I’m new to computer graphics, but I’m already a little frustrated with long render times. Does anybody know of any cheap services for getting it done on others’ render farms? I don’t quite want to set up my own render farm yet, and I’m looking for something cheap to start with.
A google search returned a few results, but the different pricing schemes are confusing me, trying to compare. So someone with more experience could help me make sense of it all
Also, I’d like to know different people’s experiences with different services, how easy they were to use and the actual cost of rendering with real use.
Hey I am feeling the same thing, Check my post Render Farms? in off topic section and read my replies. I am getting ready in about an hour to sign to respower for $40 unlimited amonth with 30 min limit per frame. Ill let you know if it is worth it…the only reason im in the forums now is cuz im waiting on render
So I’m not really getting respower’s pricing, quite confusing. Like the bronze deal (https://www.respower.com/auto_farm.php?page=subscribe.php) says $20 per month, with some 15 minute time limit per “task” whatever a “task” is :S.
Is this JUST a limit on the time per frame? So if I make sure all frames take less than 15 minutes, I can continuously render there throughout the month, unlimited? I don’t get it, especially as there are much more expensive deals :S… I guess those expensive deals are if you’re using other software, not blender. And they have a much higher limit per “task”, but still don’t understand what this “task” is.
I used respower on the last thing I worked on, and it was awesome and fun
getting 250 frames in half an hour or so!
I felt a lot of guilt because it’s so cheap, and I tried not to abuse it.
I just got my project to the point where it could be rendered without mistakes
with everything zipped up on import and completed file.
I rendered out like a 60 seconds of a pretty intensive .blend that I had to
break up into sections to render. I had 2 weeks left on my subscription,
but didn’t use it for more rendering, just out of guilt.
“HAHAHA thanks! Here’s 10,000 frames for you to render!”
In retrospect he must have some kind of unlimited uploading/downloading deal though.
I’m not rich enough to have an ‘indefinite’ subscription,
but I’ll use i from now on whenever I can. My only troubles were I could never get
particles to work, and halo seemed to turn out differently in respower.
I hope he adds Luxrender! I saw he tried to add Indigo and in the forum they were “Hey, not so fast there!”,
so maybe he doesn’t know Lux is open source?
You should definitely check out GreenButton. I’ve run a few test animations through them (flawlessly!) and I’ve still got money left on my account from the free trial. https://www.greenbutton.co.nz/
I’ve tried twice to contact the ReBus Farm support guys to find out about rendering Blender files. I’ve received no response from either inquiry. I don’t think they really care much about catering to Blender users, despite their banners here on BA.
I agree about Rebus, I always check out their link from Cg textures,
but Rebus just looks scary to use with their calculator, .ghz per minute, etc.
I still have my greenbutton trial also. It’s pretty cool that the greenbutton guys worked for Weta Digital.
i still don’t quite get rspower’s pricing… like the bronze deal says $20 for a month, with a 15 minute limit per “task”. what is this “task”?? is it a single frame? so does that mean that if i keep ALL of my frames below 15 minutes, i can render continuously? :S
that would be insane, and doesn’t make sense to me… so what does it really mean?
Yes, well as far as i know a task is how long it takes to render on frame. So you could render all month long if each frame stays with in 15 minutes, but it’s not always easy to predict how long a frame will take. Of course if you keep your settings down and optimize your renders then you shouldn’t have a problem
ResPower works very well, I’ve used it on many projects here at work. It’s cheap and the support is really good. I myself had problems with rendering to openEXR files, but once I told them about the apparent bug, they had it working the next day. That’s real value for money.
But on the downside, because it’s cheap you shouldn’t expect renders to be blazingly fast, at least not all the time. Those who pay more will get priority still =) Keep in mind that if your frame renders in 15 minutes on your computer, it might require alot more time on respower. Half an hour might not be enough. Thankfully, it’s easy to upgrade your subscription if you find the time limit too short.
