Is it faster to render in a new window or direct to file?
WillowRaven
Posts: 3,787
Using 4.7 3Delight ...
I've always done test renders in a new window at a smaller scale then final renders since my final renders are 5000 pixels wide in most cases. Then when everything looks about the way I want it, and I'm ready for the biggie, I have always rendered the full scene in a new window. I've never really tried to render direct to file. Is it faster to direct to file, though? I've always thought I had to watch it render to be sure details like hair strands going through a shoulder or some crap may miss my seeing it if I didn't, but if it's faster to render direct to file, or uses fewer resources, allowing me to do more things while it's rendering, theoretically, I'd see glitches like that in Photoshop-post, too and could to a spot render to remedy small areas.
So anyone know if direct to file is better or faster or less taxing on the system?
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Comments
I don't know, but one could simply time both cases and compare the results. Maybe try it a few times just in case some other task on your computer might occasionally run and mess with the results.
I have found no change in speed, in my renderings. Though, I have not hit any memory-walls yet...
I would not imagine that it is any faster. The method for rendering is still the same.
1: Compress the scene to remove unseen objects.
2: Compress the graphics for LOD desires of the rendering-output. (Happens even if you don't have LOD models.)
3: Prepare the scene-objects and graphics for actual rendering. (This is just an optimized version of your actual scene. A temporary mini-version. This is where it stops if you are rendering to a distribution file for farm-rendering or just to an external rendering program. Also, this is where it "continues" from, if interrupted and later restarted, with the "Canvas layer data below".)
4: Prepare a "Canvas" in memory, for the outputs, including the one you actually see, which is a merger of the various rendering-layers that render independently.
5: Copy that memory to the screen, on the display canvas, if it exists. (This is your rendered view that you see. Takes a split second to copy-memory and display it.)
6: Wait until render is complete, and copy the canvas to a temp-file, just in-case the user wants to save it, or to the selected "save to file" location if you are saving to file. (Deletes it if you don't, unless you select "Save last render", before you exit.)
So, rendering does not get done any faster. Preparing the scene and actual rendering are no more burdened, based on the output source. Once rendered, it may save you a few seconds of clicking "Save" and waiting for it to copy the temp-file from one location to another, or write the data from the memory-swap.
Wow.... You take a lot more steps than I do. I just hit render and save, lol. I'm so lazy, lol.
That IS 'just hit render...and save'...that's all the behind the scenes stuff that happens when you hit that button labeled 'Render'.
Ahhh ...
Well, I'm not sure how to know exactly how long my latest render took, but I know it was over 45 minutes. Which for me is a pretty good time at 5000 pixels wide (6 x 9), with several scene elements and figures. It did seem to be a bit easier for me to do other stuff like opening new tabs and doing things online while it was rendering to file. Maybe it was just this scene and maybe not.
well I think there is no difference, render is render if directly or in a new window the work for the machine should be the same :). If you read a book, do you read faster in your kitchen or in your living room? Okay, can be that one reads faster lying on the couch :) or not because one fall to sleep :(
well I have to say, that I think that the rendertimes in ds4.8 are shorter than in ds4.6 (both 64bit) if using 3d light, can be that this is just a subjective matter but I think it is faster. same light and camera values and render settings
Yea, "Rendering" is actually just a portion of things that happen, when you hit render. However, in most instances, that is the longest time-killer, unless you have a large scene full of stuff that renders on low settings. (Then it takes longer just to get the scene ready to render, than it does to actually render. I run into that a lot. Rendering at 640x480 and 5000x4000 takes less time than "Preparing the scene 0/3297".... When rendering is still only doing "Rendering 0/362"... Usually a test-render, prior to turning-on all the lights and manually going through and isolating unseen things.)
Remember, it isn't DAZ rendering, it is another program doing that part, as is with most "studio" type programs. (Displaying the renders is done in Daz. If you want to call semantics, IRAY may be an internal component, in part, unified into DAZ, but it is an external thing, as a whole, even if DAZ wrote it into the code, it isn't "DAZ". OpenGL is as close to being DAZ as possible, but even that is just code to pass to an external GL rendering program, which is either done by the CPU or GPU, if your card drivers have auto-detect smart assistance settings, which is every card made after 1998, except INTEL cards.)
back in the day rendering to a file using standlone 3Delight was faster than internalized 3Delight (on screen or direct to file) in Studio, it was more-so if you rendered on Mac - this was Identical HW, I was on a dual boot iMac and later on the 3Delight forums others had expressed the same findings - The fault I had was I didn't catch something in the render that would have made me stop from letting it complete until it was too late, the advantage other than speed was it would render outside of Studio and free up a ton of RAM when renders crashed due to lack of it.
At this time 3Delight Standalone free will support 8 cores but I'm not sure if the DS is using the latest version of 3Delight that is compatible.
http://www.3delight.com/en/index.php?page=3DSP_download
4.8.0.59 uses 3DL version 11.0.130
The current standalone is 12.0.12...and yes, it is compatible.
And Cosmo, the reason 4.8 seems to render faster. is because it is. The version of 3Delight in 4.8 is 10 to 60% faster than the one in 4.6.
ah okay, so no imagination, phuuu, I thought I had some seriuos mind problems LoL
So much information, lol. Ugh! This is why I am just an artist and not a technician. I totally admire how ya'll can figure this stuff out and help us tech-less wonders do what we do a little better.
Wow! I just thought I had gotten used to the longer render times in IRay! That's awesome news!
Wait..RIB export used to work on the Mac without having to move files and edit the .RIB file? So Daz had it working and then broke it?