Linking render visibility to viewport visibility in 2.81?

Question

While there may be cases when you want to render objects other than the ones you see in the editor, you more often need to prevent such difference and have in the render exactly the objects visible in the editor.

Is it possible to lock (meaning keep them in sync) visibility in render to visibility in viewport, so that you get what you see and don't need to search objects one by one to ensure you'll render all and only the objects currently in the editor?

Said otherwise how to keep in sync any pair of icons, at object level, at collection level, and whatever other levels if I forgot some. In sync meaning when one changes the other changes too, as if there was only one icon. In more conventional GUI, this lock is usually represented by a chain link icon:

Question for Blender 2.8.

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By the way I don't understand why the active camera view doesn't show objects with render = visible, and rather show objects with viewport = visible. Camera views are supposed to be the ones which are rendered. So there is no way to preview what will be rendered.

Answer 1

Edit: I wrote an add-on that allows to sync with the click of a button, and I added installation instructions below.

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I found the following line of python code that syncs the ports here:

for ob in bpy.context.scene.objects: ob.hide_render = ob.hide

This line needs to be adjusted for blender 2.8+, like someone pointed out in the comments of the original post:

for ob in bpy.context.scene.objects: ob.hide_render = ob.hide_get()

However, this will only do it once and not permanently link the two.

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Therefore, I wrote a short add-on that syncs the render ports with the current view ports through the click of a button in the collections panel. You need to click every time you want to synchronise. I do not yet have a solution to link them continuously, but the button should already make things considerably easier.

Installation If you are interested, you can download the add-on here: https://github.com/Nayunis/Blender/blob/master/sync_render_with_view.zip

Just copy the unpacked folder into the blender add-ons folder (something like C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\addons)

Then you can activate the add-on within blender via: Edit > Preferences > Add-Ons (in the left menu) and search for "Sync Render with Viewport" and tick the little box to activate it. Now the button should be there.

Answer 2

Use collections. If you already know what they icons do on the outliner, use collections to hide specific groups or unhide them: https://streamable.com/ntqif

Answer 3

It was a little hard to understand your question simply meaning (from what I understand) to ensure that the objects you see in the viewport will be rendered in the final render. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Unless you have specifically disabled rendering for a single object in Blender, if you can see it in the render viewport, then I am almost positive you will see it in the final render.

In the case you are working with hidden objects and you want to show them all, go to the search bar and type "Show all". Select the option, and see if any objects become visible.

If you have objects that do have rendering disabled, go to the collections tab, and make sure the camera icon is selected. Also make sure that the "eye" icon is also selected. If these are selected, they will be clearly visible, not greyed out.

If what you actually want is to show the objects in the final render as they are seen in the viewport, then don't worry. DevLook function (2.8) will show you almost exactly what it will look like.

If an object is grey/transparent, then select it, and make sure that rendering is enabled. If so, then check the materials. The object may be transparent. If you want this, then the object will be invisible at full color white. If you want it to be transparent but visible, then lower the color value. If you want it to be semi-transparent, then give it a darker color, or a translucent shader.

If you want to see the actual render status (what everything looks like rendered), then you should just use rendered view. The spheres at the top right of the viewport show different views (wireframe,solid,material (LookDEV), and rendered.

I really hope my answer helps you, and Happy Blending!