Faster Rendering?

[Butters]

I'm using 3ds max 7 for a project, how can I get my PC to render it faster.

I like to use Skylights (in my opinion, the best looking light in 3ds max) but they take ages to render, is there anything to do it faster?

[DDD]

havent used max in a while but check your anti-alias settings, your number of bounces if using radiosity. Also you can try different light rigs to mimic the skylight. Check some of the other 3d boards like cgtalk

[Bokke]

Did you try making a renderfarm using backburner ?

[ar]

Yeah, skylights always take ages to render. Here's a tip. Turn on the lighting plugin in the rendering doohicky, don't know what it's called (the first in the advanced lighting tab). Then find yourself a good way to make a dome of lights lighting set up, where you have many spot lights aranged like a dome...

Lost my trane (can't spell) of thought, but here's a link to a tutorial. (http://3dkingdom.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=645)

GBP

[mlk]

You have to find a compromise between good looks and render speed, and that's the reason why a lot of animation studios don't use the full rendering technologies yet, or sometime bake/fake the effects

More than simplyfying geometry I'd say minutiously edit your lighting details