Core Concepts¶
Understanding a few key ideas will make Scene Assembler click quickly.
The node graph¶
Everything in Scene Assembler is built in a node graph. Each node performs one step in the assembly pipeline — loading a collection, defining render settings, applying an override, or outputting a render job. You connect nodes with links, and the addon evaluates the graph from left to right when you send a job to render.
You can create as many graphs as you need in one .blend file. Graphs are independent by default, but you can share data between them using Set and Get nodes.
Collections are the building blocks¶
Scene Assembler renders scenes by composing Blender collections, not by duplicating scenes. Each Collection Source node brings in one or more collections from the current file (or an external .blend). Those collections are passed through the graph, optionally filtered down to individual objects, and assembled into a temporary render scene at job time.
Your production scene is never modified.
View layers¶
A Scene Node can have multiple view layers — one per connected View Layer node branch. Each view layer gets its own render passes, overrides, and output path. This maps directly to Blender's view layer system, which Scene Assembler configures automatically on the assembled scene.
When every connected layer shares the same camera, world, and render settings, and none of them has an object override, Scene Assembler renders them together as native Blender view layers on one shared scene — faster than the alternative of one throwaway scene per layer, which is what happens automatically whenever that condition isn't met.
Overrides¶
Overrides let you change properties of objects, lights, materials, or the scene itself for a specific render layer without touching the source data. Override nodes sit between the collection and the scene node. They are applied only to the assembled temporary scene, never to your production collections.
The render queue¶
Scene Assembler includes a local render queue that runs Blender in the background. You send jobs from the node graph to the queue, and the queue manager renders them one by one while you keep working. The N-panel shows progress, ETA, and any errors.
Output paths and tokens¶
Every render job writes its output to a path built from a template. Templates use tokens like {scene}, {layer}, {frame}, and {camera} that are resolved at render time. Tokens are configured on the Output Defaults node and can be overridden per Scene node.