What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a render farm?

[jhonsaba]

The advantages of using a render farm

 

1. Powerful rendering speed

 

The top render farm companies have at least 3000~4000 rendering nodes which have powerful CPUs, it could definitely save your time on the rendering process

 

2. Cost Effective

 

Compared with the self-building render farm, it would be much more cost effective especially for big project. You don't need to spend too much money to purchase hardware and maintain the network, and don't need hire people to manage it.

 

3. 24*7 Customer Service and Technical Support

 

Around the clock customer service and technical support could always be a life saver if we met any problem when rendering but don't know how to solve it. The professional service team could totally help you on that.

 

4. Easy to Use Desktop App

 

Some render farms has its own desktop app which has a lot of great features, such as drag and drop project submission, preview during rendering, automatically uploading and downloading project etc.

The disadvantages of using a render farm

 

1. Security

 

Some small render farm will not sign the Non-Disclosure Agreement with customers, so you'd better find some high reputation company who had worked with big producing companies on famous films, if ever worked with OSCAR winners would be the best.

 

2. Software, Render and Plugin Compatibility

 

Different people would have different habits, so the more software, render & plugin the render farm supports, the better. And if the render farm can even support custom's own plugin, it would be a great added-value service.

 

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What are the best rendering farms on the market?

There are many rendering farms on the market but I have selected 3 for you.

 

1. Super Renders Farm

Price: From $0.004/Ghz-hr, Free trial $30 and more.

Support software: 3Ds max, Maya, Blender, C4d, After Effects 2018, Fusion,Isotropix Clarisse iFX, Natron, NukeX.

Renderers: Vray, Arnold, Corona.

 

2. Rebus Farm

Price: 0,012 € per GHzh, Free trial $28.

Support software: 3Ds max, Maya, Blender, C4d, Lightwave3D, SoftimageXSI, Sketchup.

Renderers: Vray, mentalray, maxwell, cycles, redshift, indigorenderer, kray.

 

3. Ranch Computing

 

Price:€ 0.015 per Ghz.H, Free trial $30.

Support software: 3Ds max, Maya, Blender, C4d, Anima, Lightwave3D.

Renderers: Vray, mentalray,Indigo, , Iray, octane.