Cineversity

I would like to ask about the render setting of animation.

I’m confused a little bit.

The scene has several low polygons objects and 1 light object only.

When I render a current frame, it takes only 5 seconds per frame.

But I render 10 frames, it takes about 6 seconds per frame.

Render 100 frames, it takes about 10 seconds per frame.

Render 1000 frames at once, it takes over 50 seconds per frame.

If I try to render all frames (about 6400 frames) it takes over 5 minutes per frame.

So I gave up rendering every frame at once and rendered every 100 frames and combined them to one movie file.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNuBztVlDiQ

Is this a normal situation or is there any other way to render over 1000 frames animation at once?

I would be highly appreciated somebody could give me some suggestions.

Hi nato.g.kdhk,

With screenshots, I might miss information, thanks for sharing, but I Project files work, or they don’t, no guess-work.  Not a single parameter is shown in the Global Illumination (GI) settings. I think there is a problem.

However, without a Project file, anything in this regard will be just guessing. Guessing is from my point of view a waste of your time. My suggestion: I send you an upload link, and with that, I get hopefully an idea of how to solve this for you.

Switch off the GI and render again from zero, and one time from frame 5000, the render time should be now equal. If not, it is something else. Guessing, as I mentioned: takes extra time on your side.

Having all of that said, I can’t reproduce this problem here, but let me suggest at least one point: Cache the Global Illumination. Render again.

Let me know if you like to have an upload link.

Cheers

Thank you very much for your prompt reply.
I understand my GI setting is the problem.
But I could not solve it.

Here is the link to the project file.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9jgezi8kzgdlw1e/hippo 5.c4d?dl=0

I’ll be highly appreciated if you give me more suggestions.

Thanks a lot for the file, nato.g.kdhk, and for using DropBox.

The problem seems to be more in the way the Character Object, as well as the super large collection of CMotion l objects, are providing the information. I have not seen so far a 6624 frame long project, with so many CMotion objects, all in one ‘take’. Never.

At the moment you write it out as Alembic, you can see that it is 2.06GB large!
However, it renders in the editor view very quickly. This leads to the idea is that every single item is calculated from the start for every single new frame. Again, not so in the editor view, since the data is already there. I hope that makes sense. I checked this, of course, and the test showed it clearly. IT is partly the time to calculate and to write this information somewhere.

I took a single Hippo and exported it as Alembic. Opened it in a new file, and all went as quickly as one would expect. With or without GI.

https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/OiUcnweieijjxrhbSAVYcm0SswT6qGWKemtI4hR4LTP

The tests were done with 36 Hippos set to Multi Instances. Without GI, it took a single second per frame here. (14s with GI and medium settings)

So, select one Hippo in your file, export it as Alembic, and, as shown in the screen capture, link it to the Top Null of the group in the file above. The compressed abc (Alembic) file was over 1GB, so please write it for yourself, it might be faster than even download the file.

I hope that clears the mystery.

All the best

Thank you very much for your prompt reply.

As I’m very beginner to c4d, it may take some more time for understanding your explanation. Thank you very much anyways.

Thanks for the reply, nato.g.kdhk, very kind of you.

I would like to try again, perhaps in fewer words for the file in question, and some extra words for an alternative.

The set up in the file leads to a procedural animation (versus a purely keyframe based). For each new frame rendered in the Picture Viewer, the needed information is only available after all parts have been calculated again. For the next frame, again, all frames before this new frame will be calculated. The higher the frame number, the more calculation is needed. Hence the longer preparation time.

This is pretty much in a nutshell what happens. At the moment the frame is prepared, in terms of animation, the GI will come into the game, just for that frame. So, no problem with GI here.

I suggested to export it, so the information is available, directly, as an Alembic file can be read out for a single frame.

========

How would I do such a long animation? Certainly with the Animation System. Here you create from each CMotion a single loop-able clip. These clips provide the information instantly. It works like editing a video. Changes can be made anywhere at any time.

If there is any question, please ask. We all want that everyone can focus on the artistic part of the work, instead of dealing with problems. So, I like to point to learning resources, if available, or answer here.

Enjoy.

Dear Dr. Sassi,

Thank you for your instruction.
Following your suggestion, I learned about ‘Alembic’ and could produce another version of the animation easily and with less time.

https://youtu.be/30s9JDZogJI

I would like to study C4D more and more.
Thank you very much.

Hi nato.g.kdhk, thanks a lot for the feedback and the credits on YouTube.

I’m glad you about your progress.

Yes, please dive into Cinema 4D more and more. Let me know if there is any question, I’m happy to look into it.

I assume you will use this theme to learn about the options; While you stick to a particular idea as the core of your exploration, you will see a lot of improvement.

My best wishes and have fun!