I think this would have been way easier and cleaner, and not much slower, getting rid of some of the old, weak systems presented there and just rendering with the newer ones. The Quads and the Duals only would have taken an extra couple hours only.
@coolymichael it was a paid job for a client, it was over 6000 frames, rendered at 800x600. I was using ambient occlusion, before the AAO came out, which slowed it down a little. youtube[dot]com/watch?v=-cLj3QgQlxw
yeah, it's cleaner than that now for sure. But blender and render farm didn't fit in the same sentence back then... easier to do it manually. and they were screens I already had, so no waste, really.
There are three ways to approach acquiring systems for a render farm: building your own, having a builder make them for you, or buying pre-built boxes. Each approach has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.for more info google out renderrocket
such a simple method! i had my main computer (ubuntu), my dads imac and my cousins old mac mini (ubuntu) rendering together. the only problem is, if 1 crashes, you have to find the frame and delete it
just read your blog post, so i think i should be able to... tell them all to touch and not overwrite image files on my freenas server, and then just sit back and wait (and get bored because i dont have any computors left).
I have all teh render farm fun still ahead of me, oh joy.
personally i feel that you should use whateer gets the job done and pays the bills. If you can get that done with blender, great. I dont get on with it (cinema 4d fanboy i suppose) so im slightly in awe
hello, iam curios about creating a render farm for my own project work... just wanted to get some stats though if possible. I use 3ds max 9, and if i have say 4 Pentium 4 computers all in a network doing what yours does, how would this play against a single I7 system do you know? thanks
single i7 would probably be faster, or at least the same. And consume less power, only use one network port/render node license.
That said, if the scene is scanline, the 4 P4's will probably be quicker (assuming only 5-10s per frame) - I found my quads with Max scanline not being fully used - so multiple computers are faster than one quad. I don't have an i7, but maybe you could find someone who does to render the scene and find out how long it takes? I've got q6600@2.97, q9550@2.83, q6600@2.4
ok thanks for the quick reply, another question which i am a bit confused about, with a 3ds max file how does 3 computers render one model with textures :S? do i have a main pc which has the file open and this sends little jobs out to other computers and after its all rendered it comes back to the main one?
You need max and backburner installed on all the machines, with one set up as the backburner manager, and "server.exe" running on the nodes. The nodes need to be able to connect and communicate with the manager. One computer needs to have a folder/drive shared on the network, and each computer should either connect to the share as a network drive (same letter for each comp) or use //servername/share/folder for each of the texture paths. Then render to .tga files, saving to a common shared loc
then you'll have to use a NLE of some sort to combine the individually rendered frames into a video.
IF you're working on one LARGE render, either use Mental Ray Distributed Rendering, or Split Scanlines to split the workload (after clicking render with Net Render selected, it's in the options).
Uh, I do use Max Design. This project was done with Blender though. Define "real" - though? Meaning paid for? Meaning proprietary closed buggy software? I use whatever tool I need to to finish the job.
did you read the blog post ----> in the more info section? There's not much to it. Have everything all on one network via router(s)/switch(es). Have a folder shared that all the computers have write access to, either windows SMB share, or a linux share - google how to do that if you don't know. Then create the blend file, with "Touch" and "no overwrite" on, with the network path of the render folder in the save to box. (ie: \\computer\folder). Then save the file.
if there are textures, either save them into the blend, or make sure that they are available and set up properly to be read via the network from all the computers. In this video, I packed them all into the .blend - easier. Then open the .blend on each computer, and "render animation". MAKE SURE you render to image files (like .tga or .png) instead of a movie file. You can't distribute rendering to a movie file.
when you're rendering for money, you factor the power bills into your costs. Now my setup is a little cleaner - only two quads and a dual (which is for sale and going to be replaced by a quad).
the old linux laptop isn't mine - it was just in my house for the time being. The quad core on the floor by the door was bought that day, just to render, then I returned it to the store... "it just isn't fast enough for what I'm doing". Maybe a little unethical... :x
There's enough info between the "more info" and all of the comments here to figure out a render farm. There's not that much to it. It's not really automated... it's more of a manual farm. Wait for Durian/2.5 for better render farm features.
no, since I understand the file structure of the OSes, and the mounting/accessing of shared network volumes is pretty straight forward. Once an OS mounts/connects to a share, it doesn't matter what the different OS might be - a file's a file.
