How to Render Cabinets in Mozaik – Phill Anton Consulting

Q: Does the rendering subscription have to be bought per computer?

No. The $50 fee covers all seats under your main license, up to 12 seats, rather than being charged per license.

Q: Do I really need to fine-tune all these settings every time?

Not necessarily. Rendering is a bit of an art, similar to photography, but you can get a good, realistic result with simple settings. Most users find one HDRI they like, dial in its settings once, and reuse them across jobs. Keep in mind that switching HDRIs usually means re-adjusting the lighting settings.

To render cabinets in Mozaik, open the 3D viewer, save the camera views you want, then click Render to send each view to Mozaik's cloud rendering service, which processes the image on Mozaik's servers and downloads a finished photorealistic picture back to you. Cloud rendering is a paid add-on subscription on your Mozaik license; once it's active, you fine-tune lighting, HDRI, and material settings to get a clean, realistic result.

Rendering turns your Mozaik 3D drawing into a clean, photorealistic image you can hand to a client, drop into a quote, or use for marketing. You save the views you want, click Render, and Mozaik's servers do the heavy lifting and send finished images back. Below is the full workflow, from turning the feature on to dialing in the lighting that makes a render look real.

This guide follows Mozaik's official walkthrough. Watch the original video on Mozaik's channel:

You can also reference it inline as Mozaik's official video.

How do I turn on rendering in Mozaik?

Rendering is a paid cloud add-on, not part of the base license, so the Render button may be grayed out until you subscribe. To enable it:

Sign in to your Syncly portal.
Go to Manage Subscriptions and add the cloud rendering option. The price is given as $50 US, covering up to 12 seats (it is added to your license, not charged per machine).
You'll be emailed a new authorization code.
In Mozaik, go to Help > About and enter the new code.

Once the code is in, the Render button becomes available in the 3D view.

Why does Mozaik render in the cloud instead of on my computer?

Local rendering needs a powerful computer and can tie it up for 20-30 minutes per image. Mozaik's cloud rendering uploads your scene to Mozaik's servers, renders it there, and downloads the finished image back to you, typically in about 30-60 seconds per render (it can stretch toward a minute or so depending on server demand). Because the work happens off your machine, you can minimize the render window and keep working in Mozaik while images come in, and you can queue multiple saved views at once.

How do I navigate the 3D view to set up a shot?

Get comfortable moving around the room before you save views. In the 3D viewer:

Left-click drag orbits around the room (orbit mode is the default).
Scroll wheel pans in and out.
Look mode pivots in place, as if you're standing still and turning your head.
Walkthrough mode lets you push the mouse forward to walk through the room, handy for showing a client a tour.
Zoom Extent snaps you back to the full extent of the project.
Keyboard free-fly: W zoom in, S zoom out, Q up, E down, A left, D right.

Think like a photographer: where would you stand on the job site to photograph the finished kitchen, and what do you want to show off?

How do I save the views I want to render?

You render saved views, so set each one up deliberately.

Frame the shot using the navigation controls above.
Use Layers to control what's visible. You can turn on the ceiling, hide a wall, or toggle the island on and off to find a clean angle.
At the top, click Save and name the view (for example, "View A").
Reposition, change layers, and save again under a new name.

You can then toggle between saved views, and you can render several at once.

How do I adjust materials so the render looks realistic?

Out of the box, handles can look plasticky and countertops can look flat. Version 14 added the ability to modify and add textures. Two places control materials:

Cabinet and countertop textures: go to Libraries > Materials (the same place you update your materials library), then click the texture group. Here you can add new colors, adjust sheen (for example, set a countertop to high gloss), set image width/height, and adjust transparency and metallic. For transparency, a higher number (up to 100%) makes a material more see-through, useful for glass. For metallic, 0 is no metallic finish and 1 gives a metallic finish.
Hardware, floor, wall, and graphic textures: go to Room Settings > Textures (the "Setup Textures" option). These carry the same sheen, transparency, and metallic controls, so you can give hardware a metallic finish there.

After adjusting, jump back to the 3D viewer to confirm the new sheen and finishes before rendering.

How do I run a render?

In the 3D viewer, click Render.
Select the saved view (for example, View B).
Click Render again.

Mozaik uploads the scene to the server, renders it, and downloads the finished image. While it works you can minimize it and keep using Mozaik. If you have several saved views, you can select and render them together.

What are the two lighting approaches?

There are two ways to light a render, and you can pick based on how realistic the client wants it:

HDRI / scene lighting (simpler): leave the room open and let the surrounding scene and light through the ceiling do the work. Good, fast results without much setup.
Realistic / artificial lighting (more work): close the room off with walls and windows, then add real light fixtures inside. More effort, but more photorealistic.

A first render using scene lighting often comes out a bit dark, which is your cue to either switch to ceiling-cast shadows or add artificial light.

What is an HDRI and where do the files go?

HDRI stands for high dynamic range image. Unlike a normal image, it holds more data and a wider range of light and color, so it can leak light into the scene and mimic a real environment. The analogy: picture your room inside a giant beach ball, where bright areas of the image let "sun" through and dark areas block it.

Mozaik ships with a default studio HDRI, and you can download more (for example, from a site like Polyhaven — search for free HDRIs, choose a category, and download the HDRI file).

Save downloaded HDRIs into your local Mozaik folder, not a cloud-synced folder:

C drive > Mozaik > textures > environment

Saving locally means each user keeps their own preferred HDRIs, and deleting yours won't remove anyone else's. After saving, you can select the HDRI in the render settings.

How do I use the render settings (the tea kettle and the settings panel)?

