Can anyone recommend a place to buy an expandable Renderfarm?

[Alex Abarca]

Except for BOXX technologies they are too pricey.

[juang3d]

Why don't you prepare one yourself?  You just need some CPU integrated liquid refrigeration, a small case and if you don't need GPU rendering power, then a small GPU, I don't recommed integrated ones, I prefer a small external one, but it's a personal preference, apart form that, a bunch of ram, a small hard drive, and you have it, now acquire 10 of this, and you have your own personal renderfarm, maybe no 80 nodes, but it's really powerful.

Cheers.

[Alex Abarca]

I don't know how to make one. My brain is filled with architecture design and rendering, fitting computer science is not likely for me. I was hoping someone can recommend me some renderfarm builders.

I called this company to inquire about this unit, but they dont understand what a renderfarm is.

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/FANG_Mini_R9

[CiroC]

Maybe this could help you:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/render-farm-node,review-31633.html

[Rebus farm]

Why not using Rebusfarm.net :p

[CiroC]

Actually an even better option is using Amazon EC2 as a render farm. Works perfectly. :D

The beauty of using this system is that if you need more power you can easily upgrade the machine or machines. Just to give an example a machine with 8 Cores 30GB RAM and 2 x 80 SSD   is - $1.064 per Hour

This guy explains everything:
http://www.judpratt.com/tutorials/ec2-renderfarm/

[juang3d]

The thing here is that you need the licenses to do that.

For example, how can you prepare it with maya?

But it's been something iteresting since some time, how can you calculate what is going to be the cost of that farm, let's say you need to render a shot, 1 hour pre frame, 450 frames, and you want to have it in6 hours, what is going to be the cost?

Also, is there some monthly basis cost you have to maintain?

Cheers.

[CiroC]

The thing here is that you need the licenses to do that.

For example, how can you prepare it with maya?

But it's been something iteresting since some time, how can you calculate what is going to be the cost of that farm, let's say you need to render a shot, 1 hour pre frame, 450 frames, and you want to have it in6 hours, what is going to be the cost?

Also, is there some monthly basis cost you have to maintain?

Cheers.

Well, it depends how you set up. One possibility is setting up the machine with a trial version and then create an image to use later. After 30 days you only have to do is using the image you saved and everything is ready to go, again. A little bit dodgy I know. And if you are concerned about the files (project) google drive does a fantastic job with synchronization and don't worry because the internet speed of these machines is amazing.

Again, rendering the 450 frames depends how you approach the situation. One possibility is increasing the capacity (CPU and RAM) of one single machine, but this will also make the machine more expensive per hour, but on the other hand you can create 10 or 20 machines.

Creating machines takes 2 minutes and if you have an image as I mentioned, perhaps in 10 minutes you can 20 machines ready to render. You only pay for the time you are using the machines, so this means you can have 100 machines if you want to and only pay the ones that are being used. The monthly cost for maintenance is something around $1.

There isn't special tool to calculate the cost, but if you know how long it takes at your computer, it is possible to roughly know how long is going to take on more powerful computer.

PS - If you are using Maya, the Linux machines are half the price.

[juang3d]

It's a interesting approach, can you make me the favour and calculate how much could it cost the case I told you before?

Can you run the corona benchmark in one of those machines to know how powerful is one of the machines you described? (8 cores, 30gb of ram)

Think that in the case I mention you have a scene that takes to render 1 hour per frame in a 2600k, and you want to have the 450 frames in 5 hours, think in creating more machines as you say, how much could it cost? (if you want, to make it easier, take 1 hour in one of those machines :) )

Cheers!

[Ondra]

Well, it depends how you set up. One possibility is setting up the machine with a trial version and then create an image to use later. After 30 days you only have to do is using the image you saved and everything is ready to go, again.

... or you could just crack it, legally it is the same thing

[juang3d]

I meant the idea of having a preinstalled system that you can duplicate within minutes, that is what is an interesting approach, with max there is no problem about the trial, we don't even start the trial mode in the farm nodes, that's why we don't use Maya for render, you have no render licenses with it, we still use max as render platform, even when we try to work with maya everything character or simulation related (looking forward to Corona for Maya, go Haggi go!)

The question still stands, a rough calculation will be very welcome :)

Cheers.

[CiroC]

Well, it depends how you set up. One possibility is setting up the machine with a trial version and then create an image to use later. After 30 days you only have to do is using the image you saved and everything is ready to go, again.

... or you could just crack it, legally it is the same thing

Keymaster, do you have any reference with that information or where I could find that information? I know that the windows license is provided by Amazon, so no worries with that. Technically, the PC is deleted and a new one is created.

juang3d I will have a look tomorrow morning, but it is not going to be very cheap. Can you tell me what machine did you used to get 1 hour for each frame?

[Ondra]

I am too lazy to go through the licence to find something, but I am pretty sure that it will say that circumventing the trial limits is forbidden and maybe that it cannot be used commercially.

Just because you did not have to crack a software does not mean it is legal ;)

[juang3d]

An i7 2600k at 4Ghz

Cheers and thanks, this will clear out some doubts I have regarding this :)

Cheers!

[CiroC]

I am too lazy to go through the licence to find something, but I am pretty sure that it will say that circumventing the trial limits is forbidden and maybe that it cannot be used commercially.

Just because you did not have to crack a software does not mean it is legal ;)

Thanks. I am just wondering because I worked for a company where they use to do this. But I believe it is mo

juang3d

I picked the sample corona scene and rendered one image with 2592x1944 and it took around 40min (100 passes). This means that using only one machine with 8 Cores and 30GB RAM it would take 300 hours to render the 450 frames. If you select a Compute Optimize machine for $0.752 this means you will pay between $227 and $250.

But sometimes it is better to select a lower machine that although will take longer to render it is less expensive and in some situations you will pay less.