What was more of a a nightmare was getting it done on time and for cheap. I also learned of Windows inability to have more than 10 clients connect to a share (that's where windows server comes in, or linux server).
I have a 4GB 2,6Ghz duo core laptop. And a 4GB 3Ghz Quad core game PC. Can I set up a small farm via network or router or whatever? I just do one image.
Interesting configuration but have you ever thought of using a shared render farm ? There're many available and I think the sharing concept is more respectable of Blender's open spirit. For example I'm sure your farm is very energy greedy. The computers are running in a wild environment, it's not closed nor ventilated, and all these switched on monitors make me feel bad as an environmentalist. Also don't forget that all these cheap and old computers are energy greedy :|
True, however, this was a one time setup. Not too concerned about it. There was a tight deadline, and I was unsure if things would render properly; I ended up doing some fudging, and had to fix several things along the way. Thanks for the comment though.
I just bought 150 computers that are all identical with 1.6 ghz each and i have 50 that i got for free that are .8 ghz each and about 20 others at varing speeds ranging from 1.0 ghz to two 3 ghz comps and i have a 500 comp capeable networking station and i was jus wondering which software to use i found a fourm about render farms and found the recomended softwares and two would work for us but i was wondering what u would recomend
Knocks my render farm out of the ball park. Three years of dumpster diving got me about 20 300 - 600 MHz with an average of 128 SD ram. The computer that runs the entire operation has a whopping 160 MHz processor with 64 MB of ram. About two over heat every second frame.
BUT a single button turns the entire system on that is located on a monkeys ass! Thats why its called MONKEY SPANK!!!
My workstation can connect to it witch is a 2 Ghz with 4 GB of ram...quite beastly. And wireless conect
Cool vid. You probably get a lot of views coming in from Google. I typed in 'render farm for blender' and your vid is seventh on the first page. So you probably get a lot of Blender Heads like me.
Hi, i was wondering if you have written any tutorial or article on how to create a small render farm? If you have it will help me a lot as i am doing computer animation and using Maya, i would like to know the step by step on building a small render farm and what is required?
If you dont have the information please let me know if there is any site i can go and learn on how to build a render farm.
This isn't much of a controlled farm per se, as it is a bunch of networked computers all running blender and rendering frames. (Blender has a feature for rendering that allows it to skip existing frames - so it makes setup simple)
I'm not familiar with Maya...keep on searching and good luck.
Nice I'm working on making a flash mob render farm for blender too! except that my render farm is built up of 100-1000mhz computers all for around 5 - 50$ each. You might want to watch the overclocked computer a bit because overclocked computers tend to be a bit unstable and under render loads might be prone to crashing.
I think this would have been way easier and cleaner, and not much slower, getting rid of some of the old, weak systems presented there and just rendering with the newer ones. The Quads and the Duals only would have taken an extra couple hours only.
kinnokaizoku 1 year ago
where is that "large scene in blender"?
coolymichael 1 year ago
@coolymichael it was a paid job for a client, it was over 6000 frames, rendered at 800x600. I was using ambient occlusion, before the AAO came out, which slowed it down a little. youtube[dot]com/watch?v=-cLj3QgQlxw
loklomedia 1 year ago
Haha definitely my kind of setup.
I also think it's funny you've got a screen for every one. You could have gotten another computer for the price of all the extra ones :D
RunningLemonStudios 1 year ago
@RunningLemonStudios
yeah, it's cleaner than that now for sure. But blender and render farm didn't fit in the same sentence back then... easier to do it manually. and they were screens I already had, so no waste, really.
loklomedia 1 year ago
There are three ways to approach acquiring systems for a render farm: building your own, having a builder make them for you, or buying pre-built boxes. Each approach has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.for more info google out renderrocket
jeffhall08jh 1 year ago
@jeffhall08jh yeah, this was a case of having Zero capital, and using whatever hardware I had laying around.
loklomedia 1 year ago
LAN PARTAY (Rave music goes off) :D
xXHibbafrabXx 1 year ago
such a simple method! i had my main computer (ubuntu), my dads imac and my cousins old mac mini (ubuntu) rendering together. the only problem is, if 1 crashes, you have to find the frame and delete it
lowtone10 1 year ago
Nice!! would like to reder my files on my dell poweredge 2900. don't know how yet..
McgregorKLB 1 year ago
they are all rendering the same file ?
