A Render Farm is a cluster of high-performance computer systems, which is generally used to render computer-generated imagery (CGI) for VFX in films and television visual effects.
In this article, we will explain to you everything about render farms in an easy way.
So, Let’s Dive in:
What Is Rendering?
Rendering is the process involved in the generation of a 2D or 3D image from a model by means of some application programs.
Major applications of rendering are video games, architectural designs, and animation movies.
This rendering process takes a lot of computing power and time.
Generally, one minute of rendering can take 4 to 5 hours by a simple computer system.
This means your computer will work with its full power for rendering just 1 minute of the scene.
To solve this problem the Render Farm comes into the picture.
How Does A Render Farm Work?
A Render farm as stated earlier is a cluster of high-performance computer systems, they are built especially for CPU and GPU rendering.
Each computer systems have 3D software, a rendering engine, and plugins installed in it.
Big render farms have hundreds even thousands of these computer systems.
Here’s how to render farm solves the problem of rendering which takes 4 to 5 hours for just 1 minute of a scene on a simple computer.
As render farm consists of thousands of computer systems the task of rendering gets divided equally among them.
Due to this rendering time decreases by 99.9% with zero use of your personal computing power.
So, now with the use of a render farm, rendering time for a 1-minute scene comes down from 5 hours to only 1.80 seconds.
You should use Render Farm today!
What Are The Types of Render Farm?
Self-built render farms and cloud render farms are the two major types of render farms.
Self-Built render farm: Anyone having several computers with him, can be used as a render farm for rendering 3D scenes and animations.
Additionally, maintenance of Self-Built render farms not only requires an expert level of technical skills but also a high cost of hardware and software, manpower, and energy.
Cloud render farm: In Cloud render farm there is zero cost of maintenance of hardware and software and no technical skills required at all. You can start rendering right away.
It will not only save your money but also make your rendering process easy and quick.
Also, the biggest advantage is that you can have your computer free for any additional works, while your rendering process will run in the background on the cloud.
How Cloud Rendering Works?
Cloud render farms are very easy and comfortable to use.
There are many cloud render farms available, we will use VFXFarm to show you how it works.
Once you have signed up and created an account on VFXfarm, you have to download VFXFARMSTREAMER software available for windows and mac. This software integrates into your 3D software and makes it very easy to use.
When you upload scenes on software it will then check, then it will get uploaded to the render farm.
In VFXFarm render farm, the scenes are distributed to various computer systems that calculate the frames.
Once a frame has been calculated, it is automatically downloaded to your computer
You can monitor the progress of rendering in your account easily.
You will need special currency for rendering, in VFXFarm we use SP (speed points) for that purpose.
What Are The Advantages of Cloud Render Farm?
Using a Cloud render farm has a few preferences, out of which speed, comfort, and risk moderation are the foremost vital ones.
Speed: Having a project rendered on a few servers in parallel means that it'll wrap up faster. The speed boost can change depending on many circumstances, and it can go from two times to hundreds of times faster.
Most render farm services offer plugins that can be used in rendering software like blender render farm, or maya render farm
Convenience: After you send a project to a cultivate, you free your computer. This implies that you won't have a steady source of noise and heat running 24/7 in your house or office.
Risk moderation: Computers can overheat and closed down, or even break. Cloud Render farms deal with these occasions in a safe way for the user. Indeed, when a server breaks or the power goes out, the rendering is moved to another machine.
This means your renders will continuously be ready when you need them.
Now It’s Your Turn!
you now know everything about render farms. So, while you choose the right render farm to use, you should look for the fairness of a company along with its cost and its ease of use.