CGIFarm Render Farm - 3DS Max Automated Workflow - Plugin Updated to 1.0.0.0

[cgifarm]

Hello Everyone, Alex here from CGIFarm, I want to make this topic the official one for discussing about our renderfarm platform if you guys would agree with that as well.

Quick Features Breakdown:

• 3DS Max Plugin for Package Submissions (It's also useful to share the projects with your team mates, we have a cool ZIP feature which will gather all the assets)
• Quick Fix buttons on the plugin, to solve various warning and errors on your scene (saves the time from searching different parameters on your render settings)
• Web Dashboard - Gives the ability to create multiple jobs from the same uploaded package (It's a time saver when you have multiple cameras set on your 3ds max scene)
• Corona CXR and Denoise (It's default supported on the corona plugin, but I though mentioning, sience some farms are still not supporting these)
• Advanced Price Estimator (Has a cool feature which allows adding multiple scenes and gives the ability to add multiple frame times when calculating)

I have put together a few videos that will help you make an idea about how to get started and learn about who we are:

1. CGIFarm video intro:

2. Getting Started Video:

3. Create an account and get $20 worth of credits free.
https://www.cgifarm.com/customer/account/create/

4. Software download page
https://www.cgifarm.com/renderfarm-software-download

5. Cost Calculator Page:
https://www.cgifarm.com/renderfarm-cost-calculator

Contact options:

1. Reply to this topic if you already read this.
2. Use the Contact Us button on the website to open a support ticket
3. Use the chatbox on the website to leave a message or get in touch with me if I am online
4. Via Skype: CGIFarm

If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to ask, we don't charge anything for answers :)

Good luck with your projects!

[Tanakov]

Using the farm is quite easy Id say, there are still some features in progress that will speed up the process even more.

Best part is the ease of contact. Using it since beta

[cgifarm]

I have an update on the CGIFarm 3ds max plugin. You have the option to customize the package before uploading now. Here's a short demo video:

[cgifarm]

Hello,

We have an important feature added to our workflow, and that's the ability to update render settings on the fly, without the need of reuploading the scene and process it. It takes 5 seconds to send the settings directly to your create job window. Checkout the following video for more details:

[cgifarm]

Hey Guys, today I release a new alpha version, 0.8.4.0, this has multiple bugfixes and also has the ability to export regions in the postupload settings. Here's a quick video of that:

If you are not already registered, create an account here: https://www.cgifarm.com/customer/account/create/

You receive $20 worth of credits, that's around 18 Hours of Free render to try our service.

Let me know if you have any improvement suggestions.

[cgifarm]

Updated the 3DS Max Plugin for CGIFarm:

https://www.cgifarm.com/renderfarm-software-download

[cgifarm]

Hey guys, how are you doing ?

We are preparing to launch an updated plugin, which will allow you to sync the rendered frames directly to your computer as they finish rendering by the end of next week.

The biggest update is our expansion to 390 rendering nodes, giving a total of 780 CPU's for CGIFarm.
We are introducing our second location which has 340 nodes with 2 x Xeon E5 2630 v3 and up to 240 GB of ram per machine.

The servers are almost ready for rendering, we are sorting out the last issues with the API.

You will have the ability to choose which location to use when uploading the package. Our base location with 50 machines dual Xeon X5670 with 96GB of ram will stay at 0.03 USD / GHz/Hour
and our second location is going to cost 0.04 USD per GHZ/hour for CPU usage and up to 60 GB of ram. The difference is 1 cent, but the machines are faster and you have access to more of them.

If your scene uses more than 60 GB of ram, additional charges will apply for the custom machines, is not going to be huge, but I just wanted to mention it.

There's a lot of other things that we work on and will be launched soon, keep an eye on thie thread.

Let me know what you guys think about this and what kind of features you would like to see on CGIFarm.

Have a great day!

Alex

[cgifarm]

We updated our 3DS Max plugin and the CGIFarm Sync desktop application. The frames are automatically downloaded for each job and you have ability to select which jobs to download from the CGIFarm Sync interface. More to come on this application, allowing to control the mode of download "balanced vs. first in first out", so you can maximize your workflow, prioritizing which packages will arrive for render first or which download first.

Watch this video for more details on the update we just made:

IF you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me.

Alex

[cgifarm]

Hi there!

I have created a video on how to use Xref to render multiple cameras on CGIFarm. You can use the same geometry file xref-ed into your master scenes where you can hide objects, layers, choose different render settings, etc.. Check this video out:

Here's the video with our last update of the CGIFarm Sync application:

Still some things to fix/implement but we are getting into betta hopefully in a couple of weeks.

Getting your opinion about our workflow always help, even if you just test the farm with the $20 free credits we are offering, can help finding issues so we can advance faster.

Enjoy your week!

[cgifarm]

Hello,

We released Version 1 of our CGIFarm plugin, we added support for anima 3.0.1 assets gathering and marked the version as stable
for max 2014 up to 2018.

If you enounter any issues, let me know.

Alex

[realitybits]

Hi! I'm thinking about usinga renderfarm, but i don't want to make expensive mistakes ( i lost almost 200 € in a overnight render job that went wrong on rebus farm and i ended with nothing at the end. Rookie mistake i reckon, but nonetheless..). So, my question is, since i'm running some test on Ranch computing and i didn't get the expected results yet, your farm can manage lightmix and cxr outputs the same way my frame buffer does?

[cgifarm]

Hi! I'm thinking about usinga renderfarm, but i don't want to make expensive mistakes ( i lost almost 200 € in a overnight render job that went wrong on rebus farm and i ended with nothing at the end. Rookie mistake i reckon, but nonetheless..). So, my question is, since i'm running some test on Ranch computing and i didn't get the expected results yet, your farm can manage lightmix and cxr outputs the same way my frame buffer does?

Hi, thanks for your interest in testing our renderfarm. Here's the answer to your question:

CGIFarm system will output the files which gets saved automatically when rendering finishes. There's no way right now to interact with the VFB from our machines, so the scene needs to be setup with the proper output and extensions before uploading it. Here's a list with things you should look for when preparing a job for rendering:

https://www.cgifarm.com/blog/post/cgifarm-render-submission-checklist/

Our farm will save the CXR file, the only downside is that these are pretty big (8 - 10 GB per frame on a 4K image), but if you really need them, you can export them.

Make sure render output is enabled and your render elements have proper filename and extension set.

Before commiting to big time renders, our system allows you rendering a small resolution or render just a region by exporting settings and post them when creating a job for a package.
You don't not need to reupload the package to test different render settings. Here's a video about that:

Let me know if you have other questions, you can reply to this thread or add me on skype with the id CGIFArm .

Alex

[realitybits]

Thank you Alex. I will look at it!

[cgifarm]

Thank you Alex. I will look at it!

You are welcome! Let me know if something isn't clear or if you have any issues.

Alex