Rendering

[ChewBacca]

I've run into a minor issue where 1/4 of our animation is going to take around 90 hours to render. Does anyone have any tips for either a. cutting down on render time (a lot) or b. a cheap online render farm that's easy to use?

[Flimsor]

Originally Posted by ChewBacca

I've run into a minor issue where 1/4 of our animation is going to take around 90 hours to render. Does anyone have any tips for either a. cutting down on render time (a lot) or b. a cheap online render farm that's easy to use?

Turning down the anti-aliasing and ray-tracing cuts down time significantly, but it will lower the quality of the picture. Of course, if you have access to a higher powered computer that helps too. I rendered a picture of my team's robot with all the quality options turned up in Autodesk Inventor on a computer with monstrous specs and it still took 5 and a half hours. I wish you luck!

[ChewBacca]

Originally Posted by Flimsor

Turning down the anti-aliasing and ray-tracing cuts down time significantly, but it will lower the quality of the picture. Of course, if you have access to a higher powered computer that helps too. I rendered a picture of my team's robot with all the quality options turned up in Autodesk Inventor on a computer with monstrous specs and it still took 5 and a half hours. I wish you luck!

I disabled final gather, and I'm using a computer that I built specifically built for animation :/ I'll try turning off raytracing though.

[Flimsor]

There should also be options for different ray-tracing quality. We were also having problems with renderings taking too long, so we had to make a slightly lower quality version to give to our marketing team so they could have something to work with while the better one rendered.

[Nirvash]

If the render software has a network render function, I'd be happy to throw it onto my machines.

[ChewBacca]

Originally Posted by Nirvash

If the render software has a network render function, I'd be happy to throw it onto my machines.

What do you mean by the network render function?

[Nirvash]

Originally Posted by ChewBacca

What do you mean by the network render function?

Allows a head render node to give work out to slave nodes for processing.

So that the render can run on more then one server.

[ChewBacca]

Would you help me set that up? I have no idea how to. I looked it up and 3ds Max can do it, seems complicated though.

[Nirvash]

Originally Posted by ChewBacca

Would you help me set that up? I have no idea how to. I looked it up and 3ds Max can do it, seems complicated though.

From my quick readthrough of the docs, it doesn't look all too complicated. Do you have a lot of computers and want to set it up yourself? Otherwise the setup would be on my end. Also, what version of 3d Max are you using?

[ChewBacca]

Originally Posted by Nirvash

From my quick readthrough of the docs, it doesn't look all too complicated. Do you have a lot of computers and want to set it up yourself? Otherwise the setup would be on my end. Also, what version of 3d Max are you using?

I'm using 2014, I'm just using my desktop, but I have a server up right now. It probably would be better if it was on your end (If you have multiple computers), but would I be able to upload my files to it if it was your server?

Edit: Nevermind, it's really easy to add files from server or manager.

[Nirvash]

Originally Posted by ChewBacca

I'm using 2014, I'm just using my desktop, but I have a server up right now. It probably would be better if it was on your end (If you have multiple computers), but would I be able to upload my files to it if it was your server? I also have a laptop sitting near me that I could connect in.

Edit: Nevermind, it's really easy to add files from server or manager.

I could provide ftp details, or you could upload the project through a file sharing site. Just give me a little to spool up the render VMs and I can also give you a vnc address to access the server.
Also, do you have any IM details that would probably be more suited for conversation? (You can PM me them)

[sanddrag]

We have set up a Backburner render farm of about 40 quad core i5 slaves to do our 3DS renderings. Works awesome. We could probably run it for you if you sent us the project. How big is that file?