about render and farms :P
hello!, it’s pablo here!
as the title says, this post is about render, and because we dont have too much resources it’s about renderfarms too.
Well, first of all, let me start telling you about our movie. The final render size is going to be 1280×720 (HDTV 720p) ideally for web and dvd distribution. We currently are doing the lighting without Ambient Occlusion and Environment Lighting, it’ll save us a lot of time between frame and frame (sometimes is like 3x faster without that). Also, we are trying to keep models simplier, low poly and without subdivision surface (only main models will have 1 or 2 level of subsurf). So lighting will be based on spot lamps with shadow buffers.
So, even when we want really simply and fast ways to render, the times are really slow when we try to render shots.
Let me show you a small sheet with some facts:
| Without Ambient Occlusion | With Ambient Occlusion | ||||||
| frames x second | 24 | frames x second | 24 | ||||
| frames x minute | 1440 | frames x minute | 1440 | ||||
| aproximate movie length | 7 | min | aproximate movie length | 7 | min | ||
| average render time x frame | 2 | min | average render time x frame | 8 | min | ||
| -> render time x second | 48 | min | -> render time x second | 192 | min | ||
| -> render time x minute | 2880 | min | -> render time x minute | 11520 | min | ||
| Total Time needed | Total Time needed | ||||||
| minutes: | 20160 | minutes: | 80640 | ||||
| hours: | 336 | hours: | 1344 | ||||
| days: | 14 | days: | 56 | :S |
Render times based on a iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0ghz 2.5Mb Ram
and, a quick render test between the two renders:
Without Ambient Occlusion (2 minutes)
With Ambient Occlusion (8 minutes)
Well, probably this shot is not the best example of showing the difference between using ao and not using it. Personally i really like with AO, but as you can see 56 days of render is just crazy impossible.
So we are looking for help, a renderfarm will be great, if you have one, or maybe you can help us to find one. Please write us a comment or send us an email to pablo_lizardo (at) yahoo.com.ar with the information.
We’ll be posting things almost every day, so stay in touch!! 
and please give us some feedback trought the comment section below, is very important for us!
Pablo Lizardo
Ginnebra
I’d recommend trying http://www.blenderrenders.com. They’re pretty new, but their support of recent Blender builds is very good. Talk to Aaron and see if you could do some sort of deal to let him use your images in exchange for marketing his service. You also try ResPower.com, which also support Blender (not sure what version though). Both are commercial online render farms with reasonable pricing.
24 May, 2011 at 14:59
Thank you very much Todd, I will write to Aaron in a moment! Stay tuned!
30 May, 2011 at 20:34
Probably something like: http://www.vswarm.com/ or http://www.renderweb.org/ or http://www.renderfarm.fi/
I thought they are all free, and are working on community power.
24 May, 2011 at 14:59
Thanks Arco!, we are reviewing the options now! Stay tuned for more news here!
30 May, 2011 at 20:33
Te puedo recomendar el estudio donde trabajo, tienen buenas maquinas, podrian acortar el render a solo un par de días. Quizas puedas intercambiar el servicio por un buen cartel en los títulos u ofreciéndoles derechos de distribución.
Te dejo la web: http://www.clackstudio.com
Sino Renderfarm.fi, si los proyectos son livianos va muy rápido.
26 May, 2011 at 23:17
Pingback: Trailer released! « soki studio
Pablo: Y no pensaste en bakear el AO en los escenarios para que sólo tengas que hacerle pass de AO al personaje (y a algún parchecito para componer los contactos?)
Un bake de render completo de los escenarios te permitiría renders realmente rápidos y en este tipo de escenas podría funcionar perfectamente.
17 August, 2011 at 17:20