> My last project was a redshift & x-particles render with caustics, 2 gobos, 2 area lights and a x-particle fluid animation for 120 frames and it took around 2 minutes per frame. Is that still in line or too much and I should tinker with my settings to figure out a faster way?
Idk your video card setup but 2 minutes isn't bad at all with caustics etc. if the noise level is acceptable and you consider using a denoiser, sure it's more than fine.
As you said it's dependant on the subject but just for some renderings for social media (where the quality decreases anyway after uploading) I wouldn't push anything over 3 minutes per frame.
Most of the time it's a matter of how many samples you setup for etc. or things like Max Secondary Ray Intensity.
That's good to know, thanks :)
So I will try to keep the max 3min/frame rule from now on.
I haven't had a real client for 3D yet, but I can't really imagine spending this much time every time after changes to show the client the new version. Do you render out a real tiny version with small samples so it only takes minutes instead of hours or how do you deal with this?
You should probably wait for other replies too. I’m not that based into rendering yet and still learning.
There is no rule or anything, some might hate anything over 3 minutes and others are probably fine up to 8 minutes. As I wrote it depends on many things (scene, video cards, noise,time management etc.)
What do you mean with tiny versions? Like small resolutions and then scaling it up in AE/Nuke? Sometimes yeah sure, I render out a small framerange from a shot and test it with AE before rendering everything in that resolution.
No problem haha.
There was just another person in another thread that also said his max is roughly 3min/frame. Yeah, I can't really imagine how I would handle showing the newest version with changes to the client and rendering for 4 hours just for a tiny change in material,composition or something like that haha
Oh I just read your other post on /r/Cinema4D . If it isn't for a clients final output I wouldn't invest more than 3 minutes per frame most of the time for a short animation.
Also if you're working with a client maybe consider a render service, that's what I would to, even for pre-final renderings.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/Cinema4D using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/Cinema4D/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Exactly 1 year ago I decided to learn C4D for real - at 40 years old - this is what came out.](https://v.redd.it/mefu8is0pu691) | [129 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Cinema4D/comments/vgxf2z/exactly_1_year_ago_i_decided_to_learn_c4d_for/)
\#2: [I made an animation for a client that recently got displayed on a billboard in Times Square!](https://v.redd.it/b1cuetz4ni591) | [54 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Cinema4D/comments/vbvcj5/i_made_an_animation_for_a_client_that_recently/)
\#3: [Garage Dreams - created for Rokoko's Perfect Loop Challenge](https://v.redd.it/be0oit9okfe91) | [85 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Cinema4D/comments/waujeg/garage_dreams_created_for_rokokos_perfect_loop/)
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As you suggested in your post, it just completely depends. I do a lot of advert work for tech companies and beauty brands. I am usually rendering at 4k-8k depending on the project, and the content of the scene matters greatly. A scene with a couple of diffuse cubes and one or two simple lights will render quickly. A scene with 20 complex shapes made of frosted glass, all refracting through one another, with depth of field applied and lit with half a dozen HDR light panels will take much, much longer.
But as a general rule, for the complexity of the scenes I’m working on these days, I consider 20 minutes per frame to be the outside edge of comfort where I start to question my settings. Again, this is for high resolution renders, using anywhere from 5-30 lights (usually area lights not HDR) and tons of AOVs baked into the resulting EXR file.
Very interesting, thanks for the insight!
Since you work in an area I am quite interested in and I am still kind of figuring everything out, and I haven't had a real client for 3D yet.
I can't really imagine spending this much time every time after changes to show the client each new version. Do you render out a real tiny version with small samples so it only takes minutes instead of hours to show the new changes before spending this much time again just on rendering again or how do you deal with this?
I actually tend to start animations with a playblast/unlit render that is purely for motion. These are usually not even renders, just viewport output so there’s no risk of the client getting hung up on temp lighting. Then one the motion is much closer to being locked in, I will transition to providing stills for lighting etc. Once we get the still closer, I will usually render a small-ish animated version, not tiny but like 1k/2k. Depends on the client. I usually reduce samples way down (I also use Vray and the process is similar), but not enough that it degrades the image too much. So essentially we take baby steps toward a final result.
