Resolution choices affect far more than pixel counts. They shape the way decision‑makers experience a design, how quickly a CGI package is delivered, and whether marketing assets hold up under the scrutiny of a hoarding, a property portal, or a 60‑second film on a 4K display. As a studio producing images and films for architects, designers, developers, and product brands, we see how a clear brief on size, use, and viewing distance can shorten iterations, reduce costs, and raise confidence across the team.
This article explains how to specify the right output sizes for each channel, why resolution is only one part of perceived quality, and how to plan renders that remain flexible as projects evolve.
Put simply, it’s how many pixels your final image or video has when it’s created (or “rendered”) from a 3D scene or digital design. Think of it as the canvas size for your digital work. More pixels mean more detail and sharpness in what you create.
But resolution isn’t just about looks. It affects:
A 3D render studio thinks about these things constantly. Every project starts with questions: Where will this be seen? What devices will show it? Is this for a billboard or Instagram? The answers determine the right rendering resolution from the start.
Many delays in CGI come from mixed terminology. Align on the following early:
A common confusion is the relationship between the pixels we produce and the screen on which they appear – i.e., render resolution vs display resolution. Your CGI frames might be 2560 px wide, while a user views them on a 1920 px monitor that scales down. The image can still be sharper after downscaling, but it can’t invent detail if you scale up beyond the source.
On the web, designers often talk about rendered size vs intrinsic size. The intrinsic size is the pixel dimensions baked into your file; the rendered size is how large the browser paints it on the page. Supply images so that the intrinsic size is equal to, or 2×, the largest rendered size for crisp results on high‑density screens.
The terms “low resolution” and “high resolution” are relative – they change based on context. What’s low for cinema might be high for social media.
Low resolution is contextual, but in video workflows, it often refers to formats below 720p, depending on platform, viewing distance, and use case. You’ll see this in:
Medium resolution generally means 1080p (1920×1080 pixels), called Full HD. This is the standard for:
High resolution includes 4K (3840×2160 pixels) and beyond:
The jump between these levels isn’t straightforward. When you double the width and height, you actually get four times as many pixels. Moving from 1080p to 4K means processing four times the pixels. This has major effects:
Texture detail shows up – Surface imperfections, material properties, and fine details that were invisible at lower resolutions suddenly matter at 4K. Your textures need to be of better quality, too.
Rendering time increases dramatically – That 4K render resolution often takes significantly longer than 720p – typically around four times longer due to pixel count, and sometimes more depending on lighting complexity, sampling, and render settings.
Post-production flexibility changes – Higher resolution gives you more room to crop, zoom, or reframe shots without losing quality. This is valuable when you realize, during editing, that you need a tighter shot.
A practical example: A property developer needs architectural visualization. For their website gallery, 1920×1080 works perfectly. But for the printed brochure? They’ll need something closer to 300 DPI at the final print size, which could mean rendering at 7200×5400 pixels or higher. For the sales office’s 4K display screen? A 3840×2160 render makes sense. Same project, three different resolution needs.
There is a temptation to request “largest possible” sizes. The smarter route is to calibrate to the intended use. In debates about low vs high resolution, remember that while more pixels can preserve brick courses and treescape detail, resolution does not fix noise from undersampling, nor will it compensate for weak lighting or poor material response. Conversely, shooting for maximal size everywhere ties up render nodes and slows approvals. Establish where extra scale brings measurable value – hero stills, key frames for press, large in‑store screens – and let support assets travel lighter.
Animation multiplies the complexity of still images by the frame count. A two-minute animation at 30 frames per second contains 3,600 individual renders. Every resolution decision has serious consequences.
What resolution is standard for animation? Currently, 1920×1080 remains most common, though 4K is increasingly requested for premium projects. The choice balances several factors:
Many studios render architectural animations at a render resolution of 1920×1080 as standard, offering 4K as a premium option with adjusted timelines and budgets. This practical approach serves most client needs whilst remaining flexible for special requirements.
Web content faces unique challenges. Unlike print or cinema, where you control the viewing environment, web viewers use an unpredictable mix of devices, screen sizes, connection speeds, and browsers.
The challenge: how do you choose a single resolution when your audience might be viewing on anything from a 5-inch phone screen to a 32-inch desktop monitor?
Modern web practices address this through adaptive techniques:
Based on current device prevalence and web performance considerations:
Mobile (phones): 720p to 1080p is optimal. Higher resolutions rarely look noticeably better on small screens and significantly increase data usage. For mobile-first content, rendering at 1280×720 saves bandwidth whilst maintaining acceptable quality.
Desktop (typical monitors): 1920×1080 remains the sweet spot. This resolution looks sharp on standard monitors and isn’t overly demanding on internet connections. Hero videos and key visual content might justify 1440p, but ensure your hosting can handle the bandwidth.
Large displays (presentations, installations): 4K (3840×2160) becomes worthwhile when physical screen sizes exceed 40 inches, and viewers are relatively close. Conference room displays, retail installations, and exhibition screens benefit from the additional detail.
A crucial concept here is rendered size vs intrinsic size. Your source render (intrinsic size) might be 4K, but the displayed size on a web page could be 1080p or less, depending on CSS styling and viewport dimensions. Rendering larger than necessary provides flexibility and quality headroom, but offers diminishing returns beyond a certain point.
