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It's been a long time since I've done a proper, large scale-scene render. But generally I start to get twitchy if it runs for much over an hour or so, depending on how it is shaping up and how much more it has left to do. I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving the machine working overnight or while I was away.
Why not? I do that all the time. In fact to answer the question, that't my limit for renders: about 8 hours.
Too long to wait for me would be 4-hrs on average on a 3Delight render, but I have done 10,000 by 10,000 images that have taken more than 24-hrs. I have waited days many times for a LuxRender render, on average as long as 36 hrs. A 36-hrs render would be one with 4 light sources or more (I do try to use less light sources but sometimes one needs to light a candle or two :) ) and at highest resolution possible considering my computer's memory limit of 8 GBs.
I do render at high resolutions as I like to put my best work on places like Zazzle for sale.
There are several ways or tricks to keep render times short and still get high quality results. Here are some of them:
- simplify your lightning. Combine light tasks and use as few lights as possible
- use shadows only where you need shadows. If a light does not produce visible shadows, turn shadows off
- disable Subsurface Scattering when you dont need it. Do a test render with and without and look if you can see any differences. In many cases you will not, so disable it.
- use UberSurface on hair and other transmapped surfaces
- remove all props and items outside the camera view, that have no influence on your scene (like projecting shadows)
- add fog and other atmospheric effects in postwork - if possible.
- use render settings that are high enough to produce high quality, but not higher. Try it out and you will find a point, where you simply add render time without noticing any difference in the rendered image. I personally never use a shading rate below 0.5. Lower takes much longer to render, but the image simply looks the same.
Ok, if anyone knows some more tips or trick, please post them :-)
It depends.
For a LuxRender image - I mostly don't care since it can render in the background and doesn't lock up studio. Although I rarely go over 180 hours.
For a DAZ Studio image - I usually try to keep it below 6 hours and let it run while I sleep, work, do stuff I don't need my PC for. Would let it run longer for images I really care for, though.
Hide body parts that are completely concealed by clothing or objects in the scene.
Hide using the eye icon in the scene tab or setting "visible in render" off in Parameters rather than setting opacity to 0 if possible.
Thank You!
I have heared about that, but only with the Reality/Lux way of rendering. Because hidden materials are not sent to LuxRender and therefore you save some resources - if I remember correctly. But does that also make a noteable difference with 3Dellight renders? I think I have to test that.
the time it takes to catch up reading the forums, peruse the new releases and fastgrabs, check my wishlists for sales, catch up on da notices, tweets, the poser rosity forum, faeriewylde. fix a snack,
then I'm ready to switch back to the big rig for some work. woes if it's still rendering, cuz then i'll start playing finalfantasy and the rest of my day or weekend is shot.
This right here. I generally render the main promo at 2000x2600 for my Deviantart page, and occasionally another favorite of the 9 or 10 promos at that size, too. For the others, I can't really afford for them to take more than a couple of hours each unless I'm sure the product is going to be huge.
I will spend more on a purely recreational render that I've set up "after hours" to run while I'm sleeping or gaming. I've let one of those go 24 hours before. That was an unusual case because the scene had a render-expensive hair, water, and layered transmapped foliage in it all at once, at 2000x3000 and 0.1 shading rate. It didn't turn out looking fabulous enough to justify the expenditure. Next time I'll postwork the water.
In answer to Paradigm:
That's with Advanced Ambient lighting, SSS shaders on characters, pixel samples at 12, raytrace bounce at 8 and shading rate at 0.1. Before I switched from using UberEnvironment lights it took longer and I couldn't do as much in a given scene (for e.g. more than one character with hair was time-prohibitive in a lot of cases). Shading rate makes a big difference to render time but also to how good a render looks at full size. I have an i7 quad core and I invariably render in 3Delight in DAZ Studio.
about 2 - 20 minutes in 3Delight, about 20 hours for LuxRender but I set the scenes up at night and let them run while I'm not in front of the computer. I very much prefer the results I get out of Lux so the wait is like asking how long should it take an artist to paint a picture it depends on what they want it to look like.