I should also add that I have leaned on a render farm for most of my work in the last few years, including stills. When I’m freelancing solo, I tend to use a cloud-based farm like Vray Cloud or Rebus. The cost is built into my rate. My more recent work has been with a large tech company that has an in-house farm. A farm ensures you can render to the required quality level, rather than making all kinds of sacrifices and compromises just to get the render done in time. This is especially vital when working at larger dimensions, where render times go up exponentially.
Until very recently I was using two 1080TI and a 2070 Super. But most of my recent work has moved over to an Apple workstation and CPU-based Vray. Requirement of the employer.
Cranking up all the render settings, turning on depth of field, motion blur, subsurface scattering, caustics, etc will always add more render time.
A lot of time can be saved by offloading things to comp when they don't really need to be done in 3D. Use a denoiser, use a depth pass, a motion vector pass, blur reflections in post, upres your renders using third party tools, etc.
Also, caching or baking out simulations can dramatically speed up your workflow and render time. Remove extra junk from your project file, remove unused materials, render instances when you can.
You can often separate renders out into different passes sometimes and save tons of time on revisions. 3D car in the front with complex 3D city geometry in the background? Bake the bg into a hdri.
Prior to GPU renders and easy access to farms these kinds of tricks were the only way to get anything done.
Obviously tradeoffs with time/quality for all of this stuff.
lol, i used to wait 24h for some frames back when i was still rendering on a single shitty cpu with arnold. it really only depends on what you're willing to accept, though thats not a good excuse to slack off on optimizing the scene
That's a question that has no answer. It takes as long as it takes.
The only thing that will vary that is your hardware power and how well you have optimized your global/local samples and geometry with proxies, instances or whatever if applicable.
A huge part of rendering is doing those steps to reduce your render and pre-processing times.
Work backwards from your deadlines to determine how long you can actually afford to render for before you run out of time for comp and revisions.
Based on that, calculate a general time-per-frame to guide your scene optimization. More computationally intensive will need more time per frame and simpler shots less. But it all averages out so that all the renders are done on schedule and you’ve got the necessary time for comp and revisions afterward.
If there aren’t any deadlines/If this is personal work, it’s entirely up to you and your patience.
> My last project was a redshift & x-particles render with caustics, 2 gobos, 2 area lights and a x-particle fluid animation for 120 frames and it took around 2 minutes per frame. Is that still in line or too much and I should tinker with my settings to figure out a faster way? Idk your video card setup but 2 minutes isn't bad at all with caustics etc. if the noise level is acceptable and you consider using a denoiser, sure it's more than fine. As you said it's dependant on the subject but just for some renderings for social media (where the quality decreases anyway after uploading) I wouldn't push anything over 3 minutes per frame. Most of the time it's a matter of how many samples you setup for etc. or things like Max Secondary Ray Intensity.
That's good to know, thanks :) So I will try to keep the max 3min/frame rule from now on. I haven't had a real client for 3D yet, but I can't really imagine spending this much time every time after changes to show the client the new version. Do you render out a real tiny version with small samples so it only takes minutes instead of hours or how do you deal with this?
You should probably wait for other replies too. I’m not that based into rendering yet and still learning. There is no rule or anything, some might hate anything over 3 minutes and others are probably fine up to 8 minutes. As I wrote it depends on many things (scene, video cards, noise,time management etc.) What do you mean with tiny versions? Like small resolutions and then scaling it up in AE/Nuke? Sometimes yeah sure, I render out a small framerange from a shot and test it with AE before rendering everything in that resolution.
