Struggling with rendering, am I doing this wrong?

3DKlassen

So I'm in 2019 3DS Max (Student version) Rendering with Arnold. It seems to be the shaders and lights causing the massive delay. A single 4k (4096x1862 70mm Panavision cine) Render is taking over 10 hours. Without shaders only 20 seconds. Without lights but with shaders on only 2 minutes. But both on 10+ Hours.

Polys: 258,325

Verts: 298,969

Total Arnold Lights: 80

Anrold Lights are set to Samples 8 , volume samples 2

Arnold Skydome            Samples 16, Volume Samples 2

I have 59 shaders in total. Half are 2k , I have 3 in 4k, the rest are just Arnold standard / General shaders.

Under Render 'system' devices I have the GPU selected. Arnold Render with a Standard Free camera.

ARNOLD RENDER

Camera (AA): 4
Diffuse: 5 x 2

Specular: 5 x 2
Transmission: 2 x 8

SSS: 0
Volume: 1 x 0

There is an HDRI (2K)

Is this normal for everyone to have a render take this long given the information I provided above? I feel like I'm holding myself back because so much time is being lost during these massive renders. I'm pushing hard to get my first job in the industry and feel like this is a big setback. I'm still learning a lot with lighting and rendering, but I've been going at this now for almost 10 days straight of rendering this long and changing settings. I could really use to help on this please.

My Rig

Windows 10

CPU: 19-9900k
GPU: Nvidia RoG 1070 Ti

RAM: 32 GB @ 3200

3DS Max is installed on a Samsung SSD

3DKlassen

This is the project I'm working on, there is EXT and INT

The bottom image is a slightly older image

Eric Chadwick

A few tips.

Research and learn about rendering optimization techniques, they'll greatly speed up your rendering times, and thus allow you to do more iterations.

Use region render to fine-tune a small area you're working on. No need to render the whole thing every time.

When you need to check overall lighting, render at a lower resolution.

Also, learn about render settings, and make presets you can switch between as needed. Fast for quick and dirty whole image preview, slow for high quality renders, etc.

80 lights is a lot of bouncing to figure out. Look into excluding lights from being evaluated by surfaces that aren't within a reasonable distance.

There are more. Hope this helps!

3DKlassen

Eric Chadwick said:

A few tips.

Research and learn about rendering optimization techniques, they'll greatly speed up your rendering times, and thus allow you to do more iterations.

Use region render to fine-tune a small area you're working on. No need to render the whole thing every time.

When you need to check overall lighting, render at a lower resolution.

Also, learn about render settings, and make presets you can switch between as needed. Fast for quick and dirty whole image preview, slow for high quality renders, etc.

80 lights is a lot of bouncing to figure out. Look into excluding lights from being evaluated by surfaces that aren't within a reasonable distance.

There are more. Hope this helps!

Oh I did, I spent several hours over multiple days researching, learning & watching tutorials before I posted here. Most of all the tutorials say the same things (which I applied) but none of them show every single setting they have selected between all the lighting and rendering options. They typically only show a hand full or the ones they are specifically changing. Many of them only show a quick dirty render (probably for the sake of time for them creating the tutorial). None of them tell how long a portfolio ready 4k image took them to render of their entire scene.

So what I really want to know is, is 10 hours for a 4k render normal for everyone doing a scene? or am I wasting a lot of time?

I did manage to get a better render time on the interior shot because I deleted everything that wasn't in the shot. But how can I do that with exterior shots where you see the outside and inside?

I'll have to look into render presets, Didn't see that in any of tutorials I watched

Lights still have me struggling, I'm trying to create a realistic scene so using a realistic amount of "bulbs" but wasn't sure if I should just use mesh lights but was worried with mesh lights because its like they only work as a "point" light.

Thanks for the reply!

oglu

To get a realistic render first you need realistic assets with good shaders. And a lot more detail and realistic proportions. 

The best light and rendersettings cant fix bad assets.