How can I exclude a collection from rendering with Python?

Question

Can anybody help me write a script that excludes certain collections (for rendering)?

In the outliner the tooltip says: Layer.Collection.exclude and bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].exclude, so I've tried things like:

bpy.ops.outliner.LayerCollection('Structure').exclude
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].LayerCollection('Structure').exclude

The online Python link is here: https://docs.blender.org/api/master/bpy.types.LayerCollection.html#bpy.types.LayerCollection.exclude but I don't know what to do with that information.

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 04 '21 at 10:22

Use the View Layer

From the context view layer

>>> C.view_layer.active_layer_collection
bpy.data.scenes['Scene']...LayerCollection
>>> C.view_layer.active_layer_collection.name
'My Leaf 0.0'
>>> C.view_layer.active_layer_collection.exclude
False

Alternatively from scene

>>> C.scene.view_layers['View Layer'].active_layer_collection
bpy.data.scenes['Scene']...LayerCollection
>>> C.scene.view_layers['View Layer'].active_layer_collection.name
'My Leaf 0.0'
>>> C.scene.view_layers['View Layer'].active_layer_collection.exclude = True

Related: Change active collection

Thomas Huijzer · Answer 2 · 2020-10-26T12:43:36.483

5

Today I struggled with the same question. I found out I could just use this in 2.83:

bpy.context.layer_collection.children['My Collection'].exclude = True bpy.context.layer_collection.children['My Collection'].exclude = False

Edit: tested in 2.90.1

bpy.data.collections['My Collection'].hide_render = True;
bpy.data.collections['My Collection'].hide_render = False;

edited Oct 26 '20 at 12:43

answered Jun 08 '20 at 10:03

Thomas Huijzer

211
2
3

Thanks, the python tool tips seem to be incredibly hard to infer what the Python API is. I'm sure it was a lot easier to infer in <=2.79 – alex.p Oct 22 '20 at 21:46
This doesn't seem to work in 2.9. It's incredibly annoying having an API that constantly changes – alex.p Oct 22 '20 at 21:50

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 05 '19 at 04:53

Great, thanks. My script now looks like this and works well:

def CollControlAll (context, CollList, CollLen):
    layer_collection = bpy.context.view_layer.layer_collection

    for lay in range(0,CollLen):
        layerColl = recurLayerCollection(layer_collection, CollList[lay])
        bpy.context.view_layer.active_layer_collection = layerColl
        layerColl.exclude = False
        layerColl.hide_viewport = False

How can I exclude a collection from rendering with Python?

3 Answers3

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