Working off-site solutions?

[Tommy L]

My wife is about to have our first baby. So splitting my working time between home and the studio would be awesome. I am a sole proprietor, work off two workstations and have a 8 machine renderfarm.

So my question is:

1: How can I best use a workstation at home and keep working on files in a streamlined manner from two locations? Do I have to transfer big files over the internet, or carry a hard drive around?.....or is there something Im not thinking of?

 

Thanks,

Tom.

[jinsley]

FIrst off, I am no expert at juggling work at home and at the office... I am in your same situation... except with my second son now.

 

I will say that I carry my portable hard drive, where I keep my assets along with a directory for current projects, back and forth from work... however, it always seems that I am missing something or forgot a file at work so I rely on remote desktop a lot also to upload to a ftp or email myself files. Remote desktop has saved my butt many, many times.

 

I don't know of a more streamlined solution without spending lots of cash, I honestly think half the game is checking up on yourself once in a while and making sure you are organized and are keeping track of everything.

[GUSN]

You could use something like dropbox to sync up data between computers. Also, use something like VNC or some other remote desktop software to access your desktop so you can kick off renders. Then you can have the output folder of your render going to your dropbox folder, and as soon as the render is finished, it will be sent back to your computer/dropbox account for review. I think dropbox gives you 2gb free but you can always upgrade to more.

[BrianKitts]

Best method I've found is to use an external hard drive and set it up to mirror/sync (robocopy scripts) with your main file server for assets and projects.

 

I work off my laptop when away from the office mapping the external HD to replace the main office server drives. Only real difference is that I work at a lower resolution and lower render settings since I don't have the benefit of DR as in the office.

 

Once I get a project to a production point, I'll upload just the project file (.max) back to the office over the VPN, log in to my workstation using remote desktop and send the renderings off to the renderfarm in the office. Only flaw is that if you create new assets on the road you have to upload them back to the office as well.

 

I know I'm only working at an 80% speed on the road as compared to being in the office hindered by using the laptop..... I miss my additional monitors, wacom, and quadro graphics card.... but it's definitely better than working through remote desktop over the VPN on the road. I really only do that for minor quick adjustments and resending renderings that error out.

 

sidenote: the RDP on windows7 rocks, Microsoft added some major improvements over the version in XP. Even if you are using XP as an access point, having win7 on your office workstation will really make remote-work a lot easier on you!

Edited June 15, 2010 by BrianKitts

[jinsley]

...

sidenote: the RDP on windows7 rocks, Microsoft added some major improvements over the version in XP. Even if you are using XP as an access point, having win7 on your office workstation will really make remote-work a lot easier on you!

 

that's really good to hear that improvements have been made in win 7... for every time I'm glad I have remote access to my workstation, there's a time that I curse it to hell becuase of disconnecting or display and interface issues... I will have to offer to take the IT guy for Pho and try to squeeze a copy of 7 out of him...

[maciejwypych]

I usually use a portable hdd to duplicate the assets and have a VPN set up to work with Backburner, takes a while to transfer the job to render but it works quite well.

The problem I have with working through remote desktop is that you wait ages for the screen to refresh, so I use it to control the render jobs on the server only and not for max.

[erickdt]

Re: Remote Desktop Solutions

 

Before my current job I used Logmein instead of VPN and found it to be way faster than VPN. My current job insists that we use VPN so no more Logmein for me. One of the nice things about Logmein is that you can adjust the quality of your remote screen resulting in faster refresh rates. So while working on your model etc. you could set the display settings to low and to black and white and your screen would refresh super fast. Also, at the time Logmein was free...

 

E

[John.RenderStream]

Windows based software solutions generally leave a bit to be desired because they take the graphics work off the graphics card and put it on the CPU so unless you have a Linux system that can use virtualGL, which again lets you use the GPU, your hosed even if you can make it work. There is a compelling hardware fix however. If your office workstation has an extra PCI-e slot you can convert it to a PCoIP workstation that allows you to work remotely through a terminal port that with typical high-speed internet allows seamless work as if you are working next to your computer at transcontinental distances. The price for the PCoIP card and terminal port is about $800 from EVGA (amongst others) then you need a monitor or two, keyboard and mouse. While I'm not knowing but it may even work with a tablet. For a demo of what I'm talking about go see our RenderStream Omnia blog there is an embedded you-tube that you'll find of interest. Good luck.