Render Several Scenes

File > Render Scenes… renders SketchUp scenes one after the other and saves an image of each, named after the scene. Start it before you leave the office and the views are waiting for you in the morning, without switching scene tabs and saving every render yourself.

Rayscaper selects each scene in SketchUp the way you do when you click its tab, so the image shows everything the scene saved: its camera, the tags and objects it hides, its shadow settings and, from SketchUp 2025, its environment. It waits until the render has all its samples, saves the image and goes on with the next scene. At the end it selects the scene you were on again.

Render Scenes is only in the SketchUp extension: the standalone app doesn’t know the scenes of a model.

Choose the Scenes

The dialog lists the scenes of the model in the order of their tabs, all of them selected. Clear the scenes you don’t need, or use Select None and pick a few. The arrows move a scene up or down: the scenes render from the top down.

Output

• Folder: where the images are saved, the folder of the model until you choose another one.
• Format: PNG is the image as you see it, after post processing. EXR is the HDR render before post processing, for compositing; it needs a license.
• Replace Images: replace an image with the same name in the folder. When it’s off, a new image gets a free name like Kitchen (2).png, so earlier renders are kept.
• Saves As shows the names the images get.

An image is named after its scene. Characters that can’t be in a file name, like / or :, become _, and two scenes with the same name get Kitchen.png and Kitchen (2).png.

Render Overrides

By default every scene renders at the resolution of the camera and with the samples per pixel of the render settings. Override Resolution and Override Samples/px set them for this batch only, for instance for quick drafts of all views. Your own settings are back when the batch ends.

While Rendering

The dialog shows the scene that renders, its progress and the progress of the whole batch. Stop Rendering stops after the images that were saved: they stay in the folder.

When the batch ends the dialog lists every scene with its image, or why it failed. Open Folder opens the folder with the images.

Note

Leave SketchUp alone while the scenes render: Rayscaper renders what SketchUp shows, so selecting another scene or changing the model changes the image that is being rendered.

Troubleshooting

A scene failed because Lock Camera is on

Lock Camera on the Rayscaper toolbar keeps the render from following the SketchUp camera, so Rayscaper can’t show the camera of a scene. Turn it off and render again.

The image doesn’t show what the scene shows

A scene only changes what it saved. In SketchUp’s Scenes panel, check under Properties to save that the scene saves the camera, hidden objects, visible tags and shadow settings you expect, and update the scene after changing them.