Some of these quick tips add up in reducing your rendering times for Revit; so I’ve included some of my favorites below.  If you have a good one not included here please add a comment!

1.  Watch the View Size / Printer DPI Size

Because the Width / Height of the rendering for the “Printer” Resolutions are linked to the Crop Region size of the view, make sure to verify this setting.  A large crop region combined with a high DPI will add to the rendering time.  If possible reduce the crop region size or lower the DPI to 75 or 150 DPI.

2.  Limit the number of lights you are rendering

Lights are one of the largest contributors to rendering times.  You can selectively turn off artificial lights not necessary for the view, groups of lights, or use the section box approach in #3 below.

3.  Use a Section Box

By enabling a section box in the view and cropping unnecessary geometry you can greatly reduce the rendering times.  Because section boxes also work for linked files, daylight portals and lights this is a great approach to cut down rendering times.  See #3 in my previous post here.

4.  Keep custom material maps to a reasonable size

Avoid using very large dimensional image files, or large file-size images for the Material > Render Appearance > Image.  As a reference you can open some of the included maps in a folder such as:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Materials2011\assetlibrary_base.fbm\3\Mats

5.  Render on a workstation with a multi-core processor

Revit 2011 products do not limit the number of processor cores for the rendering process.

6.  Render a Region

Render a region of the view to limit the geometry which will be rendered.  Keep in mind this does not limit the light[s] calculation outside the region for rendering as a section box would.

For example, an artificial light outside the region will still be calculated and show up on the rendering dialog artificial light count.

7.  Linked Files

If you don’t need geometry in a linked file temporarily unload the link prior to rendering.  Because geometry and lights are calculated and will render from a link even if it is not visible in the immediate view this can greatly extend the rendering time.

8.  Avoid adjusting the Render Quality Settings higher than necessary

Keep in mind even the included “Best” render quality setting limits the values to the following:

Image Precision (Antialiasing): 8 out of 10
Maximum Number of Reflections: 4 out of 100
Maximum Number of Refractions: 8 out of 100
Blurred Reflections Precision: 7 out of 11
Blurred Refractions Precision: 5 out of 11
Soft Shadows: Enabled
Soft Shadow Precision: 6 out of 10
Compute Indirect and Sky Illumination: Enabled
Indirect Illumination Precision: 7 out of 10
Indirect Illumination Smoothness: 8 out of 10
Indirect Illumination Bounces: 2 out of 5
Daylight Portal Options: Not Enabled

Setting these higher than the “Best” setting, can substantially add to the rendering process time.

9.  Daylight Portals

If the current view you are rendering does not need to utilize daylight portals for windows, doors and curtain walls they can be disabled.  For example, if the view does not include a window illuminated from exterior daylight you could un-check this option.

10.  Rendered Walkthroughs

I have included a previous post on exporting walkthroughs set to <Rendering> to keep in mind.