Animation Network render

[mt_sabao]

Hi everybody,
I've gave a quick try on searching the forum about network rendering using terragen2, and most of the threads i've found are quite old. But from what I gather, rendering an animation using a render farm (so, distributing frames through different computers) is only possible through third party tools, am I right? Anyone around here has had a positive experience (on rendering an animation on a network) and knowledge who might want to share it? Also, how does it go on mixing macs and pcs? I ask this because in Cinema4D (our main 3D software) we cannot mix them, because GI and AO  has different results on the different systems (because, as we were told, on the way each system computes random numbers). Will this hapen as well on terragen and as so I should restrict my render nodes to either PC or Mac?

Thanks in advance for your input guys. I don't have an animation at the moment to render, I just need to assess the potential use of Terragen for animations on future projects. Cheers

[jo]

Hi,

You can't mix output from Macs and PCs unfortunately. You need to use one or the other. I have a feeling it's also a good idea to stick to similar architectures as well. For example you wouldn't want to mix PPC and Intel Macs. I'll have to check that again.

I also have a feeling that there may be some issues between chips on PCs, I think something came up about that on the forum recently. I may not be remembering that right, hopefully someone else will chime in.

Regards,

Jo

[old_blaggard]

I've been working on an animation recently where there are Intel Mac frames and PC frames that blend seamlessly.

[rcallicotte]

I think it's time to begin looking at racks.   

[edit - without going very far, I think I like this one - http://www.intel.com/products/server/systems/S7000FC4UR/S7000FC4UR-overview.htm]

[Mohawk20]

I think it's time to begin looking at racks.   

[edit - without going very far, I think I like this one - http://www.intel.com/products/server/systems/S7000FC4UR/S7000FC4UR-overview.htm]

It would be great if you can afford it, but I'm sure I can't...

[rcallicotte]

I can't, but maybe someday.