# Build a Blender Docker image for GPU rendering on Deadline Cloud
<a name="examples-container-blender"></a>

The [blender-aswf-ci-base](https://github.com/aws-deadline/deadline-cloud-samples/tree/mainline/containers/blender/blender-aswf-ci-base) example builds a Docker image that packages Blender with the [deadline-cloud-for-blender](https://github.com/aws-deadline/deadline-cloud-for-blender) adaptor and GPU support (CUDA/OptiX) for rendering on Deadline Cloud service-managed fleets. The base image is `aswf/ci-base:2026` (Rocky Linux 8, CUDA 12.9, VFX Platform 2026).

You can use this image for the following purposes:
+ Run Blender Cycles GPU renders on Deadline Cloud service-managed fleets.
+ Bundle third-party Blender addons into the image at build time by placing addon `.zip` files in the `plugins/` directory before building.

Build the image:

```
docker build -t blender-aswf:4.5.0 .
```

Push to Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) and deploy the full stack (queue, fleet, and queue environment) with the included AWS CloudFormation (CloudFormation) template:

```
aws cloudformation deploy \
    --template-file cloudformation.yaml \
    --stack-name blender-aswf-ci-base-stack \
    --parameter-overrides \
        FarmId=farm-... \
        ECRImageURI={{account-id}}.dkr.ecr.{{region}}.amazonaws.com/{{repo}}:4.5.0 \
        FleetRoleArn=arn:aws:iam::{{account-id}}:role/FleetRole \
        QueueRoleArn=arn:aws:iam::{{account-id}}:role/QueueRole \
        JobAttachmentsBucket={{my-deadline-bucket}}
```

The queue role needs Amazon ECR pull permissions (`ecr:BatchGetImage`, `ecr:GetDownloadUrlForLayer`, and `ecr:GetAuthorizationToken`) to pull the container image at runtime.

GPU rendering is automatic when the fleet has GPU instances. The queue environment conditionally adds `--gpus all --runtime=nvidia` based on whether the host has an NVIDIA GPU. CPU-only instances fall back to Cycles CPU rendering.

For a job bundle that renders Blender scenes, see [Render Blender scenes on Deadline Cloud](examples-jb-blender-render.md).