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Print at Jan 26, 2026, 5:45:16 PM

Posted by Delleo at Mar 30, 2016, 4:45:11 PM

VERY slow video rendering
I made the first part of a "simple" house in SH3D with a bigger library than it is used to be in the free version.
I just created a living room(File Size: 15 MB) with around 80 things. It has 13 lights in it and I just used a plant, so there should be any problem.

Photo rendering in FHD(1920 x 1080) in best quality mode takes around a minute on my pc(for specs see below), and then I wanted to make a short video.

First of all, it took around one hour to compute, that the rendering
would take...180 days. shock

I don't wanted to wait so long for a 30-second-video in FHD. So I went on Google and found the hint about the SweetHome3D.lvj.ini file with -Xmx1024m. I tried it with 1G, 2G and 4G, but nothing changed on the rendering time of a picture.
I tried the video with 4G, it just still says 175 days. sad

In photo rendering mode, it doesn't uses all the time(also without the file) more than 1,5G RAM. My CPU is all used up, while rendering, but that's in Blender too.

Also I tried to use the Advanced Rendering Plugin(is someone developing it anymore or did I miss something?), but it doesn't installs(I open it with SH3D and it shows the dialogue, which says, that it's installed, but there aren't any changes in the Photo Render Dialogue, even after a restart).

Also I changed SH3D to highest priority in Task Manager, but that doesn't speeds up rendering time.

PC Specs:
CPU: 4th Gen i5(4 x 3.20 GHz, overclocked to max 3.50 GHz)
RAM: 8 GB(Windows uses around 3 GB)
GPU: nVidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti(2 GB GRAM)

How can I speed up rendering without loosing quality(lower resolution, worse quality, fewer lights)?

Posted by Puybaret at Mar 31, 2016, 11:52:19 AM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
It seems that you explored already many different solutions, and I fear you won't have more options. Did you try to render a video of one second to check if it could worth it?
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator

Posted by hansmex at Mar 31, 2016, 12:52:07 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
1 - If one image takes around one minute to render, than a 30 second video should take around 30x24 frames = 720 frames = 720 minutes = 12 hours.
My suggestion: give it a try and let your computer render overnight.
2 - If there are any objects/lights in your design that do not show up in the video, make them invisible.
Example: if you have five rooms, but only three appear in the video, make everything in the other two rooms invisible.
Example: if you show only the right side of a room, make everything on the left side invisible.
Reason: Everything in your design is taken into account when deciding if/how it should be rendered, regardless whether or not it appears in the image being rendered. Being invisible, objects are excluded from this braod sweep. This can potentially speed up rendering quite a bit.
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Hans

new website - under constuction
hansdirkse.info

Posted by mazoola at Apr 1, 2016, 9:03:44 AM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Your other option would be to reduce the resolution and upscale the video during playback. I know you say you're committed to 1920x1080, but you'll likely find, say, a 960x540 frame size perfectly acceptable during playback. (Depending on which codec you use and how you configure it, you might even find a lower resolution video might be of higher fidelity than one with a larger frame size -- they're called 'lossy' formats for a reason!) While you probably won't see a four-fold increase in rendering speed, unless all your furniture is chrome-plated and your walls, floor, and ceiling covered in mirror tiles, you should be able to pump out a 30-second video in a few hours.

Posted by Delleo at Apr 1, 2016, 9:52:48 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
@Puybaret I made a vid with exact one second: It took about hours.

@hansmex I will try both options, but at the moment, I don't have the time.

@mazoola Photo rendering is much faster in lower resolution, and it doesn't looks so bad upscaled. I'll try it with vids in a few days.

And another question: Is there a way to increase the FPS(I know, rendering would take longer)?

Posted by Delleo at Apr 1, 2016, 10:12:50 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Sorry, I forgot to insert the number in the first line; it isn't finished rendering yet(30 mins). It hasn't started at all, I think, because it doesn't says, how many pictures are already calculate.

