How do I reduce rendering time in 3d programs?

Question

When I develop an object, world or animation in a 3D engine, such as Maya, the time my project takes to render is dependant on many things: lighting, poly count, textures... etc.

Does anyone know any information about how to make things render in less time, or any websites that could give me advice of how to avoid slow renders? Websites are best.

I'm doing this for a short essay and some personal research. Thank you.

I'm looking for ways to model an object so that rendering won't take as long (such as using NURBS instead of polygons, or choosing certain lights)

Answer 1

well the time of taken is down to the following
1) speed of CPU
2) amount of RAM
3) amount of Memory on your graphics card
4) how many programs are running the background.

since you need a high spec machine to run 3D applications, with a minium speed of about 2.8ghz possible dual core, and about 1GB of RAM, and a 512MB graphics card.
there is not really any tweaks u can do to help the time, since its all done to how fast your pc can process the graphical information.

Answer 2

If you are doing quick preview rendering, you can decrease the size of the rendered document. Say if it was 800x600, try doing 400x300. You should see a noticeable decrease in render time. When you're happy with the result, crank up the resolution and let it run overnight.

Answer 3

Create 3D Animations Easily : http://3dAnimationCartoons.com/?WaOK

Answer 4

you can do a host of things, get a professional dedicated graphic card, get more ram, get a mulicore processor or even rent computing power from your school's laboratory or go to a professional rendering farm.

As for software tweaking it would really depend on the software in specific.

Answer 5

Here you go
http://povray.tashcorp.net/tutorials/dd_media_perf/
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