Context-adaptive allocation of render model resources

A computing system is configured for context-adaptive allocation of render model resources that may sacrifice some level of detail in a computational description of a 3D scene before rendering in order to accommodate resource limitations in a rendering environment such as available processor cycles, and/or bandwidth for data transmission to a processor. Such resource limitations can often preclude rendering a richly detailed 3D scene, particularly in full-motion and/or in real time. An importance function describing the relative perceptual importance of elements that make up the 3D scene is utilized to enable resources to be adaptively allocated so that more resources go to visual elements of the 3D scene that have a higher perceptual importance. The rendered output may thus optimize visual fidelity for the computational description within the resource constrained rendering environment.