How to append cycles render settings to another file

Question

Is there anyway to append render settings from one blend file to another?

IE... sampling, lightpaths, film settings, and other things that are found in the render settings section.

Answer 1

As far as I know there isn't a way to specifically save or append render settings, these properties are not considered datablocks, so they can't be directly browsed for or linked to. You can however append a scene from another file, that scene will bring in with it all render settings saved in it.

So you could create a file with an empty scene with all your sampling, bounce, performance settings etc. saved in it and append that scene to new files and use that scene directly.

With the appended scene as current you can also press the + button to add a new scene to your file and choose the option Copy settings, that should also create a new scene with exactly your current custom render settings copied over.

If you already have a scene setup and populated with your objects and want to apply those settings to it, your best bet is probably to create a new empty scene from a template having your desired settings using the techniques above in the same file, then link all your objects to the new scene with the Ctrl + L Link > Objects to Scene.

Have in mind that in Blender 2.8+ doing this will sadly make you lose your collection hierarchy, since linking will only transfer objects, not collections. I don't have any good workaround for that at the moment.

If you need to do this often, you might also consider writing a small python script to either copy the relevant values from a specific scene, or set them to some predefined preset.

Answer 2

I know this is old, but people still search for it and this comes up. But 5 years later there's an additional trick. There's a built-in addon called copy render settings. You can link/append the scene with the render settings you want from another file, then just use the copy render settings to apply to your new scene. This also allows you to choose which settings to copy rather than just applying All of them.

If you Do want all of them, it's probably easier to create a new scene in the file with your settings. Don't add anything, just do new. This will keep the render settings from the active scene. Save that file. Now append that scene to your other file, it's blank but has the settings you want. In the outliner change the view to scenes. Just drag Everything from your one scene into the newly appended scene, then delete your old scene. That's easier, to me, than using copy render settings.

Answer 3

I'm not sure. If I wasn't able to search for it on the Internet, I would have done this. When you have a spec that you want to save, you could right click it and see "Edit source". Click on it copy the code and past it in a text editor like notepad. Just give it a quick name so you remember what it is for so you can also paste more codes in one file. Later you'll have to edit every source in another blend-file to the saved codes. I think it is possible but I don't know how to keep it quick. I know only this way...