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Moray Render · Blender 5.2+

Moray Render

Moray Render brings OpenMoonRay, an open-source production path tracer, to Blender.

  • Blender 5.2+
  • Windows, macOS, Linux
  • Free watermarked trial
$75

One-time license · or try it free first

Independent product. Not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by DreamWorks Animation or the Academy Software Foundation.

logo

Why artists switch it on

Production tools, without the pipeline

A production path tracer

Moray is a second render engine in Blender, next to the ones you already have: a production path tracer originally developed at DreamWorks Animation for feature-film hair, layered materials, and volumes. Switch the engine when you want that renderer, and switch back when you don’t.

Your scenes already work

Open an existing Blender scene and switch the engine. Principled materials, Geometry Nodes, hair, and volumes come across, so you can render it without rebuilding anything.

Frames built for compositing

Moray can write the render as separate lighting and data layers, the way a studio delivers to compositing, so a light or an object can be rebalanced in Nuke without rendering again.

Materials

A production material library, in your node editor

Production-tested shaders

Skin, metal, fabric, velvet, hair, toon, glass, and more: production-tested shaders from the MoonRay project. Layer, Mix, and Switch nodes stack them the way look-development does.

A preview that follows the shader

Dwa materials draw a stand-in in Material Preview that follows the graph, including Layer, Mix, and Switch. The Rendered viewport is the path tracer itself.

Your Blender materials come along

Principled BSDF with sheen, coat, subsurface, and metals, plus glass, emission, volumes, and Principled Hair. Classic Diffuse, Glossy, Emission, and Transparent shader trees under Mix and Add Shader blend as they do in Blender. Procedural patterns such as Noise, Voronoi, Wave, Checker, Brick, Math, Mapping, and Bump compile to OSL and run in Moray, in any combination and inside node groups. Image textures, Color Ramps, and curves become native Moray nodes. Light units match Blender, and a scene’s tuned bounces and clamps carry over the first time you switch engines. We render those translations next to Cycles and fix what drifts. It is not a pixel-identical match.

Geometry

Bring the procedural stuff

  • Geometry Nodes instances render the way a studio handles a forest or a crowd: one prototype in memory and a list of positions.
  • Hair and fur from hair curves or particle systems, with the production hair shader. Curves render as smooth Catmull-Rom.
  • OpenVDB smoke and fire, including animated sequences, with grid-driven emission through the MoonRay volume field.
  • Geometry Nodes materials, stored colour attributes, and procedural volumes all reach the render.
  • Glowing meshes light the scene efficiently: flat panels and discs become matching area lights, while bulbs and tubes can use a fitted sphere or cylinder light that renders faster with less noise.

Compositing

Deliver frames in layers

A finished frame is usually layers a compositor recombines. Moray writes those layers so one light, one object, or a bit of atmosphere can change without a new render.

  • Arnold-style lighting layers split by light, by light group, or by a light path expression, with the light groups assigned natively in Blender.
  • Cryptomatte, so Nuke can mask an object or a material. Included with a license. The free trial leaves it locked.
  • Deep OpenEXR, so separately rendered elements and volumes hold their depth. Also part of the license, not the trial.
  • Shadow catchers for CG over a live-action plate. With Film Transparent, the combined pass holds the catcher out and the alpha carries the shadow.
  • F12 can write the package as OpenEXR files Nuke reads directly.
$75

One-time license · or try it free first

Renderer

Specifications

Engine
OpenMoonRay (Apache-2.0), the open-source MoonRay path tracer from the Academy Software Foundation.
Execution
CPU vectorized (the default), CPU scalar, or hybrid XPU: the GPU traces rays and the CPU shades. Metal on Apple silicon, OptiX on NVIDIA Windows and Linux. Adaptive sampling, now the default, runs on both CPU and GPU.
Host
Blender 5.2 and later, installed as a native Blender extension. The engine is named Moray.
Platforms
macOS (Apple silicon), Windows x64, and Linux x86_64.
Process
The renderer runs in its own process, so a crash there does not take Blender or the scene with it.
Viewport
Live Rendered viewport with incremental updates: a material edit patches the running render instead of reloading the scene. Preview any light or data layer in the viewport. MetalFX upscaling for the viewport on macOS.
Denoise
Intel Open Image Denoise, with albedo and normal guides. Lighting layers and light groups can be denoised, in the viewport, in F12, and on the farm. Depth, Cryptomatte, and data passes are not.
Layers
Light path expressions, light groups, material and shadow layers, depth, normals, position, Cryptomatte, deep OpenEXR, and shadow catchers.
Output
A multi-part OpenEXR package, ZIP compressed, with Cryptomatte manifests. Beauty stays half-float.
Geometry
Meshes, Geometry Nodes instances, hair curves, particle hair and fur, OpenVDB volumes and sequences.
Interop
RDLA export for the command-line renderer.

