3D Rendering Time Concerns
Several factors determine how long a rendering will take.
One, of course, is which rendering engine you choose to use.
Other variables include: • How many polygons are in a scene (more polygons = more rendering time) • How many light sources you have within a scene (more light sources = more light rays to calculate = more rendering time) • The shadow characteristics of those light sources (more lights casting shadows = more rendering time) • Characteristics like reflection and transparency (more places for the light to reflect or bend = more rendering time) • The size of your bitmapped figures used in textures (larger bitmapped files = more information to deal with = more rendering time) • What dpi (higher dpi = more rendering time) An image with 12 lights all casting shadows that illuminate 400 objects of high poly-count that have large 2MB bitmaps for textures including high reflection settings, laying on top of water with high reflection, and refraction settings with a recursion of over 100, that is rendered at 8000 6000 pixels with anti-aliasing and 12 times oversampling will take quite a while, no matter what machine and program you are using.
Take time to optimize: If certain objects are always going to be in the background, do not render them as high poly-count objects.
Likewise, keep their image maps small.
If a light source is not needed to illuminate the scene or highlight an object, take it out.
Think of the final render process when modeling and texturing; it will save you hours when the deadline is looming.
Also remember that the bigger the processor and the more RAM available, the faster the rendering.
3D is a RAM hog anyway, so if you have the funds to bump up the RAM your machine has, buy it.
Whether working with stills or animations, 3D applications give you the chance to compress your finished renderings.
Compression is a computer's way of making the file smaller and easier to handle.
Tiff, jpg, gif, Sorenson, Cinepak, Indeo, and Real format are all forms of compression.
Compression allows a computer to load an image faster or play an animation smoother.
The problem is, compression makes files smaller by dropping out information from the file.
Too high a compression can leave a file looking poor and messy.
Further, with most compressions, once a file is compressed, the dropped information is gone-there's no way (other than rendering again) to get it back.
Generally, if you are working with stills, keep your images in either pict or tiff format as long as possible.
If the final target is the Web, convert the file (and keep a backup) right before it is to placed within the Web page.
If the project is an animation, render the frames with no compression.
In animation, there is usually some added compression in the editing process-and compressing already compressed animation clips is not a pretty sight.
This keeps the file's integrity high for as long as possible, giving you the opportunity to fine-tune or make adjustments throughout the process, and makes the final project more professional and cleaner.
One, of course, is which rendering engine you choose to use.
Other variables include: • How many polygons are in a scene (more polygons = more rendering time) • How many light sources you have within a scene (more light sources = more light rays to calculate = more rendering time) • The shadow characteristics of those light sources (more lights casting shadows = more rendering time) • Characteristics like reflection and transparency (more places for the light to reflect or bend = more rendering time) • The size of your bitmapped figures used in textures (larger bitmapped files = more information to deal with = more rendering time) • What dpi (higher dpi = more rendering time) An image with 12 lights all casting shadows that illuminate 400 objects of high poly-count that have large 2MB bitmaps for textures including high reflection settings, laying on top of water with high reflection, and refraction settings with a recursion of over 100, that is rendered at 8000 6000 pixels with anti-aliasing and 12 times oversampling will take quite a while, no matter what machine and program you are using.
Take time to optimize: If certain objects are always going to be in the background, do not render them as high poly-count objects.
Likewise, keep their image maps small.
If a light source is not needed to illuminate the scene or highlight an object, take it out.
Think of the final render process when modeling and texturing; it will save you hours when the deadline is looming.
Also remember that the bigger the processor and the more RAM available, the faster the rendering.
3D is a RAM hog anyway, so if you have the funds to bump up the RAM your machine has, buy it.
Whether working with stills or animations, 3D applications give you the chance to compress your finished renderings.
Compression is a computer's way of making the file smaller and easier to handle.
Tiff, jpg, gif, Sorenson, Cinepak, Indeo, and Real format are all forms of compression.
Compression allows a computer to load an image faster or play an animation smoother.
The problem is, compression makes files smaller by dropping out information from the file.
Too high a compression can leave a file looking poor and messy.
Further, with most compressions, once a file is compressed, the dropped information is gone-there's no way (other than rendering again) to get it back.
Generally, if you are working with stills, keep your images in either pict or tiff format as long as possible.
If the final target is the Web, convert the file (and keep a backup) right before it is to placed within the Web page.
If the project is an animation, render the frames with no compression.
In animation, there is usually some added compression in the editing process-and compressing already compressed animation clips is not a pretty sight.
This keeps the file's integrity high for as long as possible, giving you the opportunity to fine-tune or make adjustments throughout the process, and makes the final project more professional and cleaner.