Time span to render animation?

LARV · 17 Dec 2014, 17:04

I understand this is a vague question.

Without going into the specifics; would (or could rather) 30 seconds of high quality Vray animation take a couple of hours to render?

I´m new to this and like to get at least SOME idea of rendering time for high res animation.

andybot · 17 Dec 2014, 17:42

should be pretty easy to calculate once you do a few test frames at full resolution. If one frame is 2 minutes, then multiply that to get an idea of how long 60 frames will take, etc. (That is assuming most of your render has similar level of detail/ complexity.)

(This would be after you save your GI prepasses - Light Cache and Irrmap - save them and use "from file" option.)

dkendig · 17 Dec 2014, 19:23

at 30fps, that would be 900 frames. If each frame took 4 seconds, you'd be looking at about an hour's worth of render time total for that 30 second video.

roland joseph · 17 Dec 2014, 19:43

@unknownuser said:

one frame is 2 minutes

so following the math (900X2)/60 = 30 hours?

rspierenburg · 17 Dec 2014, 19:51

@roland joseph said:

@unknownuser said:

one frame is 2 minutes

so following the math (900X2)/60 = 30 hours?

Yup, that sounds about right. Keep in mind it totally depends on frame size, complexity, and final FPS rate.

Rob

andybot · 17 Dec 2014, 20:20

and depends on hardware for sure. A render farm may run a complex frame in like 30 sec but if you're doing it on your machine with maybe one or two DR nodes it might be 15 minutes.

andybot · 17 Dec 2014, 20:23

@roland joseph said:

@unknownuser said:

one frame is 2 minutes

so following the math (900X2)/60 = 30 hours?

Yes. It's been a while since I've had the displeasure of rendering animation on my own hardware, but it can take several days if your single frame render time is in minutes.

andybot · 17 Dec 2014, 20:25

@dkendig said:

at 30fps, that would be 900 frames. If each frame took 4 seconds, you'd be looking at about an hour's worth of render time total for that 30 second video.

sure, 4 seconds a frame at 600x400px

LARV · 17 Dec 2014, 21:03

I have an Alienware. Don´t know much about computers but it was real expensive. I don´t play games often, but when I do I play Battlefield 4. I can play it on ultra settings without any problem at all. Don´t know if that helps my rendering.

But thanks for the info on render time. I understand it can take hours, and more likely many hours. I´ll leave the animation bit for now. If it was quicker I might´ve wanted to get into it more, but for real work, I don´t have that kind of time. I can almost see the situation arise where I have just rendered 30 hours of animation, with a deadline tomorrow, and some editor tells me it´s the wrong airplane, or city, or whatever.. the anxiety..

Is it the same process with software like 3DStudioMax, Modo, Maya etc?

roland joseph · 17 Dec 2014, 23:33

One influential factor is the set of algorithms being used to render the scene......the more realistic the render the longer it takes usually. Just as important is the processor being used. The most realistic rendering software available today usually runs on your CPU. There is also another category of rendering front-ends that are "biased" (throwing that word around lightly). They run over what amounts to a real-time gaming engine. Twin Motion would be one, Lumion is another. They are very fast. I mean a full order of magnitude in some cases but they suffer for quality in many situations. They are not great at radiosity for example. The ambient shadow work particularly where objects meet the ground sometimes lacks realism. They take less time to really measure what light is doing and more time making an estimation and producing a procedural result. I must say they are rapidly catching up though.

To sum it up time is about money. You have to produce renderings or animation that your client can afford and that he will except as good quality and you have to deliver on time. Both these rendering approaches work....slow and fast. They just need to be employed in the right situations.

LARV · 18 Dec 2014, 00:06

OK, thanks, I understod almost nothing of what you wrote but it sounded interesting Perhaps in three years I´ll get it.

For some reason all the technical mojo with animating film turns me off. When I watched my high res test render of a box turning 180 degrees take 10 or 15 minutes I knew this wasn´t for me. I didn´t enjoy the experience, although the result came out as intended. I like learning new stuff but film animation is just too much.

roland joseph · 18 Dec 2014, 01:30

@unknownuser said:

I didn´t enjoy the experience,

I am sorry to keep pounding this approach but if that is the case you are a candidate for Lumion(or twinmotion, lightup, luminRT any of these for quick results) Go get a free or educational copy of one of them. Visualization and animation are too important to just give up. In 15 minutes you can build a little world for yourself. It is easy and it will help to educate you. It is a tremendous method for accelerating your visualization process and will lead you to more sophisticated approaches and back again depending on your needs. I think your next stop (in three years) would be K or Thea or maybe Vray or Vue. More challenging a learning curve but with perseverance unapproachable results in terms of realism for anyone of those products. There are many products you will discover (see the list posted) that are just as powerful as any I have mentioned here. Rendering is becoming a very rich science with many alternatives. I can see why at this point in it's history it is very confusing.

LARV · 18 Dec 2014, 09:47

Thanks, I´m going to check out the Lumion 3D Free.

dkendig · 19 Dec 2014, 03:41

Yeah, it all depends on what you're shooting for. If an OpenGL game-like realtime presentation is what you're after, that's one thing. If you're going for photo realistic rendering, you'll want to go with someone like V-Ray, Maxwell, Thea, etc. Each has it's own strengths.

TedVitale_CG · 29 Dec 2014, 15:04

In a lot of cases I see users mix the two methods, Animating with a simple Sketchup animation and then pausing for a detailed rendered view of the building to fade in and out at the same view, then the animation would move on from there. I've seen that done numerous times when the turnaround for a project is too tight for a fully rendered animation.

roland joseph · 29 Dec 2014, 16:20

@unknownuser said:

Animating with a simple Sketchup animation and then pausing for a detailed rendered view of the building

I prefer when this method is used to show off detail. I also like the break in the animation that it provides. I often get dizzy watching video that is perpetually moving. The break helps to punctuate, break the monotony and prepare the pallet for the next moving scene.