How does Blender decide in which window it shows the render

Question

This has puzzled me for years: How does Blender decide the window where it will display the rendered image when I hit F12 to render?

gandalf3 · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-07 19:32:03Z

22

By default it picks the largest area, unless an image editor already exists.

You can alter this behavior by setting the Display option in the render settings:

enter image description here

Keep UI

Does not change the UI. The render will not be automatically shown.
New Window

Opens a separate window containing only an image editor showing the render.
Image Editor (default)

Renders into an image editor. Turns the largest area into an image editor if one doesn't exist.
Full Screen

Replaces the UI with a full screen image editor showing the render.

answered Jul 7, 2015 at 19:26

gandalf3

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1

$\begingroup$ To be clear for future users redirected from the linked question (how to select the view for the render result): This is not possible to select the target view, the largest one will always be selected and it can be anything (e.g. the dope sheet view -- IMO there is room for improvement here...) Thanks for the explanation. $\endgroup$
– mins
Commented Mar 12, 2016 at 17:33
1

$\begingroup$ @mins If you want more control over which area is used for displaying the render, one way is to use Keep UI and press F11 over the area you want to turn into an image editor/render display area. $\endgroup$
– gandalf3
Commented Mar 12, 2016 at 20:22
$\begingroup$ One weird quirk of this is that even if you have the UV/image editor open, the render will only appear there if no image or a previous render is shown in there. However, if you are displaying some other image, such as a texture for uv mapping, it will render to another panel. However, you can get back to the previous view by pressing Esc or F11. $\endgroup$
– MrFlamey
Commented Nov 9, 2016 at 8:57

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Stephan Ahlf · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-20 16:20:55Z

6

In 2.8 I found this in the top menu Render/Display Mode

answered Mar 20, 2019 at 16:20

Stephan Ahlf

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$\begingroup$ From Blender 2.81, this was moved to User Preferences → Interface → Editors → Temporary Windows. $\endgroup$
– user4979
Commented Feb 19, 2020 at 10:24

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2 Answers 2