Help wanted on rendering for poster

[jhiker]

Can somebody please provide me with some help getting the best quality renders to send to the printer in order to make a small(ish) poster, say 750mmx750mm.

I have Keyshot 2.3.2 - capable of 2.1 Mpixel realtime resolution & 4.1Mpixel 'offline rendering'.

Do I first choose the aspect ratio, Edit - Scene - Realtime ('image settings': width/height - for example, for a square image, 800x800) then go to the render tab at the bottom of the screen and simply choose the highest resolution possible i.e. 1920x1920, giving me a final rendered image of 6.4"x6.4" at 300dpi, which works out at 3886400 pixels - within 4.1Mpixel.

When might one check the box for 'Use realtime render' - when would that be appropriate?
Many thanks,
Jeff

[guest84672]

Yes - your steps are correct.

The nice thing about using realtime render mode is that you get exactly what you see on screen, and that you can set the time (disable frames) how long you want the image to render.

[jhiker]

Yes - your steps are correct.

The nice thing about using realtime render mode is that you get exactly what you see on screen, and that you can set the time (disable frames) how long you want the image to render.

Thomas - thank you for the reply.
So, just to be clear, if I elect to 'use realtime render' and set it to render for, say, three hours it will automatically save a rendering at the end of that time without any further intervention?

[PhilippeV8]

That should be correct.

[jhiker]

Thank you.
Incidentally, when I check 'use realtime render' and press the 'Render' button my working window goes into 'Paused' mode as expected and a second window opens which is entirely black (and showing 0% render progress) until I drag it around a bit, then suddenly it comes alive - odd!

[guest84672]

Well, sometimes it takes some time until the image shoes up. Make sure you uncheck "frames", and only enter the time. The beauty is that you can set it to 3 hrs, and if you check after 2 hrs for example and decide that it looks good, you can just stop the rendering,, and you will get the image as it is at its current state.

To get an accurate estimate on how long a large rendering takes, do the following:

Render out a small image in the correct aspect ratio using the realtime render mode. Do a couple of test renders with various times to see what gives you the perfect picture.
Once you determined what the time is, set the image to it's final render resolution.
Take multiply the time by the factor for height and the factor for width that you applied to get to the final resolution. Enter the time in seconds!

Example: Test render @ 500 X 500 takes 10min. Final image is 5,000 X 5,000 pixels.
Time to render the final image: 10min * 10 * 10 = 1,000min = 60,000sec (16.67 hours)

Hope this helps.

Thomas

[jhiker]

Well, sometimes it takes some time until the image shoes up. Make sure you uncheck "frames", and only enter the time. The beauty is that you can set it to 3 hrs, and if you check after 2 hrs for example and decide that it looks good, you can just stop the rendering,, and you will get the image as it is at its current state.

To get an accurate estimate on how long a large rendering takes, do the following:

Render out a small image in the correct aspect ratio using the realtime render mode. Do a couple of test renders with various times to see what gives you the perfect picture.
Once you determined what the time is, set the image to it's final render resolution.
Take multiply the time by the factor for height and the factor for width that you applied to get to the final resolution. Enter the time in seconds!

Example: Test render @ 500 X 500 takes 10min. Final image is 5,000 X 5,000 pixels.
Time to render the final image: 10min * 10 * 10 = 1,000min = 60,000sec (16.67 hours)

Hope this helps.

Thomas

Hi Thomas,
That's really helpful - many thanks.
The image did show up after a little while - I was just impatient, I think. With a smaller image at reduced resolution it shows up really quite quickly.

I was unaware you could hit the stop button and have it save an image once you'd set it rendering - thanks.

The rule of thumb for calculating render times is very useful - I think I probably tend to overcook my renderings and this might help refine the process.

[guest84672]

Great!!