Render Times

[DragonFist]

Hello. I am just looking at what options that I may have. I am working on an Animated Short. I am currently at the modeling stage and have quite a bit of work to do on that. However, I have done some test renders of character heads using all the options I want in the final animations (radiosity, Anti-alias, high resolution, etc. - I am going for a nearly photoreal look.) and I am happy with image quality for the most part but it took nearly 7 hours to render one frame. Crunching some numbers, this would mean it would take 3 years to render the entire Animation. Now, I do have 3-4 computers to screamernet off of (Woot! down to 1 year.) and because I am a VT[4] own, I am currently stuck with 8.01 which will hopefully change by the time I am rendering and I can take advantage of the Anti-Aliasing enhancement.

I do want to start looking at ways to cut the render times down. I have worked with FPrime on someone elses system and love that. But it doesn't work with VT[4] from what I have read (grr!) and I want to wait for the new one for 8.2 anyhow. And I am currently making do with some free plug-ins for sub-surface scattering which I would probably switch to G2 at a later date.

I know that I can reduce resolution and other settings, but I want to have this be able to transfer to film well. And, as mentioned before, I am going for a photoreal look which means that I am not likely to drop the radiosity (though if I can fake it well, I'll take it.)

So, the question is "What suggestions, plug-ins, tips or tricks are out there that could make a serious dent in the render times without sacrificing image quality or photorealism?"

I am just setting my finding my resources at this point and hoping that by asking my questions well in advance, I can have it solved by the time I actually need it.

[Captain Obvious]

In order to get render times down for Radiosity, try using Interpolated radio instead of Monte Carlo. Set the Tolerance fairly high (0.5 or so). It gets rather blotchy, but the motion blur should be able to take care of that. I find that you sometimes get BETTER results with higher tolerance, and the render times are always much lower.

[DragonFist]

In order to get render times down for Radiosity, try using Interpolated radio instead of Monte Carlo. Set the Tolerance fairly high (0.5 or so). It gets rather blotchy, but the motion blur should be able to take care of that. I find that you sometimes get BETTER results with higher tolerance, and the render times are always much lower.

What would be considered fairly high toerance? I have been playing with Lightwave since the Amiga but some settings, such as radiosity are relatively new to me.

Thanks for response.

[Captain Obvious]

0.5 all the way up to 1.0, depending on how rough is acceptable. With motion blur, the blotches aren't as visible.

But not using radiosity at all is a hell of a lot faster than using it. ;)