Fast Renders?

inspired_art_86a3f09735

So DS has a couple of render modes to choose from. Other than the atrocious "window render", which do you consider the fastest?
Currently I am using Scripted 3Delight, and nothing shows up in the render window.
I'm actually looking for something that finishes rendering, not one that continues rendering....
Help?

PrefoX

Got no clue about 3Delight but with iray, you can set a maximum time, or a quality level which has to be reached and the rendering is going to stop. Iteration rendering is just better because it should be faster in general and some scenes don't need as much iterations as others so you save time too. 

DrunkMonkeyProductions

Viewport(formerly OpenGL), is always going to be the 'fastest'.

The others, well, that gets really complex really quick.

Your hardware is going to be the main determining factor on speed.

A dual core, in 3delight, is going to get absolutly blown away by a quad 3090 setup, in IRay, depending on scene composition, render settings, light setup, and shaders/materials.

 

IMHO, a better way to think about this is the trade off between speed and quality.

How long is "too long" to render and can you achieve the quality you want in that time frame?

If you can't achieve the quality you want within an 'acceptable' time frame, then you'll need to either invest in better/more hardware, or you'll need to learn all the 'tricks' to speed up a render.

 

This means getting a grasp on how each render, material, and light setting impacts render time, as well as scene compostion and assets used.

How much of a difference does ray traced vs deep shadow map make?

Emissive or 'regular' lights?

Bucket size?

Ray trace depth?

Bloom filter?

Tone mapping?

 

Sub surface scattering?

Do you use actual reflective surfaces or a reflection map?

Custom shaders?

Fiber mesh or poly hair?

Does that mug, or 300 instances of gold coins, really need to be in the scene?

Should i do this thing in render or do post work?

Etc, etc, etc.

 

In my case, render speed is, mostly irrelevant, as my work time is more important, so i invest in hardware and don't bother with 'optimization'.

I'd rather a render take a day, then spend that day just getting one scene ready to render.