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Tublairy
02-10-2006, 01:01 PM
speed question regarding rendering

Hi all. I wrote and recorded a bunch the children's songs to go along with a textbook series for a publisher in Taiwan. They asked me to do a dialogue CD, then I said 'a CD!? No 3-year old kid is gonna listen to a dialogue CD. How about animation?' So they invited to quote on a rather large 3D project matching their books and songs - 600 minutes total.

So, I have been researching a great deal to get an idea of costs. I found a few people to work with. I think I have a pretty good idea how to put everything together for a very simple series, but I need to get an idea of how to keep rendering time/budget to a minimum. This seems to be most diffiult thing to get an accurate time (price) fix on.

So using simple cartoon characters in Maya, simple backdrops, mid and background, any suggests as to what to avoid or what the best approach might be for keeping rendering time to a minimum? I have been reading that special effects and complex textures & lighting eat up rendering time, so I was thinking fixed hair, global lighting and limit effects to 2D in another program and composite in Final Cut. Suggestions?

Also is it better/cheaper to use a rendering farm or just buy the gear and set up oneself, again consdiering the overall running time of this project?

FYI: Intended audience is 3-5 years of age.
yenvalmar
02-17-2006, 01:45 AM
dont use any shadows and make everything really non complex. hell, even do it south park style, fake 2d using a 3d program. render times should be virtually realtime for simple scenes on even a fast desktop computer. you will presumably need computers to author the content, just run the renders on those overnight and you'll be fine.

ps 600 minutes? even in realtime that will take quite awhile :)
Chris-TC
02-17-2006, 04:59 PM
600 minutes and you're only worried about the rendering times?
You better have a huge, dedicated team to work on that because putting together 600 minutes of content sounds pretty insane to me.
mswertfager
02-18-2006, 04:57 AM
Chris is right. Rendering should not be your only or primary cost reduction concern for your budget. A 600 minute animation could turn into a large production in manpower. As you were looking to simplify the rendering down, I would recommend investigating simplifying many of the other components of the project: design art, modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting and rendering (which you touched on), and post production. A good amount of cost savings can be found here. And, since the final audience are kids, a ruduction in these areas are quite plausible.

-Michael
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02-18-2006, 04:57 AM
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