When scheduling your time to complete a project that needs to have render time, you need to make sure and give yourself enough time to be able to render your project at least three times before your deadline. I say you need enough time for three times only because you will most likely always see something that you can change, something that might look better a different way. And I say at least three times because you never know how many things you are going to want to change. When you are handing in your animation, you want to feel confident in what you are handing in. If you don’t feel confident in your work, why should your client?
Just as it is good to storyboard your video before you actually start to work on the computer, it is good to at least have a day-by-day plan on what you will be accomplishing on your animation. Always keep in mind that rendering out your work can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours all the way to a couple days. And you don’t want to be stuck with nothing to hand in come dead line time.
-George