Speeding up renders

Last updated: 08.05.2002

Large complex scenes are likely to take a long time to render. However, you may be able to speed up rendering with some of the following tips.

Render to disk
With very large scenes, rendering to disk may be more efficient than rendering to the screen. This is probably because it uses less memory, and so Bryce may be able to render the scene without having to use virtual memory (which slows render times very severely).

Spatial optimization
Depending on the kind of scene you are making, Bryce's spatial optimization options may improve rendering times. The different options can be found on the Render Options pop-up menu (bottom pop-up on the right-hand side of the workspace). The manual suggests that using the High mode will speed up rendering of scenes containing imported objects

Switch off anti-aliasing on some objects
A little known feature of Bryce 4.0.1 is that it allows anti-aliasing to be switched off for individual objects. Turning off anti-aliasing for high-frequency objects (grass, sand, gritty rock) or distant objects can speed up rendering. To switch off anti-aliasing for an object, select the object and open the Attributes Editor (click the 'A' next to the selected object). Then hold down the Control and Shift keys and simultaneously click the 'tick' button to exit the editor. To turn anti-aliasing on for an object, select the object and open the Attributes Editor again, but this time hold down Shift as you click the 'tick' button.

Avoid slow features
Some things in a scene take longer to render than others, or may cause the scene to render more slowly. If you can eliminate some of these, your scenes will render more quickly. Among the things that can cause your scene to render slowly are: