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How to build a render farm?

Posted: August 13, 2009
Ibrahim
Hello. I am Ibrahim.
I really need to know how to build a render farm?
What do I need for this? And what is the best way to do it?
Posted: November 16, 2009
BugsHunter
A render farm for what?
Please specify at least the software you need the render farm for. Very Happy
Posted: January 21, 2010
3d artist gallery Andyba
Ibrahim, there are more aspects of building a render farm.
1. ) Installing and managing the rendering software. Here you should specify what 3d animation software are you using.

2. ) Building the hardware network with a predefined budget, available space and wattage. Here we need to know all these parameters to help you.
Posted: January 22, 2010
Ibrahim
I am interested to know everything about building a render farm starting with buying and setting up the computers and ending with installing and managing all kind of rendering software and rendering jobs.
Posted: August 25, 2010
Adam
A render farm is basically a cluster of networked headless servers(computers without a monitor) that do a dedicated job of rendering 3d animation frames. They do this through the help of a job queue manager,(backburner for 3d max & maya, renderpal,dealine etc are more advanced queuers with more options like bucket rendering. Its sole is to create a pool of computers that will simulate a single computer rendering your scene/s.
Posted: September 02, 2010
karan22
I am also interested in creating a render farm.. pls help
Posted: September 11, 2010
Adam
Ibrahim wrote:
I am interested to know everything about building a render farm starting with buying and setting up the computers and ending with installing and managing all kind of rendering software and rendering jobs.
Lets build a rough non commercial renderfarm,but first I agree with andyba, u don't jst wake up oneday and read about the helmer and decide that u want one for urself it needs planning, first how much do u have or are willing to fork out, next,,,,is it permanent or wanna jst fulfill a crazy episode in ur life? Answer that first, cos the benefits are great, massive parallel processing power, but are u ready for the headaches, power bills going up like hell, short circuiting, over heating, network bottle necks, ELECTROCUTION & Fire hazards, yeah cos ur playing with electricity n u might gt burned. Enough of that. Since its ur first time n u short of cash, u should get ur self 2 and above CPUs & a monitor, keyboard & mouse for managing & monitoring the jobs and servers, a kvm switch or VNC software (which is free),,,,, if u know how to assemble,well n good go ahead. What ull need are boxes with first processors Quadcores are the best bt mind the wattage cos of the heat. They determine how first the render time will be. The more the cpus the faster. Next Alot of RAM, it determines how big a job the cpus will handle especially if u have scenes with millions of polygons and high res textures. Get a MOBO that can handle this and a small drive for your O.S & softwares or use DRBL if u choose linux to boot over a Networked H.D.D. U might wanto modify the BIOS like ignore keyboard error,,, wake on LAN (which comes in handy)....Network the boxes with a gigabyte network card and switch &get a job scheduling software. Thats it. All software, 2D & 3D need to be installed on the render machines & also the Network render manager software.
Posted: September 12, 2010
RenderFarm
Do not build a render farm.. unless you want to buy a shit load of computer and spend a lot of money. If you do not have contact to get some job from it, you will loose all the money. Why? because you need to get upgrade of software and computer faster than you think. So , really, think about it .
Posted: September 22, 2010
3d artist gallery Andyba
RenderFarm, do you have any alternatives to building a render farm for a small studio?

There are linux render farms where you simply create a cloud for all kind of calculation including rendering. Of course you will not be able to use 3ds max on it. But most high end 3d animation software like Maya for linux, Houdini, Softimage and Blender will do.