Hi all!
So how many samples should I be using to render an animation?
Here’s 100 samples with denoising:
and here’s 250 samples with denoising:
I can’t see a difference in the images, can anyone else?
The only difference I see is double the render time.
Anyone have any input on this?
Randy
tbh i would make the sample rate as low as possible to render as fast as possible. Just use it that low that you are still satisfied with the result. And honestly - i nearly never rendered something with > 50 samples (except smoke/fire/water) because like you i never saw a significant difference between the images and because i am making mostly animations - you wouldn’t see the difference at all.
It completely depends. If the animation is only going to be viewed at 720p, 100 samples is plenty. If the animation is going to be viewed in 4k (or possibly even 1080p) you will probably notice some slight flickering with only 100 samples.
With an image, you can get away with far less samples than are needed for an animation. This is because in an animation, any slight differences in the noise will be VERY pronounced.
I’d recommend 100 samples unless you’re going after a particularly high quality render.
Yeah, do a short test render, render off 24 frames and see what it looks like. The denoiser does a great job with still renders, but that noise can still show up in an animation.
The universal answer of ‘It depends’ applies here. if you render off an animation and it looks good to you, then it’s good enough.
From my experience, Image Resolution affects image quality more than render samples. I myself used to render in like 300 samples all the time, but eventually I realized it’s a misplaced waste of time. These days, I render at only 32 samples, with image resolution of 4-6k for still render, and normal 1080/1920 image resolution for animation.
This is a skin shader render I take with 32 samples, originally taken at 5k by 6k resolution, downsized to 1350:
The thing about animation is that you will render a lot for so short amount of time. So extra rendering time of 6 seconds will amount to 600 seconds (10 minutes) if you’re rendering only 100 frames, which is basically less than 4 seconds of animation.
And the other thing is that people wouldn’t notice the noise of each image which runs for 1/24th of a second. Even people kind of expect it to be honest. When it comes to video, our eyes are very much accustomed to noise. You just have to look closer to any film master shot to see how much noise they have in them. Noise is your biggest friend when it comes to adding realism to your animation.
However, one thing that I would concern when rendering for animation is the amount of details you put on your scene.
From the image you put above, I can’t really see too much details nor texture that you could jam in the picture to make it a little more interesting to look at. The table, the wall, and the bed look kind of flat. If that’s the case, it doesn’t matter if you render at 32 or 300 samples, 1920 or 4k resolution, they will carry the same 3D look into your animation.
Thanks for all the replies!
I rendered out 280 frames at 100 samples at 1080p and once the images were converted to FFmpeg video format there was no flickering at all that I could see. Usually, I can spot poor video work, like bad greenscreen footage combined with 3D, etc… And as I said, I see no color problems, but I did see bad animation of the leaves of the plant in the background.
So why is cycles default set to 4096 samples? Seems like overkill to me.
Good point, it actually reminds me that at one point in time, VHS format was only something like 352 X 200 resolution and that was good enough for that time.
But this bit of advice is golden:
The room is something I downloaded from blendswap years ago, and yes, it lacks details. The notepad, pen, and plant are details I added to improve the scene. The phone is the ‘Star’ and I did spend time on it’s textures. (mainly because I need it for something else)
Yes, work on the room textures would help. Orange peel paint textures for the walls. Textures on the floor tiles, and scratches/imperfections on the dressers, would all help and bring it to life. Extra background objects would help too, like maybe a newspaper/magazine, car keys, envelopes/mail, etc… But I think I’m just going to fix the plant animation and call it quits on this. I can’t spend anymore time on the project and need to move on to other stuff…
Thanks for all the advice!!
Randy
Well, as to why 4096 is the default, I guess Blender likes to put a really high number on its default render settings, so that it could look best on all scenes. Like, the Total 12 on Max Bounce on Light Paths. I mean, you can make it 4, and you wouldn’t notice a difference as well.
Anyway, good luck on your future endeavor! Looking forward to seeing your next stuff.
Also, the default noise threshold will cut out most of those samples unless they’re really needed.
And everything is scene dependent.
12 bounces:
128 bounces:
4 bounces:
For whatever it may be worth, Star Wars: Episode 1 actually shipped to theaters where several “crowd scenes” in the podracer sequence actually consisted of variously-colored “Q-Tips® cotton swabs!”
Having first been “conditioned” to see the actual crowds, the audience “saw” the same crowds in the various subsequent fleeting seconds in which the “swabs” appeared. (Of course, these segments have since been replaced, and there’s now only a “Making Of” video to reveal the trick.)
If you’ve presented the audience with an engaging story, they’re really not looking too closely at the individual frames of your animation. In fact, as “Zac” said to a roomful of identical dancers in A Chorus Line, the rule might be: “Don’t draw my eye!”
Is this why when rendering, the number of samples at some point seem to increase exponentially?
Example:
My scene rendered at 100 samples, each sample takes the same amount of time to render. If I render at 4096 samples, at some point in time of rendering process, the sample count increases. To render to 1024 samples might take 20 minutes. To render from 1024 samples to 2048 samples might take 5 minutes, and 2048 samples to 4096 might take 1 minute.
Also, thanks for posting those images! The only difference I see between 12 bounces and 128 bounces is at the top of the water level. At 4 bounces I see a big difference between it and the 12/128 bounces images.
Another good point! The Transformers series of movies makes the transformation of the robot to it’s alter ego so fast and flashy that you never see what really happens as they transform. Here’s a car, bright flash, here’s a robot.
Thanks for the input everyone!
Randy
