Advice needed on Rendering farms please??

[beaker]

Maya(and most other renderers except MR, not MR for maya though) don't work that way. A renderfarm works by submitting a single frame to each processor or each machine for render. There are scripts and plugins out there that let you render tiles on separate machines and then reassemble them at the end. This is usually only usefull for scenes that are for print that need to be huge.

Anyways it is much faster to have a frame on each machine rendering. The latency between machines over the network would slow down rendering alot. MR really only uses it for speeding up single renders in the viewport in XSI, not for batch rendering.

[Vladvrz]

Thanks very much for your input. It's helpful. I am letting my Bro take this situation over for me. I need the speed. Thanks again for your help Beaker. :beer:

[lazlow69]

Long time no hear...

what did you end up doing for your render needs? I might be following in your path!

[dirkusrhombas]

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103856

[dirkusrhombas]

Im trying to get 2 pc's to render one frame as well. Waiting for info on the price of another maya licence for the second computer. I have an educatinal licence so I am hoping to get it at a discount for non comercial purposes :P

[lazlow69]

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52986&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

I'm having a conversation with another fellow who has answer my licensing questions, and provided backup info. Check the above link to see what we're talking about.

[lazlow69]

the licensing stuff is at the bottom of the page...

[dirkusrhombas]

Thank you for the info lazlow69 the pdf that you were talking about mentioned free network redering on nlimited cpu's for mental ray so I will have to find out from alias what the situation if on licences with the native maya software .... mind you the only reason why I am looking at nework rendering is because of the huge time scales with mental ray :P .

Thanks again :beer:

[pyromania]

Well to render one frame across multiple CPU's you could break the image into 4 seperate images, then combine them back together.

If you render from the command line you can specify, sub-regions with the -xl, -xr, -yh, -yl flags. They are documented in the maya documentation, so its probaly worth a read.

[dirkusrhombas]

I dont think that will suit my needs :)

I am looking for a network renderer that will allow me to use 3 pc's mabye more some day ... combining 6 gigs of proccesing power on one frame with the click of a button. This is so that I dont have to waste time test rendering while I am experimenting with the zilions of shader ideas I am testing.

I want to get things done fast. i spend 99% of my time testing single frames.

[beaker]

The only program that does that is Mental Ray in Softimage XSI. It is not available in any other software that uses MR(Maya, max, houdini, etc...).

[dann_stubbs]

Originally posted by dirkusrhombas
I dont think that will suit my needs :)

I am looking for a network renderer that will allow me to use 3 pc's mabye more some day ... combining 6 gigs of proccesing power on one frame with the click of a button. This is so that I dont have to waste time test rendering while I am experimenting with the zilions of shader ideas I am testing.

I want to get things done fast. i spend 99% of my time testing single frames.

butterfly net render has this ability - just set the number of parts you want the image broken into and it handles the split and assignement to render clients. i think the only caveat is it only uses .tga as a file format to render to - but of course you can change that in any image app. i've tried the slice a single image once but not in a long time as it isn't my need.

but if you need to do single frame renders and adjust them - basically this is what IPR is for - you should be able to render the image and just tweak settings and watch IPR update just the changes. it still won't help on a final large image render - but you can use BNR or a shell window to do that

also - the free unlimited render nodes for maya is the maya built in render engine - not mental ray - a reply of yours above seems to have this reversed. mental ray is $2,500 per processor for any render licenses

dann

[alexx]

as a start you can get muster from www.vvertex.com

it willl allow you to hook up 2 computers for free.

that one has an option to split single images over any number of computers (not any, but a lot..).

works for maya renderer only afaik.

cheers

alexx

[dirkusrhombas]

Originally posted by beaker
The only program that does that is Mental Ray in Softimage XSI. It is not available in any other software that uses MR(Maya, max, houdini, etc...).

Doh !!



butterfly net render has this ability - just set the number of parts you want the image broken into and it handles the split and assignement to render clients. i think the only caveat is it only uses .tga as a file format to render to - but of course you can change that in any image app. i've tried the slice a single image once but not in a long time as it isn't my need.

also - the free unlimited render nodes for maya is the maya built in render engine - not mental ray - a reply of yours above seems to have this reversed. mental ray is $2,500 per processor for any render licenses



Luvly butterfly is only $150 for a 5 node render which look like a good choice for me .
I do use Ipr but miss being able to see a whole frame, even just a little 320/240 frame would keep me happy. Ipr is good but using 6-10 gigs of proccesing power on a nice big frame is a luxury I want while I am shader/lighting testing :)

And as for the mental ray price tag you have just crushed my optimism on my future use of mental ray. Man that price tag sux.


as a start you can get muster from www.vvertex.com

Thanks and free you say ??? I couldnt see any free downloads initialy but I will certainly look into that as an option as well thank you very much.


I guess the only solution for faster rendering with mental ray is to get more of these ... :P

http://www.dirkusrhombas.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/dollars.jpg


EDIT

http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/maya/file/maya5_specsheet.pdf
page 5 it says unlimited free network renders for mental ray for maya that makes me go ?



http://www.dirkusrhombas.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/unlimited mental ray.jpg

[MDurante]

The link is no-good, but you're reading their brochure backwards. The "Unlimited" line certainly goes under the bullet for "Maya Software Renderer", which is chopped off...

- Matthew Durante

[dann_stubbs]

Originally posted by dirkusrhombas

EDIT

http://www.alias.com/eng/products-s...5_specsheet.pdf
page 5 it says unlimited free network renders for mental ray for maya that makes me go ?
[/B]

you are looking at the last spec line of the maya software renderer from the previous page

the mental ray in bold is the next entry and it's feature set is below it.

i guess you can purchase maya complete for the other computers for $1999 and use them as the mental ray render node - but they aren't still a "full" MR node

dann

[dirkusrhombas]

thanks dann and durante I guess I just figured there would be a viable option to such a simple thing ... greater speed. And now I realise that that will only come, by paying for it :). Im so broke :cry:

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