Render Farm or Cloud Rendering

[dande]

I'm working on a 14000 frame animation and my deadline has been brought forward. I have about 1/2 of it rendered using my own render farm. But as the deadline has been moved forward I need to get the rendering done by the end of the week. So I was looking at render farms. I have looked at a couple of them such as Rebusfarm and Rendernation. They aren't cheap.

 

The Rebusfarm is easy to set up as you can do it all from your own machine using their plug-in. In my research I just found a post from a few weeks ago talking about cloud rendering so I had a look at the Stratus farm.

 

I was just wondering if anybody has experience of both systems. Which did they prefer and cost wise which did they find cheaper.

[notamondayfan]

Surely if time is of the essence, then I would stick to someone like Rebus, as you know it will work and deliver on time.

 

Also shouldn't the client be picking up the bill for these additional costs as it was them who moved the deadline?

[dande]

Thanks notamondayfan. The client will be but at the moment I need to pay for it up front.

 

I was thinking the same. But I thought it would be good to get some comparisons

[notamondayfan]

http://www.rendernation.com/ also try these guys. Based in Liverpool so no problems with communication. Best to give them a ring though and chat to them as I have found them very accommodating. They will probably beat Rebus on price too. They arent automated, but all you do is archive your file, and send it to them.

[BVI]

It's about control - if you can do it yourself then you have control over the process, when you outsource you don't.

[armilla]

I've used both Rebus and Render Nation, and they're both very good. The Euro/GBP might be an issue for you I guess, which could favour Rebus? If money is an issue and you don't want to pay upfront or as soon as the frames are rendered, which is how Rebus do it, then you would be better off with Render Nation, as they work on a 30 day invoice for payment.

 

If you do go down the Cloud route, please let us know how it works out. From what I've read on here, the set-up can be quite complicated.

[Craig Ramsay]

+1 for Render Nation. Great support and they will do some test frames for you to make sure everything is working the way you want it to.

 

Remember to leave enough time to download your frames or get them sent to you on DVD's - 7000 frames isnt going to be a quick download, especially if you're rendering HD with render elements.

[dande]

Thanks for all your feedback.

 

I looked at Rebusfarm and Rendernation. I've decided to go with Rendernation because there support is great. But one thing I really like about Rebusfarm is that you can do it all from your own machine using the Rebus Manager.

 

I'm going to have a look at the cloud once I get this job out of the way.

[aaronrumple]

We've used Rebus, Rendercore and Remote Render. I agree that Rebus has a nice interface and being in control is great. However our firewall had issues with their system and they were by far the most expensive. Remote Render was the cheapest but not as fast as the other two. Rendercore was more of a lets make a deal. Upload the job and get a bid back. Ok pricing and good performance.

[dande]

Thanks for letting me know about the other render farms.

 

One thing I notice none of them support the 2011 Civil Extension

[Brodie Geers]

Just finished a tight-deadline work rendered over at www.foxrenderfarm.com ...Seem like there is $20 free trial first if you're not sure about its good

 

Eh? The wording is a bit odd there, presumably because it's a chinese site. I assume that means you get a free trial which gets you $20 worth of service as opposed to a free trial which costs you $20?

 

-Brodie

[dande]

Here some feedback on my render farm experience. I had never used a render farm before. I had a look at a number of render farms and cloud rendering.

 

First thing I notices was the cost calculators are not very accurate. With Cloud rendering they charge by the hour but I was able to figure out how long my render would take. They also didn't appear to be that much cheaper.

 

I boiled it down to 2. Rendernation and Rebusfarm.

 

Rendernation: The support and service was fantastic. The lads there could not have been any more helpful. The only downside is that they are only available during office hours. You need to get you renders in before 5pm (I e-mailed them before 5 but I didn't deliver the scene until 6pm they still got it done for me). I needed to get a scene rendered over the weekend so i had to go to Rebusfarm.

 

Rebusfarm.

 

I found this system great. You have full control over your renders. You download there software. It checks your scene. It lets you know if you have any missing texture, plug-in etc. One the scene is ok it sends it to the Rebus manager software where you can upload it to the rebus renderfarm. Rendering started straight away and can monitor the render and have a look at the image as they are created. I thought this was great because if you see an issue you can cancel the job. It also zips the frames for download this really improves the speed of the down load.

 

Overall I really liked the control Rebusfarm gave me. But none of the renderfarms I looked at support 3DS Max design Civil View. Which is a shame because I had used it on this project and I had to do a lot of work to convert my Civil View objects to meshs so I could use a render farm.

 

Price wise I think they are much the same.

[armilla]

Thanks for the update Dan, it's good to hear it all worked out well. Also interesting to know that the prices worked out very similar, even with the cloud option.

 

You weren't tempted by Fox Render then?! ;-)

 

Cheers.

Edited September 5, 2011 by armilla
Additional information added

[dande]

I looked at them but they appeared cheaper but when you looked into it, they worked out more slighty more expensive.

[frog_a_lot]

I am always wary when companies send people onto forums to advertise there services/companies. All of Billy_xx posts have been advertising foxrender and biteny is another new member doing the same. For that reason alone i wouldnt go near foxrender or watever its called.

 

Haven't yet had the need to use one, but from what i have read rebus seems pretty good, how many of them allow you to view your work before paying and downloading? Like view a preview?