In terms of rendering an animation, to work out how quickly things are likely to go, figure out the average length of rendering a single frame, and then multiply it by the number of rrames... expecting a 300-frame render to take only 45 minutes means that each frame would render in just 9 seconds - which is just about doable with a good computer and on preview settings, but just sint' going to happen with firefly unless you have an incredibly good render farm.

JonTheCelt