In the ever-evolving world of 3D animation, time is of the essence—especially when it comes to rendering.Enter Samuel Francis’s latest contribution to the Blender community: the Animation Render Time Estimator.his free add-on is designed to predict the total render time for your Blender animations, ensuring you’re not left guessing when your masterpiece will be ready for viewing.
How It Works
Traditionally, Blender provides progress updates on individual frames during rendering, but it doesn’t offer an estimate for the entire animation’s completion time. The Animation Render Time Estimator fills this gap by analyzing the initial frames of your animation—skipping the very first to avoid any startup anomalies—and calculating an estimated total render time. Users can customize how frequently these estimates are updated, allowing for flexibility based on the project’s complexity and rendering duration.
User Experience and Interface
Once installed, the add-on integrates seamlessly into Blender’s user interface. It displays the estimated render time and a progress bar, providing real-time feedback as your animation renders. For those who prefer a more behind-the-scenes approach, the script also prints this information directly to Blender’s console.
System Requirements and Availability
The Animation Render Time Estimator is compatible with Blender version 4.2 and above. Best of all, it’s available for free. Donations or “Pay as you want pricing is appreciated – just think of the guessing time your saving, what this part of your time is worth, and then you’ll arrive at a fair price 😉 . Interested users can download it from Samuel Francis’s Gumroad page.
