Help! Rendered Animations

[ashscott]

I am currently putting together an animation of 3300 frames, I need something with the "wow" factor but don't have time to heavily render each frame for too long (I only have 30 hours to complete). Diffuse texture pass has been adequate thus far for the outer parts of the building but I am about to engage in the interior parts of the building for rendering. If at all possible I would like to have point lights (as that seems to be most efficient from fletch's 'lighting' post) included in the internal rendering. How do I get the best 'bang for render time'? I am going with 25 fps as this seems OK without noticeably compromising quality. It would be nice if the glass actually looked like glass too

My machine is 2.66ghz dual core 4 meg ram 512 dedicated NVIDEA laptop on WinXP

Any advice anyone can give me would be met with much gratitude.

Pending that I get this video done on time I'll submit the results here for ya'll to see

Thanks in advance,

Ash

[Ecuadorian]

Do you have moving objects in the video?

Unless you're in Europe, I'd recommend going with either 23.97fps or 29.97fps, as they will translate better when you decide to burn the video to DVD.

[ashscott]

No moving objects in this render, just moving camera. I'm in New Zealand and wont be burning the video to DVD.

Thanks

[Ecuadorian]

25fps is OK, then. For "best bang for your render time" try one of the first Easy settings and in post-production, add some motion blur. 320x240 frame size should be acceptable if it's just a test. Make sure to move the camera slowly; you don't want to give your audience a headache. For your first tries, try to limit yourself to the most basic camera movements: Pan from side to side, and dolly forwards/backwards. Perhaps even a crane shot starting up and going down in a stright line. Make several short shots (around 8 or 10-seconds each) instead of one long one. This way, if you don't complete to render all frames, it won't be as noticeable, and you'll also end up with a more interesting video after you edit it.

Oh, and make sure to select "Only View" in the animation tab options, and also the "reuse lighting information" box should be checked. Since there won't be any moving objects, flicker will only come from antialiasing and fuzzy tracing but not from varying global illumination, so as I said you can get rid of a big part of that flicker in post-pro using motion blur.

[ashscott]

Ok, I have a pre-ordained route through the building that the client wants to follow so can't get round that, also, will need to be 800 pixels wide so they can appreciate it (I should have said this first), things like re-using lighting information are very useful however.

Thanks heaps Ecuadorian, when I tried rendering the animation recently it took over 8 hours for one frame but I'm assuming this is because of the textures I had applied??....

[Chris]

Some suggestions regarding materials.

Use only generic -> flat. Don't use ANY bump maps. Don't use ANY transparency except architectural glass if at all possible. Keep your lights to a minimum. That should give you the fastest render possible from a material standpoint.

[Ecuadorian]

8 hours per frame? That's extreme. What preset did you use?
My animations render at 30 seconds - 3 minutes per frame.

[ashscott]

AHA! This may be the issue! I have been bump mapping like crazy and had forgotten all about it! It seems I may have to forget lights and just render the whole thing with some generic light source..... is this possible? Will the scenes indoors have reasonable lighting with some sort of generic light source? Can someone give some indication as to how to achieve this?

Thanks very much all!

[Ecuadorian]

Make the sun come through the windows and rise the exposure.

[ashscott]

Woops, sorry Ecuadorian, my last response was directed to Chris.

Yeah 8 hours, but it sounds as though some textural changes and the deletion of bump mapping will help, along with the lighting issue.....