In one of your previous articles we explained in detail what a render farm (important to create a 3D configurator) is and what it is used for. The importance of a render farm cannot be overestimated, especially for those involved in design, architecture, animation, or gaming who tend to do smaller 3D tasks.
Many people associate the term render farm with the use of large and expensive servers that use the latest technology. This is true, especially for those who see it as a form of business, who have little time or just want to use the latest render engines software.
On the other hand, there are those who are new to the industry and have all the time in the world to realize their projects. Often the willingness to spend money on render farms is also rather low. In the following article we will explain to you all the necessary steps to set up your own render farm.
Step 1: Setup the render farm hardware.
First things first: You should knwo exactly how much money you are willing to spend on a render farm. What will really guide you are the cost of CPU and GPU power, and the type of protect you want to render. You can also save costs by networking one, two, or three systems and taking advantage of the overall performance. For example, if we network 4 systems with 4 cores each, we have the ability to render with 16 cores and that is the basic principle of any render farm.
You should also know that some render engines require different performance. For those who want to use VRay, Mental Ray, Maxwell Render, Arnold Render, or Corona, try increasing CPU rendering performance because these render engines are based on the performance of their CPU. However, if you want to use purely GPU-based render engines such as Octane Render, Arion Render, LuxRender, Muskito Render, Cycle GPU, Redshift, you should try as much as possible to increase GPU performance.
In a previous article, we talked about the difference between CPU and GPU rendering. The following link will take you to the corresponding article.
Step 2: Networking.
The second phase is to connect each system. Unlike the time it takes to render on a single system, a network setup allows you to render projects simultaneously across multiple systems.
Networking rendering has recently attracted a lot of attention due to the quality of rendered images, the demand for animation rendering, render engines, and application software. All these advantages combined have given users more power in a rendering network. In general, the term network rendering is used when rendering projects with a render farm.
Step 3: Render Management.
When your systems are connected and ready to render, the next step is to divide your animation frames into smaller segments and render each segment with one system each. Normally it becomes dificult to split frames or collect output files after they need to be rendered. To keep things simple, you need to use render management software. Render management software will help you split your render files and give you easy access to collect or sort your files after rendering.
Step 3: Render Management.
When your systems are connected and ready to render, the next step is to divide your animation frames into smaller segments and render each segment with one system each. Normally it becomes difficult to split frames or collect output files after they need to be rendered. To keep things simple, you need to use render management software. Render management software will help you split your render files and give you easy access to collect or sort your files after rendering.
Below is a list of render management software that you can use on your own render farm.
By using ine of these render managers in your own render farm, you can efficiently coordinate your renderings and enjoy running your own render farm.
Finally, we would like to explain how a render farm works and what it takes to build a render farm, especially for those not working on time-based projects.
As you are likely to know, large projects like animations or detailed drafts take time. This is one of the most important criteria that encourages people to use the services of a render farm because rendering an animation on a personal system takes more time than rendering on a render farm.
In addition, the techniques and hardware used on a render farm are usually costly for the individual.
Another criterion that makes rendering farms the first choice is the collaboration between rendering engines and rendering farms. Render engines have brought products to market that are tailored to the needs of a render farm. These conditions include saving time and improving render quality.
If you need assistance with rendering, we are happy to help. Talk to us.