Sample configuration to speed up POVRAY image creation

Question

We use POV-Ray to generate about 80 images in one pass, which we stitch together to form two moving GIFs (two types of 360 degree scene viewing). We are looking for ways to speed up the creation of this image (on a headless Linux server), as they will appear on the web page immediately after creation.

Now I know that the setting may be suboptimal, since POV-Ray is mainly intended for high-quality images, but, unfortunately, this process cannot be changed, since it is an external tool that generates POV-Ray files.

Given that we are stitching several images together into a moving GIF, I suspect that the image quality, colors, lighting, etc. are reduced. There is a lot of performance, but unfortunately I have no experience in POV-Ray or any of these settings.

I was wondering if anyone would be able to provide or lead me to a configuration sample that would speed up this image creation as much as possible without a noticeable loss in image quality.

Regards, Tim

Answer 1

Color depth will not matter much. Like most ray tracing programs, the greatest improvement in performance is achieved by reducing tracked rays. You can do this by reducing the image size (resolution) and decreasing (or removing) anti-aliasing (-A) and lowering quality (+ Q0). They will provide you 80% of the 80-20 rule.

Answer 2

The way you create your object can significantly affect the rendering time (#blob components, #triangles, number of pixels in the height field, isosurface vs. other).

Light is a key player: reduces the number of lights and uses radiation. Sometimes you can do texturing tricks (for example, a slope pigment pattern) that can simulate lighting. Light groups also help.