There are two settings entry points: the tea kettle button on the render window and the render settings panel in the top-right corner. Key controls:

Tea kettle (per-render) options

Transparent background hides the HDRI.
Ceiling cast shadows gives a more realistic render instead of pure HDRI lighting.
Exposure brightens or darkens the render only, without changing the 3D viewer.

Light settings

Ambient: a general soft glow with no specific direction. Raise it for a bright room.
Camera light: acts like a camera flash, illuminating whatever you're looking at directly while darkening the rest.
HDRI light: controls how much of the room's light comes from the HDRI. Turn it up for more natural sunlight (and more of the HDRI's color hues).
Exposure: best left on auto most of the time; forcing it too high washes out colors.
Tone mapping: blends the contrast between bright and shadow areas. Too high looks unrealistically harsh; too low flattens everything. Aim for a natural middle.

HDRI settings

Brightness: changes how bright the HDRI image itself is (more brightness means more light), without changing how much light you're letting in.
Specular scale: controls how light reflects off surfaces. Lower it and glossy surfaces go matte; raise it too far and they look wet or mirror-like. Keeping it around 1 is a good default.
Sphere size: grows or shrinks the "beach ball," pushing the scene farther away or tightening it in.
Rotation: turns the HDRI to move where the sunlight comes from. A trick: temporarily raise specular scale to see the reflections clearly, rotate the light to where you want it (for example, brightening a window side), then set specular scale back to 1.

Style settings

Line opacity: defines edges. All the way up looks cartoony/illustrated; all the way down loses definition. Find a balance with crisp but natural edges.
Line width: thickens or thins those edge lines.
Ambient inclusion: controls shadows, especially in corners. Too high makes corners look dark and dirty; too low loses shadows. A low intensity with a natural fade works best.

View settings

Field of view: like peripheral vision. A wider field captures more of the room; 45 is a good setting.
Draw mode: switch between wireframe, hidden line (white-filled line drawing, no textures), and filled (textures on).

Once dialed in, you can save these as defaults, but remember: every HDRI casts light, shadows, and rotation differently, so changing the HDRI usually means re-tweaking the settings.

How do I add artificial lighting for a realistic render?

When you close a room off, the scene gets dark, so you bring in light fixtures.

Import the new libraries (version 14). Go to Tools > Import Updated Data and bring in the updated product libraries (the new appliances and graphics library, the inserts with lighting, and hardware room lighting). Then shut Mozaik down and relaunch so the new libraries load.
Under-cabinet lighting: from the appliances and graphics library, under the Architectural > Lighting category, choose cabinet lighting. Options include downward-facing pucks, upward-facing pucks, light strips, and toe-kick lights. Drag a strip under your cabinets. These aren't real parts, just fixtures that emit light to represent where you'll install them (you can build lights into products if you prefer).
Cabinet interior lighting: edit a cabinet, go to its Interior > Inserts, and drop in the new puck or strip light inserts (for example, a downward strip light in each glass-cabinet section).
Ceiling lighting: from the ceiling lighting category, place fixtures such as puck lights. Lights must be placed on walls, and you position them with outset values to build a grid across the ceiling.
Set the light color/intensity. Lighting temperature is chosen in Settings > Miscellaneous > Lighting (for puck or strip lights). For per-fixture control, go to Libraries > Hardware > Lights to set each light's color, intensity, and cone angle. Note that light inserts may not appear in the 3D viewer; they show up in the render. If other parts are not showing up in the 3D view, that's usually a layer or operation issue rather than a render one.

After placing lights, re-save your view, then render. If it still comes out dark, raise the exposure on the tea kettle (for example, to 2) and re-render. Push exposure too far, though, and you'll wash out edges and detail, so balance it.

How do I get rendered images into Multi-Print?

Renders are saved locally with the job (in the job's renders folder). To use them in a printout:

Open Multi-Print and add a new page.
Choose Import and browse to the job's renders folder.
Select the saved view and bring it in. You can move and resize it like any other image.

One important difference: imported render images do not auto-update. A live 3D view placed in Multi-Print updates automatically with the job, but a render is a snapshot, so you must re-render it after any change to the job.

Related guides

Get it done-for-you

You can set this up yourself using the steps above. If you'd rather skip the setup, PAC's Mozaik training and done-for-you setup can help — phillanton.com.

Full disclosure: this guide is published by Phill Anton Consulting.

FAQ

Why is the Render option grayed out / unavailable on my computer?

Because rendering is a paid cloud subscription. If you're not subscribed and haven't entered the new authorization code under Help > About, the Render button won't be available. Add the rendering subscription through your Syncly portal, then enter the emailed code.

Does the rendering subscription have to be bought per computer?

No. The $50 fee covers all seats under your main license, up to 12 seats, rather than being charged per license.

Why does my first render come out too dark?

A scene lit mainly by the HDRI, or a closed room relying on artificial light and window light, can render dark. Fix it by turning on ceiling cast shadows, adding or boosting interior/ceiling lights, and raising the exposure on the tea kettle button (which affects only the render, not the 3D viewer). Don't overdo exposure or you'll wash out detail.

Why do my rendered images in Multi-Print not update when I change the job?

Renders are static snapshots saved to the job, so they don't refresh on their own. Only a live 3D view placed in Multi-Print updates automatically. Re-render the view and re-import it whenever the design changes.

Do I really need to fine-tune all these settings every time?

Not necessarily. Rendering is "a bit of an art," similar to photography, but you can get a good, realistic result with simple settings. Most users find one HDRI they like, dial in its settings once, and reuse them across jobs, only going deeper for clients who want ultra-realistic images. Keep in mind that switching HDRIs usually means re-adjusting the lighting settings.