Cycles is Blender’s physically-based path tracer for production rendering. It is designed to provide physically based results out-of-the-box, with artistic control and flexible shading nodes for production needs. To use Cycles, select it as the Render Engine in the Render properties.

Cycles, Blender’s other render engine, is based only on computationally costly path tracing, such as for film production. Rays are delivered from the camera onto the scene and reflected many times, just like real light. In Blender 4.2, Cycles can send rays through portals to other parts of the scene, such as a surveillance camera.