3D rendering

[colonel_mortis]

Does anyone know why if I create a scene in 3DS Max and render it, it goes at about 30 seconds/frame, but a far more complex scene inside a game will render at 60 fps. While I know the render quality will probably be a bit different, there's a massive discrepancy in the times which seems really strange. If anybody can explain it, I would be interested to hear.

[CornOnJacob]

I was actually wondering this as well. Assuming 3DS Max is like most modern render engines (e.g. Blender's Cycles which I use), the render is raytraced or photon-mapped. I don't know what the alternative is called, but game engines employ much more approximate techniques. Games also (usually) have far fewer polygons, since everything is designed from the ground up to be low-poly. I still don't quite know how that huge jump (1 frame per 30 seconds to 60 fps) is actually made though.

[coder-guy22296]

maybe it is using your cpu to render the frames, or you are rendering in a higher quality or more pixels than the game, that is my best guess

[MzCatieB]

active rendering and simulation rendering are completely different.

 

games use Active rendering cause it is largely pre-rendered and takes 100th of the time to display.

if you are interested in seeing how it works download UDK, create a scene, add lighting and render using Lightmass at Production level

 

Software such as 3DS/Maya/Blender ext use Simulation rendering meaning it has to calculate 100% of everything. the reason for this is that it creates ALLOT more realistic lighting with shadows aswell as defraction/ deflection / scattering and prediction trails. if you wish to see an example of this Download Blender, set the render system to Cycles and create a Scene then render it.

 

a way that you can speed up all the processes however is by Activating CUDA processing on an Nvidia card or AMD APU system (Amd's APU System is not the CPU replacement they sell it is there version of CUDA)