Render a video with path tracing

Want the reflections in your scene to move with your animation? Rotato Cinema renders the light in each movie frame. These controls are experimental.

Rotato Cinema requires an Apple silicon Mac running Rotato natively, without Rosetta. On Intel, use Rotato.

Render a short test

1. Play the timeline and check its motion, screen content and ending.
2. Save the editable project, then click Movie.
3. Open More. If Rendered View is enabled, leave Use Rotato Cinema for exports checked. Otherwise, choose Rotato Cinema in Renderer.
4. Choose Samples and Denoising. New settings start at 512 samples per frame and High denoising.
5. Review the output format, resolution and frame rate, then start rendering.
6. Watch the saved movie to check its motion, sound, grain and fine detail.

The rendering window shows the current frame and sample stage, plus previews of completed frames. Rotato remembers accepted movie settings in this document; save the project to retain them when you reopen it. Image samples and denoising are separate. With Rendered View enabled, the Use Rotato Cinema for exports choice is shared with image exports. Uncheck it and accept the dialog to keep the rendered preview while exporting with Realtime.

Balance time and grain

The Samples choices are 8, 32, 128, 512 and 1,024 per frame. Lower counts are useful for trying a short movie quickly; they can leave visible grain. Higher counts take longer for every frame.

Denoising offers Off, Low, Medium and High. Stronger filtering smooths more grain and can soften small details. It treats each frame separately, so inspect moving areas as well as a still frame.

For everyday export, choose Rotato. For a finished path-traced movie, try a short scene at the intended resolution before committing to a long render. Cycles is available for image exports only.

For output formats and transparency, see saving an animation as video.