Rendering times and "inactivity"

Started by Kevin F, May 16, 2008, 03:58:10 AM

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Kevin F

I've just uploaded a pic see http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=4065.0
The render took just 1hr 10 min to complete the scene, but then carried on rendering for a further 8mins, making no apparent difference to the final scene. I noticed the same delays between the rendering buckets/tiles. Two would render together, finish with no activity at all not even the GI dots disappearing, then the next two buckets/tiles would render. I reckon these periods of inactivity added 20% on to the final render time.

Matt

A good proportion of the amount of time needed to render an image is taken by computing displacement or processing geometry to place it in the image. The renderer can't know whether something will be visible until it has calculated where it is in relation to the rest of the scene, so a certain amount of displacement computation is always necessary for parts that will not be seen.

Matt
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Kevin F

Thanks Matt, I understand the reason. I suppose once a scene has "finished" from visual point of view, the simplest thing is to stop the render and save at that point. In my cast that would have saved 8 min on a 70 min render -over 11%, which although it' not a big deal it is significant.