McgregorKLB 1 year ago
@McgregorKLB rendering same file, but an animation. so each machine renders one frame at a time.
loklomedia 1 year ago
just read your blog post, so i think i should be able to... tell them all to touch and not overwrite image files on my freenas server, and then just sit back and wait (and get bored because i dont have any computors left).
lowtone10 2 years ago
i do all my work on my ubuntu machine (usually), then render it on my dads powerful imac
lowtone10 2 years ago
very nice
autokill5 2 years ago
I have all teh render farm fun still ahead of me, oh joy.
personally i feel that you should use whateer gets the job done and pays the bills. If you can get that done with blender, great. I dont get on with it (cinema 4d fanboy i suppose) so im slightly in awe
scribleingvinnie 2 years ago
hello, iam curios about creating a render farm for my own project work... just wanted to get some stats though if possible. I use 3ds max 9, and if i have say 4 Pentium 4 computers all in a network doing what yours does, how would this play against a single I7 system do you know? thanks
karlos218 2 years ago
single i7 would probably be faster, or at least the same. And consume less power, only use one network port/render node license.
That said, if the scene is scanline, the 4 P4's will probably be quicker (assuming only 5-10s per frame) - I found my quads with Max scanline not being fully used - so multiple computers are faster than one quad. I don't have an i7, but maybe you could find someone who does to render the scene and find out how long it takes? I've got q6600@2.97, q9550@2.83, q6600@2.4
loklomedia 2 years ago
ok thanks for the quick reply, another question which i am a bit confused about, with a 3ds max file how does 3 computers render one model with textures :S? do i have a main pc which has the file open and this sends little jobs out to other computers and after its all rendered it comes back to the main one?
thanks alot for your help
karlos218 2 years ago
You need max and backburner installed on all the machines, with one set up as the backburner manager, and "server.exe" running on the nodes. The nodes need to be able to connect and communicate with the manager. One computer needs to have a folder/drive shared on the network, and each computer should either connect to the share as a network drive (same letter for each comp) or use //servername/share/folder for each of the texture paths. Then render to .tga files, saving to a common shared loc
loklomedia 2 years ago
location...
then you'll have to use a NLE of some sort to combine the individually rendered frames into a video.
IF you're working on one LARGE render, either use Mental Ray Distributed Rendering, or Split Scanlines to split the workload (after clicking render with Net Render selected, it's in the options).
loklomedia 2 years ago
core i5 750 with a little overclock is much cheaper than i7, and faster... maybe consider that as an option too.
loklomedia 2 years ago
Now he just needs to start using REAL 3D Software like Max.
lol
Site4Animation 2 years ago
Uh, I do use Max Design. This project was done with Blender though. Define "real" - though? Meaning paid for? Meaning proprietary closed buggy software? I use whatever tool I need to to finish the job.
loklomedia 2 years ago
I just think Blender is a joke...
Relax.
Site4Animation 2 years ago
Could you go over how you set tis up
juggling4jesus 2 years ago
did you read the blog post ----> in the more info section? There's not much to it. Have everything all on one network via router(s)/switch(es). Have a folder shared that all the computers have write access to, either windows SMB share, or a linux share - google how to do that if you don't know. Then create the blend file, with "Touch" and "no overwrite" on, with the network path of the render folder in the save to box. (ie: \\computer\folder). Then save the file.
loklomedia 2 years ago
Ok thank you
juggling4jesus 2 years ago
if there are textures, either save them into the blend, or make sure that they are available and set up properly to be read via the network from all the computers. In this video, I packed them all into the .blend - easier. Then open the .blend on each computer, and "render animation". MAKE SURE you render to image files (like .tga or .png) instead of a movie file. You can't distribute rendering to a movie file.
loklomedia 2 years ago
when you're rendering for money, you factor the power bills into your costs. Now my setup is a little cleaner - only two quads and a dual (which is for sale and going to be replaced by a quad).
loklomedia 2 years ago
lol, I wouldn't want to pay his electric bills
dcforemanuk 2 years ago
Sure, it's messy, but it gets the job done! Nice vid.
vbpeepee 2 years ago
what cables is need to make a render farm
please answer this quesion
xJUDAZ 2 years ago
regular cat5 ethernet network cables + regular off the shelf routers.
loklomedia 2 years ago
Why do you own so many o,e
CrazyMonkey124 2 years ago
the old linux laptop isn't mine - it was just in my house for the time being. The quad core on the floor by the door was bought that day, just to render, then I returned it to the store... "it just isn't fast enough for what I'm doing". Maybe a little unethical... :x
loklomedia 2 years ago
Bahahaha, nice! I still only own 1.