My 15 inch monitor only goes up to 1024x768. Had to use an DVI-I to VGA adaptor to connect the video card to the monitor too. lol
My 15 inch monitor only goes up to 1024x768. Had to use an DVI-I to VGA adaptor to connect the video card to the monitor too. lol
Mine is a bit larger, and I normally roll with its max of 1920x1080. That's not really the point, though. An image that is rendered larger retains more detail when shrunk down, so a promo rendered at 2000x2600 will look better when rescaled to 1000x1300 than it would if it were rendered at the smaller size. Some day when I have built my first dream machine (and have space to store and cool it) I will render all my promos that big, or even larger, and then rescale them for sending to DAZ. ;)
Psst... if you turn of all the shadows in your scene, you will reduce rendering times by up to 80%. But then the scene doesn't look realistic. lol. Or you can use the OpenGL render. Unfortunately, OpenGL doesn't render Studio shaders very well. Ok.. I'm going to play with water and reflections. Water and reflections take long to render. Bye
If i'm rendering thumbnails, I really like to keep it under 30 seconds for a 200x200 picture.
Draft renders, usually not more than 1000x1000, under 10 minutes is great, at about 20 minutes I'm getting annoyed, and over an hour for draft quality means I've done something wrong.
Promo size, high quality with hair/shadows/etc approximate size 1500x1500 under 2 hours is more than fabulous, 4-5 hours is about usual, and 10 hours would be quite long, but I'd deal with it if it is the right picture.
A render that will take more than 24 hours (estimated after the first 5-10%) might be cancelled). Usually though my renders are done within a two hour timeframe, which is what I say is a reasonable time. It also depends on the horsepower you can sport, what silently takes ten minutes on my monster takes about two hours on my laptop making it sound like a 747.
A render that will take more than 24 hours (estimated after the first 5-10%) might be cancelled). Usually though my renders are done within a two hour timeframe, which is what I say is a reasonable time. It also depends on the horsepower you can sport, what silently takes ten minutes on my monster takes about two hours on my laptop making it sound like a 747.
Yeah, laptops. Thbt.
I got this one thinking it would be a great second render machine. I use it for the no-texture and textures-only renders that use minimal system requirements while the "real" renders run on the big desktop. The laptop overheats way too easily even on its cooling pad, slowing any reasonably full render way down. It allegedly has the same processor as my main.
Yeah, laptops. Thbt.
I got this one thinking it would be a great second render machine. I use it for the no-texture and textures-only renders that use minimal system requirements while the "real" renders run on the big desktop. The laptop overheats way too easily even on its cooling pad, slowing any reasonably full render way down. It allegedly has the same processor as my main.
Yes, but and processors does just that, turn second core down to 15-20% clock speed to avoid burning when under heavy load. My main monster(s) all use Xeons, which are great for rendering as the just burn on without hesitation.
Yeah, laptops. Thbt.
I got this one thinking it would be a great second render machine. I use it for the no-texture and textures-only renders that use minimal system requirements while the "real" renders run on the big desktop. The laptop overheats way too easily even on its cooling pad, slowing any reasonably full render way down. It allegedly has the same processor as my main.
Yes, but and processors does just that, turn second core down to 15-20% clock speed to avoid burning when under heavy load. My main monster(s) all use Xeons, which are great for rendering as the just burn on without hesitation.
They're both Intel Core i7 quads.
Yeah, laptops unfortunately just can't keep cool as well as desktops. I have to throttle down my CPUs to render. I can't afford a desktop as well and the laptop is a necessity.
Generally an hour or two is the max I'll wait for promo renders. For images for manga projects, 20 minutes feels like forever, because each panel needs one, usually 6 or so per page. Color illustrations for covers or card games can go an hour before I get antsy, as long as I have a quick test render that convinces me that the shadows, surfaces, etc. will be ok. Images just "for fun" had better be done within 10-15 minutes. ;)
That said, WaterCam promos needed a lot longer to run, sometimes overnight.... volumetric effects!
Omigosh, yes, I spent literally two weeks getting all our mermaid stuff rendered for the same reason. I mean not two weeks of render time, but a lot of it was. I left them rendering overnight more often than not.
I have an MSI Laptop with Cooler Boost - it's louder than running without it (but quieter than the desktop), but I have zero heat problems while rendering with it on.
As for how long is too long for a render, it really depends on the scene and the renderer. With Lux, I try to keep it under 24 hours (longest is 70 hrs), with 3DL I try to keep it under 12 hours (longest is about 24), and Octane I like to keep them to less than an hour, but 2 is OK (longest is 12). But as complexity in geometry/figures. materials/shaders, and lighting increase, I automatically increase my tolerance for how long I'm willing to wait. But, the render time is usually very small compared to how long it takes me to set up a scene :red: