Rendering Tips

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Originally posted by djcapelis
Seems like an ineffecient use of time... I don't wait more than 7 and 1/2 sec/ frame (with full 16-bit anti-aliasing at 800x600). I find this to be reasonable and wasting two weeks to tweak this seems to be a bit lacking in common sense.

I hasn't even approached a slow time with my last animation project:

added frame 265 (frame 264 in avi): Time: 00:01.46
added frame 266 (frame 265 in avi): Time: 00:01.52
added frame 267 (frame 266 in avi): Time: 00:01.44
added frame 268 (frame 267 in avi): Time: 00:01.46
added frame 269 (frame 268 in avi): Time: 00:01.43
added frame 270 (frame 269 in avi): Time: 00:01.44
added frame 271 (frame 270 in avi): Time: 00:01.47

I love renderer's that don't suck... This is one of the reasons I dislike 3DS max so much.

Oh, and I'm also browsing the web while rendering that... my instant-messaging program is up and communicating accross 5-7 different IM services... so I'm hardly stripping the computer down to render fast. (In case anyone is wondering on the numbers for a benchmark type thing, I'm running a 2.53ghz P4, most rendering machines are dual or tri...)

i do NOT mean 2 weeks total. i mean if you are not familiar w/ the render settings you should spend whatever time you have trying out different render settings. Then once you are familiar with render settings like me or presumably you, you just go through the settings and plug in the values either GUI or command-line.
Of course when you use 3DS Max 5 there are not very many ways to control your render out of the box... I haven't seen 3DS 6 yet, though i imagine they will dumb down mental ray to point and click also.
GI, Final Gather, Light Tracer, etc. will also definatly tack on some render time.
All settings are definatly worth a check out.
I know when I use Maya 5 and Shake 3 i have made presets besides the default that i can pick out of when rendering scene depending on its complexity and attributes.
I did NOT mean 2 weeks to render.
You should only take a day or two days to render out 2000+ frames with a single 2.54 ghz proc.
Oh- and btw why are you rendering directly into an uncompressed avi? Rendering out as an .iff or .cin sequence would make editing alot faster and easier.