Render node licenses

[Kevin Kipper]

Hi everyone,

In the pre-purchase options about Terragen 2 Deep it states "License for one user and 5 additional render node licenses".  Is there an actual way to have 5 additional workstations share the render load on a particular image or scene at this time?  I realize I could load up a scene and render different frame ranges on five workstations, I was looking for more of a way to apply a scene to a render farm.

Thanks!

Kevin

[old_blaggard]

This might be doable in the future, but right now it would really be a matter of distributing the project file and doing separate crop renders on each machine that you would then have to stitch together in Photoshop.

[Kevin Kipper]

Ok, thanks for the info!

[Oshyan]

The license is mainly intended for rendering of different frame ranges for animations. In the future distributed rendering of single frames may be supported.

- Oshyan

[Kranky]

Does that mean, that the 5 additional render node licenses are 5 full TG2 installations, which only I am allowed to use?
Will there be a render node client or something like that in the future (TG2 without GUI - only useable from the main TG2 installation)?

[Oshyan]

Does that mean, that the 5 additional render node licenses are 5 full TG2 installations, which only I am allowed to use?
Will there be a render node client or something like that in the future (TG2 without GUI - only useable from the main TG2 installation)?

Yes, essentially they are available currently as full installs. In the future we do intend to have a render-only client.

- Oshyna

[joiecito]

I bought Terragen plus animation module and, as I read here, I can render up to 5 computers on the same animation..., if I need more, Should I pay the same for another 5 more computers?.

Thank's in advance. (I need them this week).

[Cyber-Angel]

I can't see the business case for not supporting distributed rendering of single frames: even with the optimization work to be done on the rendering engine there are still going to be rendering cases where those optimizations weather these be stability, speed or what have you are going to break down.

A frame manager is going to want too be assured I would think that detailed frames can be rendered singularly if required. As you know, some of the membership on these fora have produced images that have taken orders of weeks or some times months to render; it is clear that distributed rendering of single frames would be of grate benefit in these situations.

It would be nice if you could load the render only client onto rack based servers and/ or buy server based render nodes with it on already some companies sell software such as Maya installed on such server nodes, an interesting revenue stream to investigate.

Any way all this is for the future. 

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel                               

[Oshyan]

Joe, to get more render licenses you'd just buy another copy of TG2 Deep + Animation. That will essentially give you 6 more licenses.

C-A: Distributing renders across systems is a technical issue, that's the main reason for not yet supporting it. There is a lot of important development to do and it's lower on the priority list than say 64 bit support and finishing the animation module. In the future we will probably tackle methods to render at much larger sizes, perhaps a "render to disk" scheme, and this would be a likely precursor to being able to distribute rendering a single frame.

- Oshyan

[rcallicotte]

Yeah.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.    <-- drool

...and finishing the animation module...

- Oshyan

[cyphyr]

It would be extremely cool (and I think fairly easy .... well what do I know lol) to be able to render animations in reverse. Why? because those of us with only two computers could render from the ends of an anim to the middle without having to work out how fast each computer was relatively on each frame, you would simply stop rendering when you reach the same frame.

Richard

[Hetzen]

Hrmm, what if you had three computers to render with?

[Oshyan]

It would be extremely cool (and I think fairly easy .... well what do I know lol) to be able to render animations in reverse. Why? because those of us with only two computers could render from the ends of an anim to the middle without having to work out how fast each computer was relatively on each frame, you would simply stop rendering when you reach the same frame.

Richard

Hmm, try -1 in the "sequence step" of the animation output settings...

- Oshyan

[cyphyr]

Excellent How simple
Richard

[dandelO]

See, this is why Terragen just rules.
It does exactly as you tell it. As long as you know you're the boss.