All of us at RenderStreet are very aware that render times are a big factor in choosing a render farm. After all, it all scenes would render in seconds, you would render them on your own machine every time and would have no need for a render farm. So we’re kicking off a series of articles dedicated to optimizing your render times.
Today we’ll take a look at geometry related factors that can make the render time go overboard. These are not dependent on the render engine.
If you are using the Subdivision Surface or Multiresolution modifier, make sure you don’t add unnecessary levels of subdivision to your mesh. The modifier panel has two settings, one for the 3d view and one for rendering. Remember the render level is the one that will be visible in your final output and influence the render time, so make time to test lower render levels first to make sure the extra subdivision really makes that much of a difference.
Many scenes require several copies of the same object. Remember to use instances, this will have a great impact on the render time besides producing a smaller file. When rendering with Blender Internal, the performance panel in the render tab includes an “instances” check box that helps sometimes.
This might sound obvious but it can always help checking the scene for very detailed objects that only show from a distance and loose some of the detail. You can delete parts that won’t really be seen or use the Decimate modifier on the mesh. In some cases you can even replace objects like elaborated streetlamps, trees or other background elements with mapped planes, by separately rendering them as png with alpha.
Particles are also big render time gobblers. Make tests with fewer particles first and see if you really have to go overboard with the numbers.
Do you have any other tips? Share them in the comments below.
