Daz How Do VN (DAZ and Ren'Py) Game Creators Produce So Many Renders So Fast?

[Voyeur1.1]

Hey everyone,

I’ve always wondered about the workflow behind visual novel (Ren’Py and DAZ-based) games. When I look at games made with DAZ Studio and Ren’Py, they often have hundreds of renders — sometimes even animations — and they all look great and consistent in quality.

I’ve been experimenting in DAZ Studio myself, but even a single complex scene can take hours to set up and render. So my question is:

How do you handle that kind of production speed and variety?

• Do you use the Timeline or AniMate2 to generate multiple frames for poses and expressions?
• If so, how do you handle switching between different environments and lighting?
• Do you reuse cameras, lighting setups, and expressions, or do you render everything one by one?
• How long does it usually take you (on average) to produce a finished still or short animation?

Basically, I’m still a beginner who can do the basics — posing, applying morphs, and rendering — but I’d really love to understand how experienced creators organize their workflow to produce so much in such a short time, especially those using DAZ Studio for VN (Ren’Py) or even RPG-style games.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience — I’m genuinely curious about the behind-the-scenes process!

 

[AllNatural939]

It's not a quick process. What you see in the picture is my render queue from like 2 or 3 days ago... and that’s with me pretty much stuck in front of the PC all day. Sure, even though I had that day off, it’s not uninterrupted work since sometimes I take breaks or, out of obligation, have to do something else. On regular days when I work part-time, I make between 10 and 20 images a day.
Yup, my game’s got thousands of renders (around 5000 right now, I mean regular still images, not the thousands that go into the animations)... but it’s not something you pull off overnight. This isn’t a 100-meter race, it’s a marathon.
Talking with some other devs who do renders, it seems pretty normal to be in the range of about 20 rendered images a day... And honestly, no one can really teach you a work routine, ‘cause what works for me might not work for someone else. It’s up to you to figure out what fits you and what doesn’t, and that also comes with time.
Animations... that’s relative. You can make one in an hour, or spend two days trying to finish it and end up scrapping it ‘cause something doesn’t feel right. Just keep in mind that 1 second of animation is usually 30 images. 30 renders... just so someone can miss them in the blink of an eye...

Just to be clear, your belief that it’s that much work in such a short time is completely wrong.

 

[Turning Tricks]

Drugs

(sometimes alcohol too, but that blunts the drugs)

 

[MissFortune]

Batch rendering overnight while working on renders in the day/free time is how the bulk gets done. The more experience you get, the faster you move, so it'll eventually end up playing a role. Lighting, render settings, etc. will all play a factor in speeding the actual renders, too.

The biggest factor is always going to be hardware, though. Many of those devs are cranking out shit with 90 class cards. I'm on dual 4090s, I know a few devs on dual 5090s, as well. Also, yes. Very much drugs and alcohol.

But just to clear up the misconception here, it's by no means fast. You're just seeing those with a lot of experience putting it to work. As a solo dev with a full time job, it usually takes me a eight months to a year to put out 2000 renders. That includes setting up renders, rendering, postwork, writing, coding, music, editing, proofing, bug/playtesting, marketing, promotion, and so forth.

Do you use the Timeline or AniMate2 to generate multiple frames for poses and expressions?

If you're just doing poses and expressions (ignoring dForce), then you can ignore the timelines. That's basically only for animations.

If so, how do you handle switching between different environments and lighting?

Environments and lighting are independent of scenes. You'll have to do new set of lighting for every new scene. I save each render in a separate file. So, for example, the first scene of my game takes in a bar. I set up everything in the first render. Let's call it "bar01.duf". I do all the lighting and prep in that, and then set up for that actual render (posing, props, etc.). Once I finish that render, I save that and then save another version of that render and name it "bar02.duf". Then I change what's needed for that second render. Then rinse and repeat for "bar03.duf". Like so:



Then I just batch render once finished (basically what AllNatural showed you).

Do you reuse cameras, lighting setups, and expressions, or do you render everything one by one?

See above. More of the cameras and lighting will be reused. You can change expressions on an as needed basis (make sure you use sliders and not the clickable expressions. Those are often garbage.)

Some devs opt for "Lighting Kits" in place of manually doing lighting. I recommend actually learning the lighting techniques, but to each their own.

How long does it usually take you (on average) to produce a finished still or short animation?

