Vray "Render Farm"

[shikodesign2000]

Hi,

 

I'm intending to make my own "render farm", I think I'll start with 4 pcs, and if things will go well, maybe I'll increase the number to 5 or 6.

 

My question is: Can I use all the pcs to render 1 frame? or it's better to make every pc render 1 frame at a time? which solution is better? or they will take the same time??

 

I guess that if all the pcs will render the frames one by one, the time for render 1 frame will be very small, am i right? or wrong?

[manta]

Have them all render still images, and have them render a whole frame each with animations, I can't think of any advantage in DR and animation...maybe there is...

[Ricardo Eloy]

In theory, you should be able to have them all rendering the same frame. Not sure how it works, though, especially regarding LC calculations. Anyway, I'd go for Manta's approach. It's safer (heard people complaining about VRay not finding all the nodes every time, but never experienced that).

[Nic H]

you can use 'split scanlines' if dr isnt working.

i use split scanline alot for large images, its good but doesnt play well with render elements

[Scott Schroeder]

If it's for animations, then you'll want to have each pc render single whole frames. You'll have to bake your imaps and the such to ensure smooth lighting across all of the frames.

 

If it's for stills, then I'd still recommend using one PC for one still. Again, this is to avoid any light changes. Even though its the same frame, if you spit scan render during the light calc phase it'll be oh-so slightly different each time and your final image will have a banding look to it.

[JamesTaylor]

if its an animation send it, with a precalced irr map / LC, so that each machine renders a singles frame. If its a number of stills send it so an individual machine renders an individual still. If its only one image at a time and you want it quick use DR.

[ppt]

:pgreat

[BrianKitts]

If its only one image at a time and you want it quick use DR.

 

DR is great if it's working, but its touchy.... sometimes I'll get 40 buckets all rendering one image and sometimes I can only get 8.... or whats annoying is when a bucket will take a section but doesn't render properly. But like I said when it works its great. The other day I was rendering a 3000 pixel wide image in about 10 mins w/ high settings.

 

As previously mentioned with animation 1 machine = 1 frame, theres no reason to make it complicated. If you have 10 machines that take 10 mins a frame, then 10 frames takes 10 minutes. With DR even if the one machine went 10 times faster and your frame time was cut to a minute, 10 frames would still take 10 minutes. (same as before).... only as mentioned DR gets funky sometimes so it's not worth it.

 

As for split scanline rendering..... there's no reason for the same thing i just explained with DR. Keep it simple and solid for animations just stick to 1 and 1.