Frequently Asked Questions

A rendering toolkit for LEGO models that runs in your browser. Upload a BrickLink Studio file and you can render stills, animate it with camera moves or watch it build itself, and lay out its instruction book automatically. The heavy work runs on cloud GPUs, so your own computer stays free.

No. Every setting is a button, a slider or a drag in BrickRender, and you never open Blender. If you can use Studio, you can use this.

You need Studio (or another LDraw tool) to build and save the model. BrickRender takes it from there: you upload the file you saved and do the rest in the browser. BrickRender renders your models and makes their instructions; it does not replace the tool you build them in.

About 10× for a still. A 1600×900 image that takes around 8 minutes on an M1 MacBook Pro renders in under a minute on BrickRender. A batch is faster again, because every shot renders at the same time instead of one after another.

The photorealistic look uses the same Eyesight engine Studio does, so a render matches what Studio would give you, just sooner. The other five looks (instruction manual, blueprint, cel-shaded, halftone and patent drawing) are BrickRender's own.

Everything happens in the browser. Sign in with your Google account, then drag your Studio .io file into BrickRender. It is uploaded and prepared for rendering automatically.

Pick the model and start a batch. For each shot, orbit the model to the angle you like, choose a look and the lighting, and for an animation, a camera move. Add as many shots to the batch as you want; they all render at once.

Hit Submit. You can close the tab; the renders keep going. When they finish, download them from the batch page.

26 of them, in three groups: orbits (full, half, spiral, tracking arc and vertical), pans and tilts (including two flybys), and dolly and crane moves (including a fly-over and a fly-under). Each one can be tuned, and you choose from six easing curves, from a smooth ease to a springy overshoot.

A camera animation uses one move. Queue several shots to get several moves; they all render at the same time. A build animation is different: it moves the camera for you, two moves for every submodel.

Your model builds itself on screen, one submodel at a time, in the order you set in Studio. Bricks fall into place as each submodel goes together, and the camera follows the build with two automatic moves per submodel.

If you want a different angle anywhere, keyframe the camera there; the rest of the path stays automatic. Build animations come in the photorealistic and instruction-manual looks.

Up to 90 seconds. Longer videos are split across several GPUs and joined back together, so a long one does not take proportionally longer to come back.

Steps and submodels, as you set them in Studio. BrickRender follows your order exactly and does not invent one: each submodel becomes its own section, and each step becomes a picture with its parts box.

Yes, all of it. Move a part to another step, turn, tilt or snap any view, choose 1, 2 or 4 steps per page, move page breaks, and edit any text on the page. Your changes are kept.

Yes. The instructions are yours. Upload the PDF to Rebrickable next to your MOC, sell it from your own site, or share it however you like.

No. BrickRender runs entirely in your browser. There is nothing to download, install or keep updated. Sign in and you are ready to go.

Any current version of Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari, on macOS, Windows, Linux or ChromeOS. The one real requirement is WebGL, which every one of those has had on by default for years. It is what draws the 3D view you frame your shots in.

In Studio, save your model as usual. That gives you a .io file. Then drag that file into BrickRender's Models page, or click to browse for it.

LDraw .ldr and .mpd files work too, with one caveat worth knowing: Studio's .ldr export leaves behind the part definitions it keeps inside a .io file, so some custom or newer parts can go missing. If you built it in Studio, upload the .io.

Upload a Studio .io file, or an LDraw .ldr or .mpd. Renders come back as PNG images and MP4 videos, and instruction books as a PDF.

Yes. BrickRender runs your queued jobs in parallel on the cloud, so submitting ten shots takes roughly as long as submitting one. There is no waiting for each job to finish before the next one starts.

Pick from 11 lighting environments, from a product-studio softbox to golden-hour sunsets and a stormy night, or keep Studio's own light rigs. You can use a different one on every shot in the same batch.

Set any background colour, or stand the model on a real surface: wood tables, a workbench, parquet, marble, concrete, slate, a picnic cloth, even the Moon. Surfaces are drawn at real-world scale and fade softly into the background.

Yes. Custom parts carried in your .io file are rendered, including the printing on parts made in Studio's Part Designer. If something does not look the way it does in Studio, tell us and we will look at it.

Your model file is uploaded. That is how browser-based rendering works, and it is worth being straight about. It goes into private cloud storage that blocks public access outright; nothing in it is browsable, listed or indexed, and every read your browser makes is through a short-lived signed link scoped to your account.

Your models stay until you delete them, which you can do at any time from the model's page. Finished renders are deleted automatically 30 days after they complete, so download anything you want to keep.

Every render shows its current status on the batch page, updating live. You do not have to keep the tab open; the renders run in the cloud either way. If something goes wrong, the status says so.

Beta invites include render credits. The exact amount depends on your invite tier. Your remaining credits are on your account page, along with what each batch has used.

Yes. BrickRender is completely free during the beta period, with render credits included with your invite. Paid plans are coming.

Pricing will be per minute of render time. Exact rates are still being finalised, and we will share details before the beta ends so you know what to expect.

No. BrickRender is an independent tool built by and for the LEGO builder community. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by BrickLink or the LEGO Group. LEGO, BrickLink, and BrickLink Studio are trademarks of their respective owners.