Something like this could could take anywhere from an hour to three or four, just depends on your experience and how quickly you can move. I'm usually pretty fast with the base animations (30-40 minutes, depending on complexity), it's the inertia that throws me a bit.

Same applies to a still render, though typically far shorter. Once a scene is set up and properly lit, each render should only take a few minutes of setup with much of it dedicated to lighting and posing.

 

[AllNatural939]

But just to clear up the misconception here, it's by no means fast. You're just seeing those with a lot of experience putting it to work. As a solo dev with a full time job, it usually takes me a eight months to a year to put out 2000 renders. That includes setting up renders, rendering, postwork, writing, coding, music, editing, proofing, bug/playtesting, marketing, promotion, and so forth.

Yeah. To expand on this, for an update with like 900 to 1000 images, plus maybe 4 or 5 animations, it takes me about 3 months (part-time job). My hardware isn’t much of an issue, I have a 3060 and most of the rendering happens overnight. But yeah, it depends on how complex the scene is and the quality of your GPU. In my case, a 4-second animation (120 frames) easily takes over 12 hours to render… and each normal game image takes between 5 to 12 minutes.
I guess the biggest hurdle isn’t really the hardware (in my case), it’s more about the time and speed you have to create a scene and then tweak whatever’s needed in it to make the individual images. Starting a scene from scratch means making the location (if it’s needed), positioning characters, lights, and at least a couple of camera angles. That’s the most time-consuming part and, like everything, it’s relative... could be 20 minutes or a couple hours. Once everything’s set, it’s just about adjusting positions, poses and expressions, which could be a minute per image or even half an hour… it’s all relative.

 

[jamdan]

Something that can speed you up quite a bit is using sprites for certain scenes. You'd render a background (like the living room or bar or whatever) and then render character sprites separately. Then in Renpy (or whatever engine) you'd layer the sprite on top of the background. Then you can reuse the same background, and the same sprites, multiples of times.

Some 3D games (like Light of My Life) do a mixture of full renders and sprites, and basically any 2D game (like Our Red String) uses sprites the majority of the time.

Here is an example from Light of My Life using sprites:

And the same using a full render

 

[Voyeur1.1]

Thank you everyone for replying to my question, and to be honest, I kinda see what y'all are saying, but idk, my brain refuses to accept it without a walkthrough/tutorial video .
Or maybe it's because I haven't used Timeline and Animate2 yet (meaningfully/purposefully/right ).
So I'll stop with the DAZ questions before I spam y'all with multiple rants and questions about DAZ.


So, I'll ask about Ren'Py — how do you come up with the story while keeping the narrative/scene/conversation linear to the story?
With that many renders and distractions and/or obligations, how do you know which image/scene goes well with the other?
Which scene comes after the other?
What will character A do and say for scene A, and what will the other characters say and do?
Where will the player make choices, and what scene and conversation will appear if they choose A or B?


All in all, I'm just confused.
Do you write down every scene and conversation before creating the scene or after?
Or do you do that after rendering 100+ images and animations?
And with so many rendered images, do you even use them all?
And for the sprites — one, isn't that a mind fuq?
With everything rendered individually, how do you mash them together so well to create scenes/games like Light of My Life?


Even if you put them in a folder that indicates where to use them... Man I'm lost.
I don't know if I'm asking the right questions, if I'm answering myself(somehow), if I'm right or wrong — I'm just... lost.

 

[MissFortune]

This is why anyone with experience will tell you to start with a really short game to get your feet wet. It introduces you to the process of making a game. Among many other things.

So, I'll ask about Ren'Py — how do you come up with the story while keeping the narrative/scene/conversation linear to the story?

Roughly outline everything in something like Obsidian. Convo topics, where the scene heads, funny/interesting ideas for the scene, important moments, choices and results said choices may have later in the games, along with probably marking any stats that are added/subtracted to with any of those choices in that scene.

With that many renders and distractions and/or obligations, how do you know which image/scene goes well with the other?

Which scene comes after the other?

Again, an outline. There's a reason why authors (very) roughly outline their entire novel before even starting writing. There's many times where an outline is done three or four times before the book is even started. This puts a plan in place for the entire book (or game in your context). You can always add to it, if needed. But it gives you structure. Guardrails in place to keep you from turning your regular college game into a action-fantasy about aliens and ghosts.

There's other options if you're more into freestyling/freeflow writing. Like writing the beginning and ending first and then freestyling everything in between.

What will character A do and say for scene A, and what will the other characters say and do?

You should have some idea of what will happen render-to-render going into that scene. Some people render first, some write first. Either way, your outline should guide where the scene goes.

My general process is Outline > Render > Write.

Where will the player make choices, and what scene and conversation will appear if they choose A or B?

Your code will dictate this. Marking it with a variable and if/else statements usually does the trick. I keep a list of what every variable means for this reason alone separated by Episodes.

Do you write down every scene and conversation before creating the scene or after?
Or do you do that after rendering 100+ images and animations?

Generally, each dev is going to do their process differently. What makes more sense to you? Can you visualize scenes while writing them, or do you need a visual aid? Will writing help you visualize the scene while you render it, or vice versa? See what works best for you alone. Because what works for me or any other dev might not work for you.

And with so many rendered images, do you even use them all?

There's times where I end up not liking something about the render and either don't have the time to rerender or it's just not important enough to fix, so I end up tossing it. But I usually find a way to use all the renders, even if I end up with too many for a scene

And for the sprites — one, isn't that a mind fuq?
With everything rendered individually, how do you mash them together so well to create scenes/games like Light of My Life?

You don't. The vast majority of sprites in games like LoML look very much out of place 99% of the time, and I suspect the only reason he's still doing it is to keep consistency.

For 2D, it makes a lot more sense. For 3D, I've always felt like it's more of a "I don't want to/can't find the energy to do a full scene, so I'll just be lazy and render it over a still background" kind of a deal. I'm personally not a fan. But someone with lower-end hardware might find a very real use for this method.

Even if you put them in a folder that indicates where to use them... Man I'm lost.

There's a reason there are so many abandoned games. It's certainly not for everyone, and you probably need to be slightly masochistic in nature to get involved with it.

 

[Voyeur1.1]

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my questions — I really appreciate it

 

[commonkira]

To complement what the others said, and especially MissFortune with their suggestion: Make a shorter/simpler game. You will thank yourself a million times after the first two years (I am serious. I expect it will take me more than two-three years to finish a short game).

I'm almost a year into this process and after I decided to go for a simpler game with a few choices, I came to the realization that I underestimated the amount of work involved even then, by a light year, so much so, that I'm working on a kinetic short novel of a few hours or so. I haven't even announced this in my DevDiary because of how much work even a simpler game takes. Mentions of masochism are not exaggerated.

And to give you some hope (Though this is on a RTX 4080), my renders at 4K finish in 3 minutes (I then downsize to 1080). Keeps the characters crisp. Maintain 300-400 samples and please use Exposure Value (in Tone Mapping) to like 7-8 indoors, so that the renderer does not cry, and you won't need to input 5e23 values into the lights Wattage. Your biggest hurdle after a year or two of learning, will be posing / clothing / hair. Not render times.


Example (One of the characters from my currently post-poned Don't Worry game):

Ignore the low-poly shirt. I forgot to switch to high-poly before this render, 2 weeks ago. This took 2:44 minutes or so. 3+ G9 chars take about 3-4 minutes at 4K (And halve that on a 5090, if only DAZ would stabilize the new iray tech in DAZ 2025 ).

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Good luck and take it easy and slow. Do not rush your first release, but also don't fall victim to perfection. If it's good enough, it's good enough.

 

[MissFortune]

Just to add some things here:

Maintain 300-400 samples

Only use this number if you plan on using the in-built denoiser (or a denoiser period). There will be quality loss, but if you're a Speed > Quality type of person, then this is probably the ideal way to go. I'd probably go 800 samples and then Post-Iteration Denoiser for the last 40-60 or so samples. So, if you're doing 800, set the Post-Iteration to 760. Then downscale, hopefully in mass (unless you're, again, a masochist), to 1080p.

use Exposure Value (in Tone Mapping) to like 7-8 indoors

I know this seems easier, and there are cases where it's probably fine (specifically night lit scenes, where a bit of artificial enhancement tends to be accepted and thus usually overlooked), but it should generally be avoided unless you're using it to generally 'lift' the entirety of a scene that's already been pre-lit. EV itself isn't necessary bad, but the issue it creates is that it does lift the entire scene - including the shadows themselves. Which you usually want to keep.

 

[commonkira]

Just to add some things here:

You are correct. I apologize, as I forgot to mention that I also use the built-in DAZ denoiser since it's easier and my scenes look good enough for me.

