DennisHolland Posted February 25, 2005 Share Posted February 25, 2005 Hi all, I have a job to do for a landscaper. 7 new buildings + houses with a lot of greenhouses (glass) on a 16 km2 big piece of land. After the regular stills, there is also quite a bit of animation involved, 3 different anims; flyover, driveby and a walkthrough. Each has a length of 20 secs (Still discussing the resolution). Well what I'm looking for, is some advice or a solution to outsource the anim-rendering to a renderfarm, or anything else that can do the job for me, in order to have both my computers free for regular 'stuff'... So if any of you guys know a solution for this, or have dealed with these issues in the past and figured out a way to solve this, please feel free to post your comments/solutions. The only thing I've tried is respower. I know the way it works, I even did a test-render last week (single frame on my pc= 39min. theirs was 12min.), but i don't know what my benefit (timewise) would be if I use them for the anim-renderpart of this (quite nice) assignment. Feel free to post guys, thanks. Dennis de Priester _________________________ Dennis de Priester Interactive 3D Media the Netherlands Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted February 25, 2005 Share Posted February 25, 2005 The reason you would use a render farm service is because you just don't have the resources to render out a project in time to meet you deadline. If you think you can render out your project without paying someone else to do it for you then I would do it my self. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "I'm looking for, is some advice or a solution to outsource the anim-rendering to a renderfarm, or anything else that can do the job for me" What advice do you want? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisHolland Posted February 25, 2005 Author Share Posted February 25, 2005 Thanks for reply Maxer, yes, I think the total timeframe for rendering of the anims will affect the deadline of 28 days (for the total job, from scratch with only a topview-dwg as a reference). The only solution I know is hiring a renderfarm, despite of the rather high costs that I've noticed while rendering a testframe. I think I will start with the anims first after modelling, if that part is finished I will have more grip on the deadline while tweaking my stills. Since it's not very common that i'm running in a deadline issue, I thought maybe an innovative spirit had a better idea to deal with the time, that's all there is for the advice-question. Thanks, good luck. Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted February 25, 2005 Share Posted February 25, 2005 Make sure you get your client to agree ahead of time to the length of the animation and the specific paths that the camera will take. If they start changing things on you while you’re in the middle of doing your work it could cause a significant loss of time on your part to try and make the changes. As for speeding up the animation render time you could always render it without shadows or reflections, those two things are the major causes of slowing down renderings. You’re probably not going to want to do that so a render farm is really your only option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisHolland Posted February 25, 2005 Author Share Posted February 25, 2005 Yes Maxer, when there's animation or camsettings in general to discuss, i mostly plan a 'halfway production' meeting with clients to present the cam-paths and/or location (you know, sliding timelines at a clients place is quite good pr). Since the most important anim is a flyover over a big, flat piece of land with a lot of glass-greenhouses and a building here and there, the shadows aren't that dominant. The glass material is (Brazil) something they've mentioned a copple of times so that is what's on their mind;-) but my Brazil-glassmat is very friendly, so I think the rendering of the anims won't give a problem with reflection turned on, as long as I plan it in as first things to do before start with the visual part (tweaking stills and such). Okay, thanks for the feedback. Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazdaz Posted February 27, 2005 Share Posted February 27, 2005 About the reflections and shadows... I would highly recommend you do a few test renderings of the same exact scene (just a short test of a few frames) and see how long it takes with and without reflections and/or shadows. You said the material is very "Friendly" (not exactly sure what you mean by that), but you might be surprised how much of a difference even a couple of seconds per frame makes when multiplied by hundreds or thousands of frames. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisHolland Posted February 27, 2005 Author Share Posted February 27, 2005 Thanks Hazdaz, Yes, I've allready made a little testscene in advance of starting the project (same materials atmospherics and a serious amount of glass-material) and testing the differences in rendertimes with/without the time-sensitive features like the shadows and reflections. By a 'friendly' custom single-sided Brazil-glassmaterial I mean 'not so time-absorbing to render'. In my opinion that (Fast and reliable rendertimes) is a big plus in Brazil r/s.... I've decided to skip shadows for my fly-overs, it just doesn't make any sense. Flying over a piece of land with greenhouses casting a shadow now and then. I'm considering the possibility of baking the shadows on the ground before I outrender the anims, not sure about that. Thanks for the suggestion, Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazdaz Posted February 27, 2005 Share Posted February 27, 2005 I am kind of curious how you handled the lanscape part of your model? Are you using real 3D trees and plants and grass, or billboard (2D) images? Sounds like your going to have alot of outdoors in your flythru and that can take a lot to render if they are very detailed. I have only really done one outdoors type of flythru and I used the built-in trees in MAX but if I didn't drop their resolution they would have taken nearly forever to render. I am curious if you have a better way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisHolland Posted February 27, 2005 Author Share Posted February 27, 2005 Hi Hazdaz, I'm still thinking what to choose. Looking at the project, the fly-overs are from 35-45 meters above the ground (I will model everything in actual dimensions) so detail is not 100% needed, landscape-wise, and there are only two very large tree-lines and lots of lawn (see pic) these both make a good horizon. top-view.jpg 1- My favorit, the trees from Bionatics (hybrid or 3D) 2- 2D treemaps with a 'billboard' applied (if it works) 3- RPC if I really have to;-) I think I'll go for Bionatics, never had any trouble with it and nicely adjustable, if you're picky... I'll keep you posted, Dennis Dennis de Priester Interactive Media the Netherlands Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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