Animating with Blender

What Not to Use

Continuing the hard line expressed in the materials section: no raytracing. So, no ray shadows, and especially no soft ray shadows, or ray shadows with area lamps. They make beautiful renders but take way too long. Console yourself with the fact that most “big budget” animation projects, including feature films, eschew ray-tracing and opt for buffered shadows.

Also proscribed will be raycast Ambient Occlusion. This is the standard AO method that has been around for several Blender versions and provides either a great “overcast day” look when used by itself or a good realistic baseline for most other renders.

In shots in your production where the camera does not move and your set can be replaced in whole or in part by a background ...