Render farm suggestions (software)

[Ravi.G]

I Have access to around 60 HP compaq Dc5850 computers (Computer shopper has a review on the same model) that are used at my school for the engineering program. Each computer runs 2010 autodesk inventor, mechanical, and a couple of others modeling programs. I am able to network all the computers, to use as a renderfarm (The 60 computers are in two labs, each lab has all the computers connected by a ethernet switcher). During my first try, I used luxrender to render a sample scene on 30 computers, with luxrender's built in networking tool. I was told that this built in method is bad for render farm managment, as a lot of time is spent sending fragments of files. I wrote a program that takes a central server that distributes frames to render to the clients, and the result is saved on a shared network drive (these computers have a mac server). I can't post links, so PM me if you want a link. If you go to the blender artists website, news and discussion, page two, its called luxrender tools, by rp181.

I have not tested this yet on the computers to guage the improvment, but in the meanwhile, what software should I use to render on farms (I use blender)?

Why kind of farm managment is best?

[BOXXLABS]

for what rendering engine?

 

Luxrender only?

[Ravi.G]

Yes, luxrender.

[BOXXLABS]

There are a number of options for commecial render "queue managers" but none that i know of have support for luxrender out of the box.

 

Support for this would need top be 100% scripted (which doesn't sound like a problem for you)

 

PipelineFX Qube!

smedge

Royal Render

Axceleon Enfusion

 

there are others...