Quicker Test Renders with Mental Ray

So I thought I haven't posted in awhile so thought I'd best write something that has helped me save much time when carrying out test renders with Mental Ray.

If like me you do many test renders before doing your final render, you'll know how frustrating it can be wait for a test render to finish, only for it not to look like you hoped it would. So here are some tips to help you shade some time off those renders:

1) Size does matter, the larger you render the longer it will take. As a good rule of thumb, when you double the size, you quadruple the render time so what's the smallest size you can get away with.

2) If you do need to render out at a larger size, can you reduce the quality? This could be done either by lowering the quality of Final Gather or the amount of Photons shot into the scene as well as the Sampling Quality. So for example when I do a test render I normally drop the Samples per Pixel to 1/4 and 4 or 1 and 4, the Filter to Box and increase the Spatial Contrast to 0.09 on R, G, B and A (this makes Mental Ray more likely to use the Minimum Samples Per Pixel).

3) If your not making big changes, then save out the FG and GI maps and reuse them. You can also render out a smaller medium quality map and then use that for larger images. So for example save out the FG and/or GI maps at say 1000x1000 and then do your regular 2000x2000 render.

4) Talking of FG and GI, do you need the settings to be as high as they are for a test render, if not then lower them especially if your knocking down the Samples per Pixel.

5) If your materials are not important for your test renders, then use the Material Override function under the Processing tab and choose a nice simple material with very low gloss and reflectivity. Overly glossy and reflective materials can really slowdown the render process and can also be distracting whist sorting out the lighting of a set.

6) Also don't forget to use the Render Region or RAM Player options, great for comparing side by side previous renders and often overlooked.

Well I hope these ideas have helped a little and if anyone has anymore please let me know and I'll add them.

Thanks