And yes, EV removes a lot of the shadows, which I compensate with modified settings in Tone Mapping, however, to be noted, it did not affect my scene compositions when I did require shadows, since I altered/positioned the lights accordingly (But yes, the shadows may be weaker, you can't have everything).

This does not concern me considering I don't really care that much for the mood of the scene (Shadows/light placement in background objects, etc). I care about the characters looking good enough to distinguish their gestures/expressions. For me, it's good enough, and in the end, that's what matters.

 

[Voyeur1.1]

I’m honestly so jealous of you guys with powerful graphics cards . My poor HP 255 G9 Ryzen 5 with integrated graphics (TM) just can’t keep up. The biggest issues I face in DAZ are speed, lag, and random crashes, so I haven’t really explored everything the software can do yet. No matter how simple or complex the scene is, every render takes hours. Reading that commonkira can render a G9 character in under 10 minutes at 4K... ugh, my heart.

Oh, and MissFortune — I wanted to ask, do you use the Timeline when making a scene where your characters are doing multiple actions? Or do you split them into smaller sub-scenes like the image you shared?

Also, when working with the Timeline, how do you make the animation look smooth? I tried doing a simple walking animation, but my character goes totally haywire until they reach the second pose I created. And for sex animations, how do you move the hips while keeping other body parts still? Is there a way to lock certain parts so they don’t move around?

 

[commonkira]

I’m honestly so jealous of you guys with powerful graphics cards .

Please save money and buy a PC, that has at least a 5060 Ti (With 16GB of VRAM) + Ryzen 5600x or 5500 minimum, so that at least it's only 50% slower or so compared to the 4080 (so 3-4 minutes on 4K renders at 400 samples for example, for one G9). And 32GB of RAM.

And use Scene Optimizer to cut the resolution of the whole cast by 2-3x times (Textures), and keep them in the same scene and switch them out when needed. If rendering two or more characters at some distance, as osanaiko mentioned in another thread, you can even use 64x64 textures even, since they're so far away from the camera.

But above all, get a PC, do not use a laptop, please. Unless you're in like Venezuela or Syria or Russia. If so, I'm sorry.

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-- $1200

Add another $200-$300 if you don't live in the US.

 

[MissFortune]

I’m honestly so jealous of you guys with powerful graphics cards . My poor HP 255 G9 Ryzen 5 with integrated graphics (TM) just can’t keep up. The biggest issues I face in DAZ are speed, lag, and random crashes, so I haven’t really explored everything the software can do yet. No matter how simple or complex the scene is, every render takes hours. Reading that @commonkira can render a G9 character in under 10 minutes at 4K... ugh, my heart.

Most of us didn't start there. Speaking for myself, the GPUs were bought. I started with a 3080 and am currently on dual 4090s. I have the 3080 just sitting in a closet right now. Not much of market for it. I've offered before, but I'm willing to drop the price a bit for another dev. Just as a way to pass it forward. But it might not do a whole lot for you at the moment anyways given you'd need to build the rest of the system first.

Unfortunately, a laptop will rape any motivation to this. It's just not feasible long-term. That being said, you can always render in 720p > then upscale > then downscale back to 1080. It's not the prettiest way, but it's definitely a bit more doable on a laptop.

Oh, and @MissFortune — I wanted to ask, do you use the Timeline when making a scene where your characters are doing multiple actions? Or do you split them into smaller sub-scenes like the image you shared?

Speaking for myself, the only time I use timelines are for dForce (clothing/hair simulation to get something to lay exactly how I want it) and animations.

Each render in a scene is saved as a separate .duf file. I do this specifically for batch rendering, but it's good for keeping things organized.

So, for example:

This: is the rendered version of this file:

This: is the rendered version of this file:

This continues with all of the following renders for that scene.

Also, when working with the Timeline, how do you make the animation look smooth? I tried doing a simple walking animation, but my character goes totally haywire until they reach the second pose I created. And for sex animations, how do you move the hips while keeping other body parts still? Is there a way to lock certain parts so they don’t move around?

Shoot me a DM when you get the chance (if you want), I'll send over an animation tutorial for you to look at (made for sex, but the concepts still apply.)

 

[Voyeur1.1]

Shoot me a DM when you get the chance (if you want), I'll send over an animation tutorial for you to look at (made for sex, but the concepts still apply.)

How do I DM you MissFortune?

 

[MissFortune]

Huh. Wonder if it got turned off. I'll DM you in a moment with a link.