Clients often ask for the best resolution for printing posters. If the design is A1 (594 × 841 mm), targeting 200-240 PPI at final size is a practical sweet spot: roughly 4681 × 6622 to 5616 × 7937 pixels. This yields manageable file sizes, shortens render time, and remains robust for tight crops. For tradeshow walls or street‑side graphics, confirm material, print process, and viewing distance before locking numbers. The right resolution for banner printing depends on scale and substrate: rigid boards and fabric tension frames are forgiving at 100-150 PPI; vinyl banners read cleanly at 75-120 PPI for typical stand‑off distances.
Doubling pixel width quadruples pixel count. All else equal, a 3840 × 2160 frame can take roughly four times as long to render as 1920 × 1080, with heavier RAM and storage needs. That is why we distinguish between “preview”, medium resolution, and “final” tiers in production planning. Previews might be 1600 px wide to validate the camera and composition. Medium is sized for stakeholder decks and social assets. The final is set for key stills or hero shots that require cropping latitude or print-grade detail. The deeper question – often more important than pixel dimensions – is how clean and consistent the global illumination is, whether antialiasing is sufficient for fine grille patterns, and whether denoising settings are appropriate for glass and glossy surfaces.
The obvious question “What is the best render resolution?” has only contextual answers. It depends on output channel, viewing distance, crop allowance, animation cadence, and budget. The next section presents practical baselines that we have seen work across property, workplace, hospitality, and product marketing.
Decision-making frameworks help navigate the resolution question systematically:
A balanced approach: render at the next step up from your minimum requirement. If 1080p is adequate, consider rendering at 1440p for a safety margin. If 4K is essential, perhaps 5K provides headroom. But don’t jump from 1080p straight to 8K without clear justification – the costs (time, storage, processing) rarely justify the marginal benefit.
By this point, “resolution” should feel less like a single number and more like a set of decisions: pixels, viewing conditions, sampling, and delivery. It is why our briefs start with channel and audience, not just width × height. When teams agree on sizes and use cases early on, we can schedule renders intelligently, keep iterations fast, and deliver assets that uphold design intent across every medium – without waste.
Key takeaways: Screen content generally works well between 1080p and 4K, depending on device type and viewing proximity. Print demands higher pixel counts calculated from physical dimensions and DPI requirements, with larger formats paradoxically needing lower DPI due to viewing distance. Animation requires careful consideration of frame counts and rendering time, often making moderate resolutions more practical than maximum quality.
The technology continues evolving – 8K displays are becoming more common, print technologies improve, and rendering engines grow more efficient. But the fundamental principles remain: understand your output requirements, consider viewing conditions, and choose the resolution that delivers quality appropriate to the context without waste.
If you need a partner to plan, produce, and package imagery across web, print, and film, speak to GENENSE. Whether the goal is a design review set, a property launch, or an international brand rollout, we will translate objectives into the right sizes and formats – and keep them consistent as the project scales.
Disappointment, typically. When you print a low-resolution image, the printer must spread those limited pixels across the physical space, resulting in visible pixelation, soft edges, and loss of detail. A 1920×1080 render printed at A4 size at 300 DPI would need to be scaled up by well over 100% in one dimension, resulting in noticeable quality loss.
The printer does its best to fill in missing information, but this can't create genuine detail that wasn't captured in the original render. Text becomes blurry, straight edges develop jagged artifacts, and fine details blur together. Professional print work demands resolution matching the physical output size and DPI requirements from the start – there's no effective way to rescue an inadequate render after the fact.
If you absolutely must print low-resolution content, keeping the physical print size small minimizes damage. That 1920×1080 render might work at postcard size (roughly A6) even if it fails dramatically at A4.
DPI's influence on architectural visualization depends entirely on the output medium. For digital presentations, screen displays, or web use, DPI is essentially irrelevant – only pixel dimensions matter. Your 3D render studio might create stunning architectural visualizations at 3840×2160 pixels, and they'll look identical when displayed at 72 DPI or 300 DPI because screens work purely in pixels.
DPI becomes critical for printed architectural marketing materials. Sales brochures, display boards, competition submissions, and printed portfolios all require appropriate DPI for professional results. An architectural visualization intended for A3 printing needs roughly 3508×4961 pixels at 300 DPI to maintain quality.
Many architectural firms need renders for both purposes – digital presentations at client meetings and printed materials for marketing. This often means rendering once at high resolution (sufficient for print requirements), then downsampling for screen use, which is more efficient than rendering multiple versions.
The current industry standard is 1920×1080 (Full HD). This resolution offers a good balance:
As hardware improves, 4K (3840×2160) is becoming more common, especially for premium projects. It is often used for:
The practical constraint remains rendering time. Architectural animations often contain complex geometry, detailed materials, and sophisticated lighting – all computationally expensive. Quadrupling the pixel count (1080p to 4K) typically increases rendering time by around four times, with higher multipliers possible in scenes limited by noise, complex lighting, or heavy sampling. Most clients find 1080p animation entirely suitable for their needs, with 4K reserved for specific high-impact applications where the additional cost and time investment demonstrably adds value.
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