Planetside partners with Pixel Plow as Official Render Farm

Started by Oshyan, August 22, 2014, 05:46:04 PM

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Hannes

Another question: as far as I understood the rendered files are directly saved on the customer's computer. So far so good. What if for some reason the customer's internet connection (or the power supply) goes down in the middle of the render progress? Will there be everything gone from this moment on?

Btw are there any intentions to include Paypal as payment method, since I'm one of those dinosaurs who don't have (or want) any credit card :)?

Dune

Last question is quite crucial for me as well. Regarding shutdown, in my experience files will be kept on hold until downloaded completely (I wasn't online all the time, though never shut down while downloading a file), but I may be wrong.

digitalis99

Quote from: Dune on August 25, 2014, 02:25:55 AM
I don't know if it has changed, but you might need to make and upload a GIcache file for stills. Have you had any progress with that, Ty?

The only support for GI caches is if you render them yourself and upload them with the scene file.  We can't do anything about that until TG has CLI options for rendering just the GI pass and telling TG where to store it.
Pixel Plow :: Render Endlessly :: http://www.pixelplow.net

digitalis99

Quote from: Hannes on August 25, 2014, 07:20:17 AM
Another question: as far as I understood the rendered files are directly saved on the customer's computer. So far so good. What if for some reason the customer's internet connection (or the power supply) goes down in the middle of the render progress? Will there be everything gone from this moment on?

Btw are there any intentions to include Paypal as payment method, since I'm one of those dinosaurs who don't have (or want) any credit card :)?

Anything not transferred to the customer is stored on our end until the customer system is back online.  No need to worry there.  We even send automated email notification if you have a job with completed frames that haven't been delivered to your machine.

There are no plans to support other payment methods at this time.  We can only support payment methods that allow us to charge immediately for the job cost upon completion.  Paypal wouldn't work for that.  Sorry.
Pixel Plow :: Render Endlessly :: http://www.pixelplow.net

Oshyan

Actually I think Paypal does now have a pre-authorization option. Not positive though. Something to look into.

I will revisit the question of whether TG can have a GI cache generation option for the CLI...

- Oshyan

digitalis99

Quote from: Oshyan on August 25, 2014, 11:15:41 PM
Actually I think Paypal does now have a pre-authorization option. Not positive though. Something to look into....

Oshyan prompted me to look at this again, and I have.  In theory, our billing software supports PayPal Reference payments, but the full ramifications of this are unclear to me.  I would be willing to beta test this with a client who wishes to pay by this method.  Does anyone want to volunteer?  I can't discount the farm rates any, but I can promise we will refund anything that is charged in error.

PM me if interested.
Pixel Plow :: Render Endlessly :: http://www.pixelplow.net

Oshyan

Go Hannes, go! I would *love* to see some of your scenes animated (more, hehe). :)

- Oshyan

Hannes

OK, I sent a PM. Looking forward to try your service.

digitalis99

Hey guys and gals, we have much fuller support for GI handling in Terragen scenes now.

I haven't updated our online manual yet, but will be shortly.  Artists no longer need to pre-render GI passes for frame ranges or stills, as we automatically detect if GI is used in the scene.  If GI is detected, we automatically render and store a cache prior to the final render pass.  After completion of the cache (single node if still and multiple nodes governed by job priority if a frame range), the job is re-submitted to the farm for the final pass.  We deliver GI pass completion percentage to our client GUI, so you know how far along the job is.  GI caches for a tiled still are rendered by only one node, so keep that in mind if you're concerned about performance.

We still allow (and automatically detect) if you pre-render a GI cache for your scene and submit it with the job.  We only create a GI cache if your scene uses GI but was uploaded without a cache.  All artist controls remain untouched, so you still control how many frames to blend across a range.

The only GI feature we don't currently support is the automatic creation of a sparse cache.  Don't worry, that's next on the list.

Using our new automated GI handling is easy...just submit your Terragen job as normal, we take care of the rest.

More news as it comes.  Oh yeah...I'll post a video soon that shows off an animated scene that uses our new GI handling.
Pixel Plow :: Render Endlessly :: http://www.pixelplow.net

Dune


Oshyan

Once again the easiest and fastest workflow for Terragen. A great improvement. :)

- Oshyan

JP-RANCH

Quote from: TheBadger on August 23, 2014, 03:49:25 AM
Does sound good! And Im glad for the example in the link.