Download

Download Moray Render

Moray license · $75
  • The full renderer, no watermark
  • Cryptomatte and deep OpenEXR
  • Updates included
  • Two machine activations
  • Commercial use
Free trial
  • Render your own scenes before you pay
  • Watermark on the frames
  • Cryptomatte and deep OpenEXR locked
  • Add a license key later, no reinstall

Free to download and try (watermark). Buy a license for clean client delivery + Cryptomatte / deep EXR.

$75

One-time license · or try it free first

Questions

Before you buy

How can I download it?

Download the Windows x64, macOS Apple silicon, or Linux build on this page. The free trial renders with a watermark and does not need an account. A license is a key you paste into the add-on after checkout.

Does it run on Windows?

Yes. The Windows download is a 64-bit build for Blender 5.2 or later. OptiX hybrid rendering needs an NVIDIA GPU. CPU mode does not.

Does it replace Blender’s own renderers?

No. Blender’s own renderers stay where they are. Moray is a second engine for when you want OpenMoonRay’s path tracer and a layered EXR package. You can switch a scene back.

Will my existing scenes work?

Principled BSDF, hair, volumes, and Geometry Nodes translate into Moray. That translation is best-effort, not a guaranteed pixel match. We check renders against Blender’s own and fix what drifts: metal tint, volume colour, sheen, coat, subsurface, and hair melanin are part of that work.

Do I need a powerful GPU?

No. The default is CPU vectorized. GPU mode is hybrid: rays on the GPU, shading on the CPU. That is Metal on Apple silicon and OptiX on NVIDIA. It is not a full-path GPU renderer. Adaptive sampling, the default, works on the GPU too.

Which systems does it run on?

Blender 5.2 or later. macOS on Apple silicon, Windows x64, and Linux x86_64.

Can I use it for commercial work?

Yes. A paid license covers commercial use. The free build is for trying the renderer on your own scenes, and those frames carry a watermark.

Is this made by DreamWorks?

No. Moray is CompStart’s product. It runs OpenMoonRay, the open-source release of the MoonRay renderer, hosted by the Academy Software Foundation in the Linux Foundation ecosystem. DreamWorks Animation developed MoonRay, uses it, and remains a contributor. DreamWorks does not own the project, and does not make, sponsor, or endorse Moray. Moray is not an official MoonRay build and not an abbreviation of MoonRay.

What if it doesn’t work for me?

Render your own scene with the free watermarked build before you pay. A license is a key delivered after checkout, and you paste it into the add-on. You do not reinstall. Digital goods can be non-refundable once that key is delivered, except where the law says otherwise.

Need help? Contact support

Render your next frame with Moray.

$75

One-time license · or try it free first

Moray Render is an independent commercial Blender extension from CompStart. Moray is CompStart’s product name, after the moray eel. It is not an official MoonRay build and not an abbreviation of MoonRay. Moray runs OpenMoonRay, the open-source release of the MoonRay™ renderer, an Academy Software Foundation project in the Linux Foundation ecosystem, under the Apache License 2.0. DreamWorks Animation developed the MoonRay renderer, uses it in production, and remains a contributor. DreamWorks does not own the project. Moray is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the Academy Software Foundation, The Linux Foundation, LF Projects, LLC, or DreamWorks Animation. Film titles refer to DreamWorks Animation films rendered with the MoonRay renderer, as listed on openmoonray.org: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Kung Fu Panda 4, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Bad Guys, The Bad Guys 2, and The Wild Robot. They are not Moray productions. MoonRay is a trademark of LF Projects, LLC. DreamWorks and the film titles are trademarks of their respective owners.

Blender is a registered trademark of the Blender Foundation. Moray is not affiliated with the Blender Foundation. Open-source licenses for bundled components ship with the extension.