Hey everyone.
I thought I would share a little bit of my own insight on renders coming out sub par.
I've found multiple threads on the web about the subject, but once solutions are given the people never bothered to respond to the thread and inform wether or not the solution worked.
So i figured I would post this one for all of the future designers who run a search related to poor render quality.
Grab a freeware video codec, I recommend Lagarith Codec.
When you go to the output menu for rendering the animation, save the filetype as AVI. WMV will not produce the results you want. If you choose to go with WMV, make sure that the Bandwidth is as high as possible to match your higher resolution. I use 1500 Kbps.
Preview: No Render and True Reflection are options that will have a great impact of the performance.
For functionality, not photorealism. I turn "Preview: No Render" ON (check in the box) and turn OFF True Reflection.
Now I understand there are a variety of opinions and methods, but for my purposes this is the perfect fix.
If you have 1X,XXX part assemblies and complex camera/pos rep work. Then this is the solution for you.
Regards
-Chris