Can I ask what happened to the other venders?

Hi TheBadger,

be assured we keep going to support the Terragen software. By the way, feel free to have a try thanks to our free 50 € trial offer, if this is not already done! I take this opportunity to let you know that the RANCH is more affordable than ever during all the October month! Price starts from 0.09c GHz-H instead of 0.15 cent!
RANCH Renderfarm (www.ranchcomputing.com) - Fully Automated 24/7 - Fast and affordable cloud rendering service.

JP-RANCH

Quote from: digitalis99 on August 23, 2014, 11:03:35 AM
Quote from: TheBadger on August 23, 2014, 03:49:25 AM
...Can I ask what happened to the other venders?

While I can't speak for Oshyan or any Planetside staff, our internal comparison of Pixel Plow vs. The Ranch showed Pixel Plow as the clear winner in every category (workflow, performance, completion time, efficiency, cost...).  Sure, you can say we're biased, but run a test yourself and see.


We are really shocked and feel insulted to read such words about our service knowing all the work and efforts we have done for Terragen, during the past years.

You are talking about an internal comparison but to my knowledge no tests have been done by you on the RANCH so far.
So could you be more specific?
For instance, the efficiency of the service is clearly subjective! Customers should indeed try both to see for themselves, starting by navigating on both websites...

Now regarding the most wrong and dishonest information: the completion time. Could you could clarify how a few dozen of servers can be faster than several hundreds!?
As a reminder the RANCH is currently running with almost 500 Dual Xeon 12 core/24 thread – 48 GB RAM each.
Thus, the cost for running our Renderfarm has nothing to do with yours.
I'm wondering how long would it take to render the nice Ponte Salario Sunrise movie from Planet Side on your farm?

After all, customers using Renderfarms are in a hurry and have regularly tight deadlines...

JP-RANCH.
RANCH Renderfarm (www.ranchcomputing.com) - Fully Automated 24/7 - Fast and affordable cloud rendering service.

digitalis99

Quote from: JP-RANCH on October 14, 2014, 11:05:02 AM
We are really shocked and feel insulted to read such words about our service knowing all the work and efforts we have done for Terragen, during the past years.

While I can't address how you feel, my comments were not insulting.  They were a statement of facts.  We've never criticized you or even posted in your threads when you were the official render farm for Planetside.  I request the same courtesy from you, even though you seem to be upset and nervous.

Quote from: JP-RANCH on October 14, 2014, 11:05:02 AM
You are talking about an internal comparison but to my knowledge no tests have been done by you on the RANCH so far.
So could you be more specific?
For instance, the efficiency of the service is clearly subjective! Customers should indeed try both to see for themselves, starting by navigating on both websites...

If you were looking for an account that seemed to come directly from us, you won't find the jobs we ran through your farm.  Efficiency is not at all subjective.  The mere fact that you state efficiency is subjective means we can't really have a logical discussion about it.

Quote from: JP-RANCH on October 14, 2014, 11:05:02 AM
Now regarding the most wrong and dishonest information: the completion time. Could you could clarify how a few dozen of servers can be faster than several hundreds!?
As a reminder the RANCH is currently running with almost 500 Dual Xeon 12 core/24 thread – 48 GB RAM each.
Thus, the cost for running our Renderfarm has nothing to do with yours.
I'm wondering how long would it take to render the nice Ponte Salario Sunrise movie from Planet Side on your farm?

After all, customers using Renderfarms are in a hurry and have regularly tight deadlines...

JP-RANCH.

Job completion time does NOT equal job render time when it comes to discussions about how your service works.  That's really all the farther I need to take that discussion.
Pixel Plow :: Render Endlessly :: http://www.pixelplow.net

Oshyan

Folks, please keep things things civil. I don't think much good is going to come from 2 competitors trying to outdo each other here, let your services stand on their own merits.

Both Pixel Plow and The Ranch support Terragen and both offer great services. We've chosen to partner with Pixel Plow going forward for reasons we've outlined on our partnership page and we encourage everyone to try their service. But every customer needs to make up their own minds which platform works best for their needs. There are no "bad" choices here, we respect and appreciate both of these valuable contributors to the Terragen ecosystem.

- Oshyan