• Using the animation cost / time estimator is the best way to avoid bad surprises (superlong render times → costly projects), particularly if you are not a Vue expert and not familiar with the effects of all Vue rendering options.

• Avoid the preset render modes like “Superior” or “Ultra”. It is much better to choose “User Settings”, load a preset file (like Ultra.urs) then play with each parameter on a low resolution image to evaluate potential gains and optimize the scene.

• With heavy water scenes, you can try to reduce the reflection level from 5 to 4, 3, 2… Often the image quality is similar but render times are spectaculary reduced.

• Do you really need Global Radiosity (GR) on outdoor pictures? Most often you do not. Try rather Global Illumination (GI) or Ambient occlusion (AO). Much faster with similar quality.

• Do not hesitate to lower the Lighting Quality Boost in the Atmosphere Editor (by default at 0.0) to –0.5 (or even lower). Much faster, with minimal quality difference.

• Do not forget that a 3200 x 2400 image contains 100 more pixels than a 320 x 240 image! It means 100 times slower… or even worse if you use procedural terrains / clouds.

Before sending a project, always render several representative frames of your animation on your system (ideally every Nth frame to have samples from your entire sequence), at full resolution, and enter the average render time in the cost estimator.

You can also render these test frames at a quarter of the full resolution (e.g. 640 x 360 if the full res is 1280 x 720) and multiply the time by 4 to estimate this average time per frame, but this will be less precise, as the render time does not always increase linearly with the definition.

Things that can lead to long render times (use them with caution):

• Complex meshes and trees imported from other 3D applications
• displacement mapping (a memory hog too!)
• sub-surface scattering
• dynamic subdivision,
• caustics
• complex Poser figures
• complex boolean operations
• heavy reflective / refractive materials
• procedural terrains and clouds (mostly in high resolution).