It seems as if writing renderfarm systems has been popular lately, and as it turns out, I’ve written one as well. Seeing as Ideasman took the good name (blenderfarm), I’ve called it BigPicture. It can do both animations and single-frame renders accross multiple computers. It is know to work on Windows and Linux, and it should work on Mac as well (I don’t have a mac, so I couldn’t test it). For more information and a download link go to my web site:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~ekstrand/bigpicture/bigpicture.html
I am looking for someone to test it on Mac, so that I know how well it works. If you know python, and would be interested in helping with the Mac end of things, drop me an e-mail. Anyway, have fun with it. Questions and Comments are welcome.