Quick Start

Here's a succinct guide to help you getting started with appleseed 1.1.0.

Installation

  1. Download the latest release of appleseed.
  2. Unzip the file somewhere on your disk.

Rendering

  1. Start appleseed.studio:
    • On Windows: double-click on the appleseed.studio.exe file located in the bin\ directory of your appleseed installation.
    • On Linux and Mac OS X: open a terminal, go to the bin/ directory of your appleseed installation and run ./run-appleseed.sh.
  2. Open the built-in Cornell Scene (File → Open Built-in Project → Cornell Box).
  3. Start interactive rendering (Rendering → Start Interactive Rendering, or press F5).

Navigation

The next three steps require interactive rendering to be started.

  1. Rotate the camera by holding the Ctrl (Command on Mac) key down, left-clicking with the mouse inside the render area and dragging the mouse around.
  2. Zoom in or out by keeping the Ctrl/Command key pressed, right-clicking with the mouse inside the render area and dragging the mouse up or down.
  3. Pan the camera by pressing the Ctrl/Command key, middle-clicking and dragging the mouse inside the render area.

Saving the result

  1. Stop rendering (Rendering → Stop Rendering, or press Shift-F5).
  2. You can now save the final image to disk by right-clicking on the rendered image and choosing Save Frame As....

One last thing...

After each render (final or interactive), appleseed automatically stores the result of the rendering as an OpenEXR image file in images/autosave/, so you won't ever "loose a render". If you don't already have a tool to open OpenEXR images, and you're on Windows, give a try to the great XnView image viewer (you'll also need to download the OpenEXR plugin here).

What now?

You might want to check out the tutorials and other resources in the user wiki.