You can achieve significantly different results in rendering speed or quality by adjusting the following options in the Render tab of the Preferences dialog. To access this dialog go to Edit> Preferences> Render.
To improve rendering speed, consider turning off the following options
Always Rebuild - This forces Chief Architect to re-create the entire model for each frame. For most video cards you may want to turn this off, and turn Keep All Surfaces on.
Keep All Surfaces - When Chief Architect creates the 3D model, this option toggles whether to only create surfaces facing you. On most OpenGL-accelerated video cards, it is faster to create the model with all surfaces once, rather than re-create it every time the camera position changes. For most scenarios you may want to turn this on, and turn Always Rebuild off.
Use Triangles - This determines whether or not lights illuminate the scene accurately. Turning off this option speeds up render times, but results in large objects (such as walls) appearing to be lit incorrectly. When you are editing in a render view, or when you have no lights, you probably want to turn off Use Triangles.
Soft Shadows - Only used when Shadows are turned on, this significantly slows down the rendering speed. To save time, only use this option for final images, and consider Raytracing as an alternative way to generate a high-quality image.
Surface Backdrop - For some OpenGL-accelerated video cards, this option drastically increases your render speeds. When turned on, this option creates surfaces the backdrop is drawn on. When this option is turned off, the backdrop is send directly to the video card. For most modern video cards, Off is the recommended setting.
Use Optimizations - Many OpenGL-accelerated video cards are capable of 'optimizing' the view for subsequent redraws. Use of this option varies from video card to video card.
In general, you should leave this option turned on unless you are experiencing crashes when rendering.
Smooth Edges - Only use this option for final views, as this slows down even the fastest video card.
Show Shadows - This should only be used for final views, unless you have an extremely fast OpenGL-accelerated video card.
In general, you should make sure you are only using a minimum number of lights to cast shadows.
Use Textures - Some older video cards slow down significantly using textures. Look at your Render> Texture Filter settings; some video cards perform significantly faster using either Nearest or Linear texture filters instead of using a mip-mapping filter.
In addition, the number of light sources in a plan can drastically affect rendering speed, especially if you are using shadows. Light sources are added by selecting 3D> Lighting> Add Lights and can be removed by clicking the light source in floor plan view and deleting it.
Use Triangles - when you have lights in your scene, triangles are used to make those lights appear to illuminate objects properly. Generally speaking the smaller you set your Triangle Size, the slower the render, but the higher-quality result you can achieve.
Texture Filters - Mip-mapping, though slightly slower on older video cards, greatly improves the appearance of scenes where objects are far away.
Use Transparency - Necessary to display transparent or semi-transparent surfaces in a render view.
Smooth Edges - Though slow, this can significantly improve the quality of a final view.
| To generate a high-quality picture of your scene, consider Raytracing. See "Raytracing".
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