Blender rendering on a Mac
I’ve done 3D work in the past with both Maya and Cinema4D, but I’m now giving Blender 2.8 a go. The interface has been completely overhauled and it seems far more approachable. This also means I have some learning to do and, naturally, the issue of rendering came up pretty quick.
QUICK HISTORY
In 2014 Apple decided it was going to release a low-level graphics API called Metal. The eventual goal would be to use Metal rather than OpenGL and OpenCL. After the release of a second major version Metal has effectively done that. So what does that have to do with Blender?
As of today, it means that you’re probably not going to want to use a couple of the provided render engines in Blender. Cycles and Eevee are only going to let you do CPU-based rendering. That’s because they leverage OpenGL and OpenCL, which you’re Mac has phased out. I suppose you could use those engines, it’s just that they won’t leverage your graphics card and rendering will be painfully slow. That being said, we’ve got another solution.
PRORENDER
Luckily for us Mac folks there is ProRender. It’s from AMD (the folks who probably made your graphics card) and initially seems very solid for me. It’s not going to cost you anything, just like Blender. Once you install it you can select it just like you would Cycles or Eevee.
Long story short, if you are on a Mac (possibly a high-powered and expensive one) and audibly gasped when you fired up Blender and realized you’d only get CPU rendering, you’re probably okay.
