Rendering Optimizations

Purpose

1. Rendering Options:

These following changes are all completed in the rendering options window. Images are provided below and correlate with the render that comes from each setting. For testing of camera position, and near-instant rendering results, set (1)render mode to quickshade. The results are anything but the time to render is the best if you are just looking for the perfect position for your camera. For the final steps of configuring your scene, after getting the camera just right, you'll want to use realistic render mode. This opens up the raytrace options for shadow, reflection, refraction, and transparency. Even in these you can adjust to get maximum render time for the best efficiency in your scene development. If you plan to only test out textures, turning on no raytracing options would be the best. However, for getting the realistic lighting of your scene, you'll want to use ray trace shadowing, which can increase your render time, but give you better feedback for your final render. I completed these renders for a benchmark for speed, and from what I tested, shadows returned the same average render time for the other three (reflection, refraction, transparency) which may or may not come in handy during your testing, but as we know, time is everything, and the least rendering time spent the more you can spend working. During your final render, you'll end up wanting to have all raytrace options going for optimal realism in your scene. But there are some settings to change the rendering time still: Raytrace Optimizations. During my benchmarks testing optimzations on with limit settings at 2, 4, 8, and 16. During these tests, 2 was quicker than 4, quicker than 8. As expected. However, for 16, the render time was longer than expected, and from compared with the other outputs there was no difference to be worth waiting for 16. When testing optimization off, it was faster than 8, but finished in a reasonable time, with still no obvious difference in appearance. My personal preference would be 8 with optimizations off for final output.

2. Lights

KEEP LIGHTS TO A MINIMUM! Light-Object Exclusion One thing to improve render time (depending on the object/surface), is exclude objects that may be in a light's raytrace range (or not at all), and doesn't have to be affected. In my benchmark, I excluded the lamp and table from the outside light's affects, which decreased the render time to a significant amount, but caused no visual evidence of change. Number of Lights The number of lights in a scene GREATLY affects render time. While turning them off for mock-renders for testing is advisable, removing them period may be a better option. For benchmark purposes, I added lights, and it seemed to increase time by 1/(n-1) seconds per extra light. Just one light increased render time 50% for me, and also killed a lot of the realism. If you find yourself using 3 or more lights, try reconfiguring down to 2 lights, to optimize your render time, and in many cases, making your render look far more realistic.

3. Polygons!