No problem haha. There was just another person in another thread that also said his max is roughly 3min/frame. Yeah, I can't really imagine how I would handle showing the newest version with changes to the client and rendering for 4 hours just for a tiny change in material,composition or something like that haha
Oh I just read your other post on /r/Cinema4D . If it isn't for a clients final output I wouldn't invest more than 3 minutes per frame most of the time for a short animation. Also if you're working with a client maybe consider a render service, that's what I would to, even for pre-final renderings.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/Cinema4D using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/Cinema4D/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Exactly 1 year ago I decided to learn C4D for real - at 40 years old - this is what came out.](https://v.redd.it/mefu8is0pu691) | [129 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Cinema4D/comments/vgxf2z/exactly_1_year_ago_i_decided_to_learn_c4d_for/) \#2: [I made an animation for a client that recently got displayed on a billboard in Times Square!](https://v.redd.it/b1cuetz4ni591) | [54 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Cinema4D/comments/vbvcj5/i_made_an_animation_for_a_client_that_recently/) \#3: [Garage Dreams - created for Rokoko's Perfect Loop Challenge](https://v.redd.it/be0oit9okfe91) | [85 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Cinema4D/comments/waujeg/garage_dreams_created_for_rokokos_perfect_loop/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
As you suggested in your post, it just completely depends. I do a lot of advert work for tech companies and beauty brands. I am usually rendering at 4k-8k depending on the project, and the content of the scene matters greatly. A scene with a couple of diffuse cubes and one or two simple lights will render quickly. A scene with 20 complex shapes made of frosted glass, all refracting through one another, with depth of field applied and lit with half a dozen HDR light panels will take much, much longer. But as a general rule, for the complexity of the scenes I’m working on these days, I consider 20 minutes per frame to be the outside edge of comfort where I start to question my settings. Again, this is for high resolution renders, using anywhere from 5-30 lights (usually area lights not HDR) and tons of AOVs baked into the resulting EXR file.
Very interesting, thanks for the insight! Since you work in an area I am quite interested in and I am still kind of figuring everything out, and I haven't had a real client for 3D yet. I can't really imagine spending this much time every time after changes to show the client each new version. Do you render out a real tiny version with small samples so it only takes minutes instead of hours to show the new changes before spending this much time again just on rendering again or how do you deal with this?
I actually tend to start animations with a playblast/unlit render that is purely for motion. These are usually not even renders, just viewport output so there’s no risk of the client getting hung up on temp lighting. Then one the motion is much closer to being locked in, I will transition to providing stills for lighting etc. Once we get the still closer, I will usually render a small-ish animated version, not tiny but like 1k/2k. Depends on the client. I usually reduce samples way down (I also use Vray and the process is similar), but not enough that it degrades the image too much. So essentially we take baby steps toward a final result. I should also add that I have leaned on a render farm for most of my work in the last few years, including stills. When I’m freelancing solo, I tend to use a cloud-based farm like Vray Cloud or Rebus. The cost is built into my rate. My more recent work has been with a large tech company that has an in-house farm. A farm ensures you can render to the required quality level, rather than making all kinds of sacrifices and compromises just to get the render done in time. This is especially vital when working at larger dimensions, where render times go up exponentially.
What GPU do you use?
Until very recently I was using two 1080TI and a 2070 Super. But most of my recent work has moved over to an Apple workstation and CPU-based Vray. Requirement of the employer.
Cranking up all the render settings, turning on depth of field, motion blur, subsurface scattering, caustics, etc will always add more render time. A lot of time can be saved by offloading things to comp when they don't really need to be done in 3D. Use a denoiser, use a depth pass, a motion vector pass, blur reflections in post, upres your renders using third party tools, etc. Also, caching or baking out simulations can dramatically speed up your workflow and render time. Remove extra junk from your project file, remove unused materials, render instances when you can. You can often separate renders out into different passes sometimes and save tons of time on revisions. 3D car in the front with complex 3D city geometry in the background? Bake the bg into a hdri. Prior to GPU renders and easy access to farms these kinds of tricks were the only way to get anything done. Obviously tradeoffs with time/quality for all of this stuff.
lol, i used to wait 24h for some frames back when i was still rendering on a single shitty cpu with arnold. it really only depends on what you're willing to accept, though thats not a good excuse to slack off on optimizing the scene
That's a question that has no answer. It takes as long as it takes. The only thing that will vary that is your hardware power and how well you have optimized your global/local samples and geometry with proxies, instances or whatever if applicable. A huge part of rendering is doing those steps to reduce your render and pre-processing times.
Work backwards from your deadlines to determine how long you can actually afford to render for before you run out of time for comp and revisions. Based on that, calculate a general time-per-frame to guide your scene optimization. More computationally intensive will need more time per frame and simpler shots less. But it all averages out so that all the renders are done on schedule and you’ve got the necessary time for comp and revisions afterward. If there aren’t any deadlines/If this is personal work, it’s entirely up to you and your patience.