Posted by kaneelschep at Jan 24, 2018, 2:12:30 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Reviving a dead post ;)
But I started rendering my house yesterday evening.
A 51 second movie on best setting @ 1280x720 pixels.
And its at 222 1280. Wait! It just did another :) 223 of 1280.
And it sais 63 hours more.
This is on a Xeon X5650 with 7gb ddr3 ram. ;)

I am sticking to finishing it now!

Posted by kaneelschep at Jan 25, 2018, 4:56:27 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Its almost halfway on 624/1280 ;)

Posted by kaneelschep at Jan 26, 2018, 3:56:39 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Only 21 hours more! :)
961/1280...
I'll never do this again ;)
And this Cpu is comparable to the fastest newest generation i5. Or mid level new gen i7.
Most normal pc or mac users wont have better.

I seen some renderings in a tv program. They tend to only make a max 5 second movie of going from one side of the room to the other. And I've seen them settle with lower framerates too.
This one is going through the whole house.

Ah well.
I allready tried the lower resolutions and qualities. Just wanted to see the best possible once.

Thats how we learn.. ;)

Posted by Puybaret at Jan 26, 2018, 4:50:07 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Just hope the result will be nice. Good luck! smile

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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator

Posted by elvishome at Feb 21, 2019, 7:30:28 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
I suggest you to create clips( a very small rendered part of the 3D view), later mix all the clips in any video editing application.

Posted by marcop300 at Feb 22, 2019, 2:04:03 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
wow.. that is a long item to render. i would bet if you had a i7 PC, more RAM, and a larger GPU card and a SSD HD's it would go a lot faster. if you want I can test it on my PC. and even do a Webex with you to show you how fast it will take. let me know. can I ask what you are drawing that take that much CPU? i bet it is a awesome pic

Posted by Wiebenor at Aug 17, 2019, 5:50:44 AM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
So... Does anyone have any idea what this app was designed to render with??? What I mean is that some apps use GPU to render, while others use CPU, and still others use both equally good or bad, as the case might be, so which category is this app??? Was thinking about building a computer just for renders with this, but after seeing people with extra fast setups having the same problem as me, maybe I shouldn't... A 30 second video takes me at least 3 days to render, and that's with the whole 8ft X 17ft room filled with stuff on one wall, and LED lights on the top of the walls... Anyone, perhaps the author, know the answers???

Posted by Mike53 at Aug 18, 2019, 1:51:35 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
@Wiebenor try HERE for more info.

Posted by kaneelschep at Jul 13, 2022, 10:45:25 AM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
HI all. Its now mid 2022 and GPU Hardware rendering has become the main thing. It would make rendering the video's a LOT faster. Is this something to be expected in sweet home 3d? Thanks!

Posted by Puybaret at Jul 13, 2022, 8:07:16 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Try YafaRay renderer in the new version 7.0, but don't expect Sweet Home 3D to be able to use GPU for rendering soon.
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator

Posted by stef.salmon at Jul 26, 2022, 5:16:35 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Hi,

I've been using the YafaRay engine for sometime and now all of a sudden what used to take 4 minutes to render a fairly simple floor layout, is taking nearly 18 minutes. I have now idea why!

Any ideas, would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Posted by Puybaret at Jul 26, 2022, 6:04:23 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Did you try to simply relaunch Sweet Home 3D?
Maybe a part of the memory used by YafaRay is not freed after each rendering and the program starts to miss RAM.
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator

Posted by stef.salmon at Jul 27, 2022, 11:18:22 AM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Hi,

I shut it down in task manager and all seems to be OK now.

Thanks smile

Posted by VeroniQ at May 25, 2023, 2:53:28 PM

Re: VERY slow video rendering
Hi everybody,
Maybe you will be interested by this new tutorial on Sweet Home 3D Youtube channel about making and editing a video, with some tricks to do it "rather" quickly.

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