CrazyMonkey124 2 years ago
IoI
badcomander 2 years ago
Hey! You have a ton of computers XD
can you post a vid on how to set up a render farm on mac?
HungryLama 2 years ago
There's enough info between the "more info" and all of the comments here to figure out a render farm. There's not that much to it. It's not really automated... it's more of a manual farm. Wait for Durian/2.5 for better render farm features.
loklomedia 2 years ago
Nice! you have a lot of computers XD
HungryLama 2 years ago
XD jeez, all those OS's working together... Was this an incompatability nightmare?
DKM101 2 years ago
no, since I understand the file structure of the OSes, and the mounting/accessing of shared network volumes is pretty straight forward. Once an OS mounts/connects to a share, it doesn't matter what the different OS might be - a file's a file.
What was more of a a nightmare was getting it done on time and for cheap. I also learned of Windows inability to have more than 10 clients connect to a share (that's where windows server comes in, or linux server).
loklomedia 2 years ago
I have a 4GB 2,6Ghz duo core laptop. And a 4GB 3Ghz Quad core game PC. Can I set up a small farm via network or router or whatever? I just do one image.
BoseATI 2 years ago
Interesting configuration but have you ever thought of using a shared render farm ? There're many available and I think the sharing concept is more respectable of Blender's open spirit. For example I'm sure your farm is very energy greedy. The computers are running in a wild environment, it's not closed nor ventilated, and all these switched on monitors make me feel bad as an environmentalist. Also don't forget that all these cheap and old computers are energy greedy :|
Nice video anyway ;)
goa103 3 years ago
True, however, this was a one time setup. Not too concerned about it. There was a tight deadline, and I was unsure if things would render properly; I ended up doing some fudging, and had to fix several things along the way. Thanks for the comment though.
loklomedia 3 years ago
I just bought 150 computers that are all identical with 1.6 ghz each and i have 50 that i got for free that are .8 ghz each and about 20 others at varing speeds ranging from 1.0 ghz to two 3 ghz comps and i have a 500 comp capeable networking station and i was jus wondering which software to use i found a fourm about render farms and found the recomended softwares and two would work for us but i was wondering what u would recomend
goldfishonskis45 3 years ago
Knocks my render farm out of the ball park. Three years of dumpster diving got me about 20 300 - 600 MHz with an average of 128 SD ram. The computer that runs the entire operation has a whopping 160 MHz processor with 64 MB of ram. About two over heat every second frame.
BUT a single button turns the entire system on that is located on a monkeys ass! Thats why its called MONKEY SPANK!!!
My workstation can connect to it witch is a 2 Ghz with 4 GB of ram...quite beastly. And wireless conect
Buddyb309 3 years ago
I'm surprised at how many people view this nasty little video! lol
loklomedia 3 years ago
Cool vid. You probably get a lot of views coming in from Google. I typed in 'render farm for blender' and your vid is seventh on the first page. So you probably get a lot of Blender Heads like me.
onjoFilms 3 years ago
Hi, i was wondering if you have written any tutorial or article on how to create a small render farm? If you have it will help me a lot as i am doing computer animation and using Maya, i would like to know the step by step on building a small render farm and what is required?
If you dont have the information please let me know if there is any site i can go and learn on how to build a render farm.
Thank you.
jamil1985 3 years ago
This isn't much of a controlled farm per se, as it is a bunch of networked computers all running blender and rendering frames. (Blender has a feature for rendering that allows it to skip existing frames - so it makes setup simple)
I'm not familiar with Maya...keep on searching and good luck.
loklomedia 3 years ago
rock solid stable q6600 at 2.98 with stock cooler. Max Temp was about 59.
loklomedia 4 years ago
ooh nice! You got that covered!
coilgunner2 4 years ago
Nice I'm working on making a flash mob render farm for blender too! except that my render farm is built up of 100-1000mhz computers all for around 5 - 50$ each. You might want to watch the overclocked computer a bit because overclocked computers tend to be a bit unstable and under render loads might be prone to crashing.
coilgunner2 4 years ago