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)
dont use max but I want to complain anyway 
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
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
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
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.
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)
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…). 
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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. 
We do need em btw.
(i’m on MORT’s animation team btw…)
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.
Well our team is across two high schools, and both have cad labs. Got backburner all set up and have a render farm now of 54 core 2 dou e6600’s so fast.
I believe you only need one licence on the control machine and the rest are just render nodes which you can install on as many computers as you want.
The main thing is you need enough RAM to load the scenes (256MB that one of you mentioned will be a hair losing proposition). The processing may be slow but if you spread it on multple machines it is worth it.
Our Team had a beautiful computer lab a few yrs ago, then the computers got old so all the students on the animation team brought in ther comps and setup their own network. The only time we needed the render farm was for the finals. (You can always use the 30day trial for the control machine in the LAB if all your MAX licenses are used up on other computers.)
Ofcourse the LAB isnt allowed to use the software outside of the team use!!! So read the usage rules on FIRSTPLACE.
MY ADVICE- Do some test renders along the way and make notes of render times- You want to test different areas of the scene because some may require more rendering time than others. Then take an average and multiply by the number of frames in your animation (30fps x 30sec- 900frames => if you do any layering or compositing you may require more rendering frames depending on the effects and complexity) so the Point is figureout how much time it takes to render and make sure you can do in the the alotted time. IF you dont have a lab or render farm- you may need to ask other to borrow their computers and setup your own.
EXAMPLE- If you have 900 Frames: if you have images and effects and such and you figure out that you average 5min a frame (hopefully you’re closer to 1-2 min but its very possible to but much higher) 5(min/frm) x 900(frms) = 4500(min)/60(min/hr) = 75(hrs) / 24(hrs/Day) = 3Day(+)
If you have 3 computers at the same basic speed- your down to 1 Day (25hrs). If you have 10 Computers, your done in 7.5 hrs.
SO if you can use or create a render farm- its worth its weight in gold- less stress (once its up and running!!!) and more time to work the animation itself.
Good Luck All!
From what I have read, only the main computer needs an authorized copy of 3dsm. The rest can all have unauthorized copies of it, all you have to do is somehow get the install file on that comp (what I did is I downloaded the program from Firstbase to a network hard drive, then connected to that hard drive from different comps). You wount be able to use 3dsm on thos comps, but you can render with them.
~Setsanto
I suppose that how I should have asked my question was:
Is there a program that can be installed on a machine that was a network rendering node that didn’t include the full install (and thus necessitate a license) of max.
From what I’m gathering, no, but unlicensed copies or trial copies will work?
That is correct. I’m afraid that some version of 3ds Max has to be installed.
~Setsanto