are render farms merely a dream?
 

Hi,
Just wondering what kinda specs you guys are using.

Basically I can either render at home:

Intel Celeron D 3.2 Ghz
1 GB Ram
240 GB Hard Drive
Crappy 4 year old monitor

Or at school:
4 of these

256 MB of RAM
Intel P4 2.8 Ghz
80 GB Hard Drive (My network hard drive)
Practically obsolete monitor

So, now that ive complained about my stuff, you guys have a go

~Setsanto

P.S. Keep an eye out for a (possible) 1334 animation (first ever if it happens)

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

dont use max but I want to complain anyway :D

at home:
pentium 833 mhz processer
512 mb ram
40 gb hard drive
decent monitor although it is well over 6 years old.

school ones are decent

-vivek

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

I always render on my home computers.

Primary:
Athlon64 X2 3.00GHz
4GB DDR2
combined 1.3TB HDD space
18" CRT

Secondary:
Athlon64 2.00GHz
1GB DDR
250GB HDD
15" CRT (Dying unfortuantly)

If your schools have a CAD lab or somethign of the like you might consider using Network Rendering on those PC's to get animations done a lot faster. I have never used 3dsMax's NetRender Nodes but Lightwave 3D's network Rendering system is absolutly amazing.

-Just my .2 cents

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

Our rendering is done in school with a computer farm:

6 - computer
2.8 ghz p4
2 gig ram
40 gig hdd
17 in crt

1 - server
dual 2.4 ghz xeon
4 gigs of ram
200 gig hdd
15 inch crt

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

We've been using ppl's home and school computers. this year we may bring in the newly built computers some of us made. There may be more people that have these computers on our team that i don't know of.
2 computers
Q6600 Quad Core- OC'd to 1) 3.35ghz 2) 3.6ghz
2 gigs of RAM each
2+ terabytes total storage
Dual 8600GT and 1 with 8800

I'm not sure if the animation team even asked for better compies, but we'll bring them in if need be.

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

I just built my new PC.

2.4ghz Core 2 Quad(it seems stable at 3.2ghz, but I haven't had time to stress test it at that speed so its still at only 2.4)
4gb ram
500gb hdd
8600gts(over clocked)

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

From what I have found in my own attempts is that the only thing you really need for a render farm (assuming you're using the function in 3Ds Max to do it) is computers capable of running 3Ds Max (preferably with the primary computer being more powerful).

Other than that, it should be more a matter of numbers to increase performance, the more computers you have, and the better they are, the faster it will go. ;)



Now if only my team had more than one computer that can actually run 3Ds Max (and only version 7 too...). :(

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

I never knew people on our team were willing to let us use their pwn computers... Who are you btw? I wanna know how i have to talk to irl.

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

do you have to utilize your licenses on the machines used in the render farm though? I was always afraid to try to use our precious licenses on lab machines if I had students who wanted to work at home.

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

Ok, My new lappie which will be here in 10 days or so is:

dell vostro 1500

15.4" lcd screen
1.6ghz c2d
2gb ram
160 gb hd
128mb Nvidia GeForce 8400 graphics card

-vivek

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

Yup, intel quad core processors are practically small render farms on a chip! And they're relatively cheap. I've not made FIRST animations for many years, but I've used my Q6600 quad core with 3ds and it IS amazing comapared to P4 single-cores I've used before.

If you build it yourself, a quad core setup is pretty affordable!

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

We've got like, 10 or so P4s that have been set up into a render farm for Max. The funny thing is, some people don't know this, so they'll be on a web page or something and this window will pop up and start doing the passes and they'll panic.

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

Unfortunately you would have to do that yes, unless your team or school just goes out and buys a few permanent copies.

If only Autodesk still gave out the permanent licenses like they used to. :(

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

We do need em btw.

(i'm on MORT's animation team btw...)

Re: are render farms merely a dream?
 

Hey if u guys really want a render farm there are online ones. and some of them arent that expensive. they work great with verry large projects but very poor for small ones.