12 Tips To Speed Up Your Rendering

Aleksy Tecław
July 21, 2021
Aleksy Tecław
July 21, 2021

How to speed-up rendering guide

Video Rendering is often a long-lasting process that requires very strong equipment to be effective and not take several hours.

Tight deadline? Few hours to deliver the next project version and your computer turns red? We’ve all been there at some point.

Many creators wonder what to do to speed up the rendering as much as possible and enjoy the rendered project after just a few minutes of waiting. If you haven’t spent a few thousand bucks on insanely expensive hardware, there might not be any shortcuts.

However, there are still a few tweaks you can do in different software that could save you up a few hours.

Here you will learn about the most important and most effective tips for improving rendering in these of the most used programs.

Blender

Blender is software for modeling and rendering images as well as three-dimensional animations with an unconventional user interface. It is completely free and users are free to create their creations whether they are dynamic or static.

There are several ways to speed up the rendering of Blender projects.

1. Remember to update

A simple way, but how important. A new Blender update comes out almost every 3 months, which significantly improves its operation. The new version can significantly speed up your rendering video time!

2. Combaine CPU & GPU

As of Blender 2.8, the GPU and CPU can be used simultaneously. By doing this, you can gain a significant advantage in terms of rendering time reduction.

You can do it by entering Blender User Preferences and selecting two boxes in Cycles Computer Device Section for both GPU and CPU.

Combine CPU and GPU

Remember: It will be the more effective the better processor you will have.

3. Resize Tile

But what exactly are tiles? These are the little boxes that appear on the screen when rendering in Blender.

Changing the dimensions of the tiles is very important because it can significantly speed up the rendering. However, you have to remember that when you are using a GPU, the larger the tile size, the faster the render time, and on the CPU, the smaller the tile size, the shorter the render time is.

However, there is a way for Blender to automatically set the most efficient tile size for rendering. Just do it like in this tutorial.

After Effects

After Effects is a film and TV post-production program that allows you to combine video with graphics, animations, text, and other elements, and add visual special effects.

Rendering in After Effects is very demanding because often these productions are burdened with a lot of special effects and, additionally, displayed in very high resolutions of 1080p or 4K and high fps.

Here, too, there are some reliable tips to improve your rendering!

1. Turn off Ray-Traced 3D

This is extremely important even though the ray-tracing function is something very innovative. However, if you want a fast render time, make sure you have a classic 3D setup before starting it. This can speed up the process up to two times!

You can do it very easily by going into the composition settings and in the 3D Renderer section, select Classic 3D.

Turn off Ray-traced 3D

2. Keep your composition clean

Many of the layers in your project composition are invisible, but they can delay the rendering process significantly. Before sending a scene for rendering, make sure that all unused layers are removed.

3. Use Media Encoder

Adobe Media Encoder is an encoding engine for programs such as Premiere Pro or After Effects, so using it you can significantly speed up the rendering time of your project.

You simply export your finished project there before rendering and start the process from there. This significantly shortens the rendering and increases its efficiency

Maya

Maya is a tool for creating 3D graphics and animation. It is one of the basic programs of this type used in the creation of special effects in the film industry, where also users encounter problems with rendering efficiency.

Due to the demanding 3D animations and high resolution, Maya is a very demanding program, which translates into a reduced rendering speed.

There are a few tips ahead of you that will change that!

1. Instance Optimization

When using Maya, if your scene contains several identical surfaces (for example, many spheres), use the Optimize Instances option. You will find it in the render settings. This can speed up the process considerably.

2. Turn Off Motion Blur

When you don't need motion blur - turn it off. This effect is heavy on the rendering process and you will notice a significant difference when you don't use this effect.

To do this, go to render settings, then to the Maya Software tab and uncheck the Motion Blur box.

Choose motion blur
Change motion blur

3. Test Resolution

Maya software has the Test Resolution option. It allows you to check the rendering speed at a lower resolution, which allows you to estimate the time needed to render and possibly reduce the resolution to speed up the rendering process.

To do this you have to from Render View (Windows > Rendering Editors > Render View), click Options > Test Resolution, then select a resolution.

General Tips

Several solutions allow you to speed up rendering regardless of the program you are using. Here are a few of them:

1. Check running processes on the computer

Make sure no other programs are running in the background. The computer must not be loaded with anything except the rendered rendering so that the time is not extended. Any other process more or less delays rendering.

For Windows:

To control background processes, use the [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Delete] key combination to bring up the Task Manager and go to the Processes tab and delete those you don't need. Do the same for programs.

Windows background applications
Windows background processes

For Mac:

To disable unwanted processes and applications on your Mac, you need to go to Activity Monitor. It is located in Applications in the Tools category. Once you fire it up, you will be able to easily remove any unnecessary processes and applications that slow down your computer.

Mac background processes

2. Be selective with your effects

Each of us would like to have the most glamorous effects that are available in our project. However, we must be aware that not everything is possible with the hardware we have at the moment and everything is at the expense of rendering time. Therefore, choose your effects consciously and try to find a golden mean between rendering time and proper visualization.

3. Better Software = Faster Rendering

Not all video production or 3D animation software is equally effective. Perhaps the rendering efficiency issue lies with the program you are using. Test it. Check out different programs and see if the rendering speed will be the same on other software. If so, then the problem may be with your hardware.

Try Renderro out

However, if spending thousands of dollars on expensive hardware is too much for you, or you do not want to invest immediately because you are just learning video production or animation, Renderro is the best solution for you.

Renderro is our cloud desktop, which is simply a DaaS solution, for everyone who wants to create creative projects. Thanks to the subscription offer you can use an incredibly powerful computer that will speed up the rendering process by up to 3 times.

A GIF showing the process of uploading files into the Renderro Web App.

Keep it always accessible for everyone

Those drives can be shared between your Renderro Cloud Desktops, allowing instant access to all your work, for all your team members.

With team resources management, you are always in control of the access and permissions to all Renderro resources.

A GIF showing the connection to Renderro Cloud Desktops as well as the way of accessing files stored on Renderro Cloud Storage through Renderro Cloud Desktops.

Work on powerful Cloud Desktop

Moving your work to Renderro Cloud Workplace means access to incredibly fast Cloud Desktops that can run any software you would normally run on Windows 10 machines.

You can switch between computers at any time with a single click to adjust the power to the task at hand.

A GIF showing hoa you change the power of Renderro Cloud Desktops, how you turn them on and how you turn on Blender software on a running Renderro Cloud Desktop.