Forums >> Revit Structure >> Technical Support >> 2012 Rendering Advice

karel1

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Joined: Mon, Sep 13, 2010
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Hi all.

Been on Revit since 2004; but in recent years, have done virtually zero rendering due to job pressure etc.

Anyway, I'm having to do a series of renders for a new client, and need advice for best results in the 2012 rendering engine.

1- is it better to render on 'screen' or 'printer' resolution?

2- is it better to increase the view crop size (eg: 500x800mm) and render at lower res, say 100 dpi, vs smaller crop view size eg: 150x250mm) at high approx 3/600 dpi?

3- do the 'haze' & 'sky' settings affect render time? if so, by how much?

4- any other tips and tricks to streamline?

Thanks, much appreciated.

K

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nastyclown

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Joined: Mon, Jul 13, 2009
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1- is it better to render on 'screen' or 'printer' resolution?

A: Depends. If you are going to export the jpg to a power point, then use printer res. If you need it printed for large renderings, go printer.

2- is it better to increase the view crop size (eg: 500x800mm) and render at lower res, say 100 dpi, vs smaller crop view size jeg: 150x250mm) at high approx 3/600 dpi?

A: On some computers with low ram, lets say 2 gigabytes or less, you cannot print at higher resolution than 20 megabytes uncompressed image ( check on the rendering dialog , there it should say how). In my new machine, with 16 gigs of ram, i can print to 150 megabytes. Higher than that "weight" you will have crashes, black renderings and other ram related problems. The max resolution should be 300 dpi... more than that is just insane, in terms of the time consumed and the resolution you get.

3- do the 'haze' & 'sky' settings affect render time? if so, by how much?

A: it should not. Homever if the sun is too late, then the light its going to be much more indirect, so the render time could be more than the expected.

4- any other tips and tricks to streamline?

A: Use white matte materials, with just a texture and a bump on top. Try to avoid excesive indirect light, and semitransparent glass materials.

Try to test the materials isolating every piece, and at the end test a big render size, with a region that allow you see how all the materials interact together. Render a smaller size (screen) to check the light.

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alabaster2513

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Joined: Tue, Jan 16, 2007
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also using section boxes, light groups and turning off irrelevant geometry (foundations, mechanical, struct) you can not see will improve render time

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tthurlwell

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You may also want to look into "Project Neon" which until last Friday was a free cloud rendering service offered by Autodesk which would allow you to render online and not be limited by your PCs RAM capabilities. Unfortunately the site has been under construction and rumor has it they are going to start charging $ in some capacity. keep your ear to the ground,  if it comes back up and its still free, it is totally worth it.

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alabaster2513

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i have mixed feelings about Neon, if its a free service I will continue to use it but for my specific situation it isnt that helpful. Although I can really see the value to a small firm or freelance architect who has limited resources available to them.

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tthurlwell

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Per my conversation with Autodesk today, Neon is "retired", and they have incorporated cloud rendering into their services, suite subscribers have it included, others must pay (boo)

Frankly, I don’t see much of a down side of neon (when it was free), bar the reliance on an outside IT group for maintenance/ upkeep. Would you mind being more specific on why or how you prefer to do your rendering? I am not sure how the size of a practice is relevant in regards to rendering capacity. Thanks

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alabaster2513

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i meant i dont have much use for it because my company has its own render farm with 3ds max and our revit users are on high end 8 core workstations..... someone with a dell dimension desktop with 4 gb of ram would benefit from cloud rendering much more than myself

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itsmyalterego

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Joined: Thu, May 28, 2009
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1- is it better to render on 'screen' or 'printer' resolution?

A:   Printer.  Screen resolution is only going to look good on your screen -- and even then your render will not fill your screen.  For a render that will print nicely on an 11x17, you want no less than 3,000 pixels horizontal.  

2- is it better to increase the view crop size (eg: 500x800mm) and render at lower res, say 100 dpi, vs smaller crop view size eg: 150x250mm) at high approx 3/600 dpi?

A:  I would get used to increasing the render DPI, rather than resizing the crop region.  This becomes neccessary, particularly for persepctive 3D views.  This cannot be stretched well. 

3- do the 'haze' & 'sky' settings affect render time? if so, by how much?

A:   No.  Haze, I never use because it looks terrible, like industrial smog.   But the sky renders in a matter of seconds.  It's a treat when the render box reaches the sky and speeds up.

4- any other tips and tricks to streamline? 

If your computer can handle it, you can open up two session of revit, so that you can continue working while revit renders.

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