incredible speed.

You can choose between Eevee and Cycles at the Render tab in your

Properties Editor (Figure 6.1).