Hi all!
I’m looking for a honest answer, is there a “user friendly” way to do network rendering in Blender, I mean without learning to code, hire a developer, spen a week trying settings, have a degree on networks and computing science? Something like when I used VRay and just set the clients and the servers and voilá!!
P.S.: Yes, I know about Flamenco, that’s why I said “user friendly”, learning to code, etc…you get the picture:
P.S.2: I don’t mind to pay for an addon and I don’t want to use online rendering services, even if they are amazing and cheap.
None of the available solutions for network rendering is as simple as “push a button” because all require you to understand the network rendering process, even if you decide to rely on a render farm.
Here are a few solutions to manage your render farm:
Render Farm Management Software:
Blender Network Render (integrated in Blender 3D)
Flamenco (A subscription to Blender Cloud is needed)
Hi Harvester, thak you, I’ll try some of those since several have free trials, Also never heard of anyone having success with the Blender Network Render, I might be wrong.
In the past I’ve used Vray network renderer and it was just a matter of installing the clients and server software and a simple setup of the network, nothing complicated, it wasn’t a “push the button” solution but it came close.
The aspect that no solution that is availabe in blender is as simple as “push the button” does not seem a limitation of technology as in other 3d packages/network renders, there are solutions like that.
Basiclaly you launch “network” render on each node, and “master” node on your primary system. The master node locates the network render nodes (standard network discovery aspect) and does the management for you.
Seem something liek this during my Cinema4D times… but that was some time ago.
Either way, it is possible, just a matter of someone wanting to develop it. Almsot regret that I stopped coding years ago.
Yes, maybe network rendering it’s not just as relevant as it was some time ago, I guess nowadays there are just cloud rendering services, and that’s a great option. In my case I just happen to have 17 machines with gtx 1050, so I thought they could make a little nice render farm. I’ll try the network rendering Blender add-on, It should work, shouldn’t it?
Trying several solutions is the way to go to find out which one fits better in your workflow or pipeline. The “problem” with paid software solutions is the cost of licenses for server and workers which can raise quickly if you have many workstations.
Do your trials, testing, so to understand how to configure your renderfarm and how complex or user-friendly is each solution and its implementation.
The Blender Network Render works and it went thru some updating recently. Give it a try. But to “manage” the pool of workstations I would rely on a dedicated renderfarm management solution.
I’m also searching for good a network rendering system. Im trying out Crowdrender at the moment. it doesn’t seem to have a manager that is telling me how long a slave took for one frame and usefull information like that (correct me if I"m wrong) I tried Flamenco it seems promising altough I do not get it to work… DKW. For productions rendering with A good netwerk rendering system for inhouse rendering is very importend. Last thing you want is to make mistakes in this proces. If you have the power at office why would you go rendering over the internet. I renderd with foxrender and rocketrender. I can tell you that it aint cheap and it takes more time to set it all.also bakefluids and stuff like that is not always that great in support. Sheepit seems cool btw.Did buildup some points now, not used it for my own project yet. some thing i did not really like is the thumbnail of the preview. It looked like its stored files on my computer with a password lock. when having to keep the project in vows of confidentiality this can be a problem. that said uploading to file to a renderfarm is kinda the same only then it is only one party. Again correct me if i’m wrong.
Doing things manually is just a last alternative 17 times doing things is making it possible 17 times to making a mistake and redo it 17 times. so losing rendertime is what you end up with (most certainly when under presser).
There is a render distribution called Lokirender. that one is working for me at the moment. It is simple and works. (I have cpu only rendernodes btw) Lokirneder
on www.getrender.com
Im trying the cgru and drQueue as I found out these are openscource aswell, how everty If a paid version works more effiecient I will go for effecient.
Yes you are right about that, I tried the cgru and that looks like it would work. problem is that I keep getting the message: Could not open socket.
[Winerror 10061] Connection refused. No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused.
This is also happeningwith the Flamenco program and the internal network rendering… I dont know why something is blocking the connection… maybe someone can help me out here?
Loki render did render something on my farm and I noticed a diffrent in camera movement. Turns out it is missing auto execution check (auto run Phyton scripts) reload trusted/ignore,
And I could not figure out how to keep this on in my files… Can someone tell me the trick.
