Why are my screenshots better quality than my renders?

[JamesJ]

I've been comparing screenshots from realtime view with final renders and the screenshots have much more clarity and definition?
Why is this?
What render setting do I need to change?

[JamesJ]

The top image is a render the bottom a screenshot.

[KeyShot]

Hi James,

For the advanced renderer you can enable sharper texture filtering in the render quality options. You can also reduce the pixel filter size.

You can also use the realtime renderer to render your final images. These will be identical to the screenshot output.

-- Henrik

[JamesJ]

Thanks Henrik, that's useful.
What is a good number of maximum samples per frame to set for the Realtime render?

[guest84672]

I suggest you use time.

[JamesJ]

I suggest you use time.

Isn't the samples option better for animation renders though?
With the time option, I've been finding that because each frame is limited to the same time rendering, some frames render well, whereas others turn out with far too much noise...

[guest84672]

Yes - depending on the complexity of the model or scene, samples may be your better option. Same argument though, you will need to do a few test renders to see what gives you best results. This way you determine the min amount of samples necessary.

[Lucas]

I have the same query, as I always find my realtime previews look much better than the renders after much less time as well.

In my attached image, I have 2 crops of a large scene from one render showing the noise in the image.  In the realtime prview, the scene refines itself quite quickly, with the image noise being quite smooth/even over the image, and obviously further refining as time goes on.   After letting the image sit for even 15 mins, the noise levels become quite good and the image quite smooth.  After another half hour, the image and noise becomes buttery smooth.

Using realtime to render the image, even at the same resolution as screen, the render takes much more time, and presents a geometric noise pattern that is only removed with even longer rendering times.  The same render, with Realtime quality set at only 32 take more than 3 hours to render! Setting to 64 gets better results, but obviously takes nearly twice as long.

I really want my renders to render with the same speed of refinement and noise levels as the screen preview, can this be done?  (Does that make sense?)    Ideally if I could just save my screen shots with alpha channel I would do that, but then the resolutions are sometimes too low.

[guest84672]

Use time instead of max samples. Or reduces the number of samples. I hope this helps.