Why does it take so long to render stuff in programs such as blender?
yea, I was just wondering why it takes so long to render an object in modeling programs, but games such as Crysis seem to render pictures which are far more complex in a fraction of a second.
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
7 Answers
Rendered images are typically of a much higher quality than the images you see rendered in real-time by a graphics card. You can often perform a preview render which takes a fraction of a second, and is game-ish quality.
@richardhenry in addition, while graphics in computer games are rendered by the gpu on the graphic card, in 3d modelling application, the rendering is done by the cpu of your computer, which is much slower than the gpu.
hm, so why aren’t the modelling applications using the GPU, which is obviously better suited for that kind of task?
Because the method blender uses to form the image, ray tracing, is different to the method used in 3d games.
@ragingoli GPUs are more than cappable of running the calculations if the program has been er…. programed to use it, it’s still takes a long time to form the image.
Ray tracing involves calculating from the origin, every single bounce and refraction of every single light ray in the image. It’s a very intensive task, but leads to a more realistic rendering and can generate images like this. You won’t be seeing that level of realism from a game any time soon.
Yes; that image isn’t real. It’s nuts.
It takes a lot of time because there are a lot of calculations, depending on what rendering engine you use. As Richard elaborates, ray tracing calculates how a ray of light bounces off of objects based on the properties of light and the object itself, and the computer has to remember what happens for each ray and modify the object’s color and other properties to conform to what the physics says should happen. This does not happen in games, most games use prerendered models and primitive lighting systems to give the illusion of pretty pictures.
No computer nowadays could calculate and display real time and high resolution Ray tracing in a game. It’s just too much for the computer to handle, not to mention all of the other variables it needs to keep track of just to play the game.
Answer this question 
This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.
Composing members:
0
