Hi Everyone, I'm in the process of setting up my final render on my first serious vue image. I've read most of the comments in the forum relating to print size and rendering size but I want to pick some brains on the subject anyway. Time really isn't the issue, I'm just wondering if I'm wasting time with the larger dpi setting (300). I'm only going to print it out on my home printer which has a maximum 300 dpi output. Here's the parameters of the image. The image will be rendered in the television 16/9 setting. The scene consists of 130 objects, 4 lights (no volumetrics). The polygon count is 1,270,435. At 72 dpi with a resolution of 4200 X 2363 and standard antialias, the approximate render time should be about 11 to 12 hours, if I can believe the readout after I rendered about 3% of it. At 300 dpi with a resolution of 2000 X 1125 and standard antialias, the time should be about 1 to 2 hours! Even with the 300 dpi setting with a superior antialias the estimate is about 6 hours. So, with this in mind I guess my question is are we dealing with a Poser-like situation with rendering in Vue? You would think with a 300 dpi setting instead of a 72 that it would take longer instead of less time. What kind of settings are appropriate? Since it seems that Vue will take longer to render the 72 dpi setting will the quality be better? Rendermasters give me your thoughts. Thanks, droyd

Whoops, I'm not a Rendermaster, but I will try to send you one or two advices... :-) Before all, I think for most of the pictures you could create, it's better to choose a better antialias setting for your picture. Then, a 72 dpi render, with a high resolution is only good if you plan to edit your image with Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro (or whatever program you choose) for resizing it. It has the same effect, but with maybe a shorter render time, than a very good antialias. It can also mask a graininess problem inherent to Vue. (thanks again MikeJ for that tip ! :-)) Bur, if as you said the render time is not a problem, I suggest you to choose the 300 dpi render setting, espectially if you want to print it... A last thing : take care of the versatile estimated render time of Vue. And keep in mind that this estimated time don't count the antialias, wich can take more, more time than the calculation of the picture. For example, one of my scene was estimated to take 4 hours. I tought 'good, it's cool...' :-) The calculation took, in fact, 6 hours... plus 10 hours of antialias... augh ! :-(

The reason the 300 dpi settings you've described will take a shorter render time is because your planned rendering is only about half the size of the other. 2000 X 1125 instead of 4200 X 2363. That's what makes the difference in render time. "DPI" (dots per inch) is virtually meaningless on your screen in any computer program because it is a printing term, requiring paper, dots and inches. Your monitor screen measures only in pixels. You want your printout to look good, so 300 dpi for the print is a good place to start. Your render can be done with a setting of 72 or 300 or anything else, and it's really irrelevant what setting chosen for that; what matters are the pixel dimensions. To select the dimensions, you first need to know how large you plan to print it, in inches (or centimeters). Multiply those inches by the planned 300 dpi print resolution, and that will give the dimensions in pixels that you want to aim for in the render. In other words... 10 inches x 300 dpi = 3000 pixels 8 inches x 300 dpi = 2400 pixels If you wanted to make a 10x8" printout at 300 dpi, your image file should be 3000 x 2400 pixels. This applies whether using Vue, Poser, Photoshop or any computer program. Hope this all makes sense okay. :)

Thanks to everyone for the good advice so far. I thought I'd jump back in here and give an update on the rendersaga. Since I posted the question I went ahead and rendered the scene with a 300 dpi, 2000 X 1125 resolution, standard antialias final setting, with render to disk. Vue went to work on it just fine. I didn't monitor it too closely but it seemed to finish it in about an hour to an hour and a half. The Vue display then went blank and it showed the status at 100% finished. At this point I decided to go online and come here to look up "render to disk" comments in the forum and see what I could find out about this phenonema before I did anything drastic. I will mention also that there was no activity on the hard drive at all regarding Vue before I went on line, so it definitely crashed. After reading over a bunch of comments about similar situations (and nightmares!), I decided to just "end task" Vue and restart it. It did ask me if I wanted to recover the color channel and also the depth channel image. I said yes and told it were to store the files. I then opened them in photoshop and they both looked ok with no noticable defects. The size of the color image was 28 X 15 1/2 inches, 2000 X 1125 resolution, but the reslolution was 72 ppi not 300! So more experimenting is in order (does it ever really end?). After reading over the other threads about render to disk or not rendering to disk I don't know what to think. Thanks again to everyone for their comments so far.

I suggest you to not render to disk... :-)

Here is my guide. I use an Epson inkjet. As mentioned above, dpi is a bit irrelevant. Wjen I want an A4 printout, 30 cm along the long edge, I use 1600 as the resolution along the long edge. This is fine for landscapes, and will show no pixels on a good photo-quality print. If you have lots of straight lines in the image, particularly diagonals, push this up to 2000. A render of 4000 along the long edge for a domestic printer is, I think, excessive. I have just had an A2 printout made on a plotter, brilliant quality. This is 60 cm along the long side, and a render at 4500 gave no visible pixels on the print.