Having Troubles With Rendering

fcborik

Hello,

I am planning a home remodeling project using SU, and I wanted to try some rendering to get a better look of what the final product might be. I'm using Twilight Render, and after doing some reading (Daniel Tal's Rendering in Sketchup Book) to get familiar with the rendering process, I was ready to try my hand at it. I started with some low resolution renders, but as I increased the resolution and the rendering presets, the renders started to take FOREVER. By this, I mean 8 hours later and the raytraces are only 50% complete. So, I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong (very likely), or if I just have unrealistic expectations on how long the rendering process takes. In order to narrow down the variables, here is some backrgound.

I just got a new computer tailored for rendering (the "Solo" one that was advertised on these boards from JNCS computers).
I tried very hard to keep my model organized and turned off layers that I knew I wasn't going to have to render. Additionally, I used the outliner to hide components that I didn't see in my rendering view (don't know if hiding components has any effect).
My model is fairly detailed. By this, I mean that I'm going to use it as a basis for construction drawings and material take-offs. So, for example, the kitchen cabinetry is detailed down to every part of every drawer, every piece of wood in the face frames, etc... That means lots of components. So when I'm trying to render the kitchen, the render engine is probably trying to render the entire cabinet support structure against the wall (which nobody sees). In these cases, it's difficult to hide things because you end up hiding the entire cabinet and/or risk messing things up. (I've noticed that the "hide" function is right next to the "erase" function ... the HARD way!) However, although my model has a fair amount of detail (545,514 edges and 264,289 faces), I'm lead to believe that rendering models with several million faces takes less than 8 hours.
I'm trying to render with a resolution of 1280x720 and a preset of medium+. This seems to be the tipping point where things get really slow, but the lesser resolutions and presets are really not very good. I'd eventually like to increase the resolution beyond this, but based on what I'm experiencing with the current presets, I know that things won't get any better.
I haven't done a lot with fancy material textures, so I'm basically using native Sketchup materials. My thought is that as you get more involved with the subtleties of surface reflection etc., that rendering times increase. That may be a poor assumption on my part, however.

So, my current focus is to figure out what I'm doing wrong and get render times to something more reasonable. Any help or suggestions you may have to reduce rendering times will be sincerely appreciated.

Thanks!

Frank

Alan Fraser

I just rendered a model with about half that number of faces, but the same settings, in about 1 minute...with another 2 minutes to anti-alias ...on a 2 year old laptop. It's been my experience with Twilight that using emitting surfaces...and especially brushed metals has a dramatic effect on render times. 8 hours seems a little crazy. I can't imagine why it would be anything like that if you were just using standard SU materials

Dave R

If you organized your model so you could turn off layers for those components that aren't visible in the view (internal components, for example) you might find the rendering times are shortened up. Also consider that curved reflective surfaces (metal drawer pulls, appliances and hinges) are going to require a lot of calculations and so they'll add time.

You might find it useful to create a second version of your model specifically for rendering. Make that version like a movie set with nothing behind the scenery. Delete and purge all the unneeded components for that model.

fcborik

Thanks, Dave and Alan, for your help.

One thing I did not reveal in my earlier discussion is that I'm doing interior rendering with simulated lights. (I'm designing where my new lights will go and I want to have a look). In any case, I know that lighting, and especially interior lighting, is a real time hog, and I think I'm also not using some of the twilight features correctly to turn off the lights I'm not rendering. So... it's back to the drawing board (or computer screen, I guess).

Thanks, again, for your help!

mikebelluckf

I had a similar 'plight' with a design I was creating for a very large model of a bespoke hospitality (tensile/inflatable) structure being built on the beach at Cannes - the model was constructed in SKP to show a beautiful pitch render (to the MS client) via Lightup, as well as serve as technical layouts, construction details, and work-in-progress sign-off scamps in Layout.

The necessary additional detail/model (including glowing inflatable cell-structure) size was killing my renders (and my soon to be updated PC), so I came to the state of breaking the model down and 'sub-render' (eg the exhibition zone) elements.

Sketchup & Lightup work brilliantly - it is just the scale of my designs that sometimes get in the way!!

I would concur and suggest 'pretty house' and 'real house' models! There are limits with all of this.

Good luck with it!