Really slow render times

[Craig_L]

Hi Architectural peoples.
I've recently been doing a lot of modeling to win projects (with mixed success)...

I don't often render, and I'm terrible with photoshop, actually I'd have no idea where to begin. I am a structural modeler.

I am currently trying to export a render as part of a presentation for a job, I have modeled in lights and other interesting bits to make the render look pretty.
I actually find the lights are making the render painfully long, before I added the artificial lights I was able to get a rough render out in a few minutes.
With the "artificial and natural light" setting in the render button, I've been waiting on this one render now for 3 hours and its at 18%.

Can someone who spits out renders often give me some tips in reducing this time frame?
I mean, I can't even know if this image is going to be worth keeping until I see it rendered, so I'm wasting tons of time and tying up my machine with these long renders.

What sort of procedure do you have for producing renders, do you use a dedicated render machine, and what sort of specs does it need to produce renders faster?

I still need to produce a walk-through animation, and if it takes this long to produce one image, I have a feeling I wont be able to produce a very pretty walk through in the time frame I have before this presentation is due.

Any tips from you Archi guys/gals for rendering that you feel like sharing would be appreciated!

Also, is the Cloud rendering worth it??

Thanks

[david_peterson]

Last thing first, the cloud.
While the cloud will do the work for you, the rendering engine is totally different so you'll never get the same results as you do from your local workstation.
So you'll need to set up your model and render it a few times in the cloud to get the setting correct.
What type of specs do you have on your computer? Graphics cards don't matter for revit rendering, it's all Ram and CPU speed.
Take a look at the number of bounces and smoothness settings. You may not want to do the rendering set to Best, you may want custom to give you control over some of those things. Is this just structure components or are you rendering MEP systems along with it?

[Craig_L]

Ok some of what you said there, Im pretty sure was in chinese because I understood nothing...

System specs - Intel Xeon CPU E5-1620 v2 @3.7 GHz
16 GB Ram
64 Bit

I wish I could link some of the renders I did manage to push out at lower settings (unfortunately for the moment it's confidential so I can't), they actually aren't too bad but I am having issues with getting the lighting right with natural and artifical levels, I seem to end up with one drowning the other out and can't get that nice balance between the two. That may come down to the exposure settings, but other than just messing with those until I find one that looks about right, I have no idea what I'm messing with. (My canon photo knowledge is helping a bit there as far as exposure settings goes but its not the same animal). When I say they aren't too bad - they also aren't photo quality slick looking images they are just sort of passable.

At this stage I have had to model an architectural concept, so I can do some walk throughs and I can get some nice external and internal renders done. I'm out of time though really, I need it all for tomorrow morning and I've got close to bubkis. I put in some nice lighting fixtures, I actually found a great manufacturer webpage with really well made families in it, and used those. http://www.cooperindustries.com/content/public/en/lighting/resources/design_center_tools/revit_files.html
if that interests you...

The problem I am having now is with the most important thing I want to produce - the walk through. It's all set up, but the lighting is not working for me, the interior is too dark, to the point of being black, and I can't change the exposure because outside is almost too light. Some reason my artifical lights arent showing in my walkthrough, as they would solve this problem...

Do the time, and sun location, and lighting settings I set in the normal "render" option, carry through to the "render" option for walkthroughs? Is it worth doing a rendered walk through, or is it better on a custom setting? What do you recommend for resolving these issues?

I will link the model once its no longer confidential, and you can see where I am having issues with the render - unfortunately that is going to be too late I think for this particular model.

[rbcameron1]

A walkthru, using Revit? unless you have weeks of time, I'd recommend a 3rd party plugin like Lumion or Revitzo. Or if you are on subscription with the BD suite, 3dsMax. I would only render hidden line walkthrough from Revit, never full animations. That'd take way too long.

Lumion takes 5 min. to learn and no bullcrap lighting or days of processing/rendering.

[dhurtubise]

We use Twin Motion instead of Lumion or Revitzo. Crazy graphics :)

[MikeJarosz]

The other responses kinda glossed over a basic fact: rendering DOES take hours of execution time. A whole weekend is not unusual for top quality.

[Craig_L]

Ok thanks for the responses regarding other 3rd party programs to use. I'll have to investigate these options, I am assuming none of them are free though?

[dhurtubise]

No none of them are free :)