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BLUEBERRY.VISUALSEST · 2026
BLENDER · TIME BUDGET

Render Forge

Pixar-grade output on any time budget. A custom Blender add-on built by a VJ for VJs.

Download for Blender (free) →Pay what you feel · Blender 4.0+

What it does

Tell Render Forge how much time you have — “render this animation in 24 hours” — and it computes the sample budget per frame, allocates GPU memory, runs the queue, and gives you the highest visual quality that fits.

No more guessing sample counts. No more 60-hour renders for a 24-hour deadline. The math is baked in.

Why it exists

Built it because the festival visuals workflow is brutal. You get the booking 3 days before the show. You need 8 minutes of 4K visual loops. Cycles can do it — but only if you tell it exactly how much time you have. There's no native Blender feature for “render at the highest quality that fits in N hours.” Render Forge is that feature.

Time-budget comparison

Same scene. Same Cycles settings except sample count.

No budget cap
512 spp
74 hours
Misses deadline
Render Forge 24h
160 spp
23h 52m
Pixar-grade
Render Forge 4h
32 spp
3h 58m
Festival-ready

* Measured on RTX 5070 Ti, 4K, Cycles GPU, OPTIX denoise. Your hardware will vary.

Install in 2 minutes

  1. Download lucaslib_render_forge.py above.
  2. Blender → Edit → Preferences → Add-ons → Install → select the file.
  3. Enable the checkbox next to Render Forge.
  4. Open the N-panel in any 3D viewport → new tab called Forge.
  5. Set your time budget (in hours). Hit Render with Budget. Walk away.

What's inside

Render Forge measures your machine's per-sample time on your current scene, then solves backwards from your deadline to the maximum sample count that fits. It auto-enables persistent_data, tile-based rendering, and OPTIX denoise. It writes a render log so you can repeat the same budget on future scenes.

Presets included: Avatar3_24h (festival loops), Smoke (5-min previews), Gigamax (no cap, just go).

Compatibility

Blender 4.0+ on Windows, macOS, Linux. GPU recommended (Cycles works on CPU too, just slower). No external dependencies. Pure bpy Python — no compiled binaries.

License

Free. Pay what you feel via Gumroad if it saves your weekend. Use it on commercial projects. Don't redistribute the .py file directly — link people to this page instead.

Support

Bugs / requests: lucas@lucaslib.com. Made by Blueberry Visuals.