Rendering
Rendering is the process of computing the final 2D image frames of a 3D animated shot from the scene's geometry, materials, lights, and camera, frame by frame.
It can take minutes or hours per frame. Optimising scenes for rendering is a crucial technical skill to keep productions on schedule, particularly for complex 3D animation projects.
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Sources
Academic papers, recognised industry standards, and canonical industry texts that back up claims in this entry.
- A paradigm shift in film and animation industry driven by real-time rendering. Bousquet, P. et al., Sage Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2025Supports: render times optimization
- Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation. Pharr, M., Jakob, W., Humphreys, G., MIT Press, 2023Supports: Canonical reference on physically based rendering
Frequently asked questions
Why does rendering take so long?
A modern render engine simulates light bouncing inside the scene many times per pixel to produce a realistic image. With high-resolution images, complex materials, and many light sources, that calculation takes anywhere from seconds to hours per frame. A 60 second shot at 25fps is 1,500 frames, so render time adds up quickly and is planned for in production.
What is a render farm?
A render farm is a large group of computers networked together to render frames in parallel. Studios either build their own farm in-house or rent capacity from a cloud render service. Either way, the goal is to compress what would be weeks of single-machine render time into hours, so the project hits the delivery date with the right level of polish.
How is AI changing rendering?
AI denoisers (already standard in most render engines) let scenes finish faster by cleaning up noisy renders that would otherwise need many more samples. AI upscalers can render at half the resolution and upscale to final, again saving time. Inside our AI-assisted animation workflow these are standard, with the artistic look and final review still owned by humans.