Final Sets and Backgrounds - Animating with Blender: How to Create Short Animations from Start to Finish - page 224

With that point about sanity and fl exibility behind us, it's back into the maelstrom. . .
Quality versus Render Time
How much quality should your fi nal renders have? As much as possible.
How long should your renders be? As short as possible.
Obviously, the answers to these two questions are at odds with each other. While your renders, eventually, will
have to take some nonzero amount of time to produce, there is no reason to gratuitously jack up the render
times with foolish choices. Before we talk about fi nal sets and props, materials, and lighting, we should look at
some of the basic principles that will help to keep your render times as short as possible.
Once again, it is worth pointing out that 10 seconds saved on a 3 minute render time spread over 2,000
frames (which equals just over 1 minute of animation) will save 5 and one-half hours of total rendering time.
And that's if you get everything right on the fi rst shot! During production of The Beast , the render farm was
returning about one frame every 4 minutes on certain shots that could only be marginally optimized, but
sometimes as quickly as one every 30 seconds. Following some simple rules can make a huge difference.
Your goal during the creation of the fi nal sets, including materials and lighting, is to obtain the look that fi ts
the style of your animation while keeping render times to a minimum.
Geometry
Following the same rules as character design and development, the geometry of fi nal sets and props should be
created at an appropriate level of detail with respect to how it will appear on screen. Items that will only take
up a few pixels on screen probably shouldn't be allocated 4 hours of modeling time. Set pieces that appear
mostly in the background but once or twice in close-ups should probably either have separate versions cre-
ated or should be made following the character design suggestion: a good base shell with a subsurface modi-
fi er. This makes it simple to raise the subsurfacing level and consequent edge detail as needed.
As you build your fi nal set, keep in mind that you probably have a limited amount of time in which to fi nish
your production. If it is ever a question of spending time on geometry, materials, or lighting, defi nitely sac-
rifi ce the geometry. Many beginners intuitively choose the opposite, dumping all of their time into creating
a set of exacting geometric detail under the assumption that materials and lighting are easy. The opposite is
true. Good materials and lighting are the bedrock of a great render and are far from simple. In fact, getting the
lighting correct is both essential and time consuming.
Matching the Rough Set
Remember that, although your fi nal set geometry does not need to conform exactly to the specifi cations of the rough
sets, it is crucial that at any point where the characters interact with the set (the fl oor, a chair, a wall that is leaned
upon), the fi nal set needs to be identical. Most likely, you will have already animated some or all of your shots