Preview renders for quick visualization of animation?

teknostorm

I need to quickly preview animations for dance sync to music, lip sync to words and camera movements. The viewport is too slow to judge animation, even with most settings turned down off, including texture, reflection etc.

In rendering I have turned off shadows bump reflections etc, turned off skylight and indirect lighting etc, light thru transparency etc. The renders still take 15 seconds per frame, so I am unable to get quick previews.

Is there a way to do OpenGL renderings like in Daz Studio or fast preview renders of animation?

evilproducer

Yes there is a way to render fast previews. In the Render room, where it says Photorealistic, it's actually a pulldown menu where you can choose different renderers, such as Draft and Non-photorealistic.

To speed it up even further, sometimes I'll reduce the frame rate and/or the size for my draft render.

If I recall, the draft renderer may not be multi threaded, so you may only see one tile while rendering.

teknostorm

Thanks evil producer, I tried that. However it does not make any significant difference in rendering time, whether I choose draft or photorealistic with all settings turned down. The results of photorealistic with setting turned down are vastly superior though.

Is there a way to use open GL to render, as the viewport renders faster than the actual render output. Daz Studio does very fast Open GL renders, but I can't find the option in Carrara.

evilproducer

No, I don't think so. OpenGL is relegated to the Assembly Room and the vertex modeler. The Interactive Renderer, which you use to set your Assembly Room view does have some tools to optimize the performance. For instance there is a slider for quality Vs. performance, and also a setting for frames per second FPS, that you could try changing.

For those that may not know, the Interactive Renderer is the little icon with the up-arrow within a circle. It only effects the Assembly room. There's also one in the Vertex Modeler that seems to only effect the VM view. It has no effect on the Render Room settings.

If all you're checking is timing, in the render room try un-checking the options for bump, refraction and reflection. Also, if you're not using Depth of Field, un-check that as well.