Calculating Cost

[linda_melchione]

Hi there,

I wonder if any way or a formula I could calculate how much credits I need for a 1248 frame animation? Or any reference I could use to estimate the cost before the cloud starts? We really want to try the cloud to see if it fits our workflow, but we have budget, just can't keep buying credits until the rendering finishes. I tested about 7 minutes per frame averagely on my machine with 1920x1080 resolution, and below is machine information:



Thanks!

[vladie]

Hi linda_melchione,

The best way to calculate a probable cost for rendering an animation in Chaos Cloud is described in this help article. In your case I think you can set the frame step to 50 or 40 (i.e. every 50-th or 40-th frame). This way the 20 free trial Chaos Cloud credits will be enough. I believe you will even need less than half of them. Please review the article and let me know if you have questions. I'd gladly help.

Bests,
Vladie

[linda_melchione]

Hi vladie

Unfortunately I already used my 20 free trial credits to test out before. I am not a big fan of spending minimum $100 to purchase credits, then spending $20 to calculate how many credits I need to render an animation every time we use it, seems it is supposed to be Vray Cloud's job to tell you how many credits needed rougly before the job starts but, thanks so much for taking time to reply this!

Best,

[vladie]

Hi linda_melchione,

Thanks for the follow-up. I'll ask the Sales team to assign you 20 additional free trial credits so you can render frames from the animation with the Frame Step option as described in the help article.

But before that, I'd like to clarify that:

• The frames you are going to render with the Frame Step option should be with the desired quality so they won't differ from the final sequence and its quality. I.e. you will be able to use these frames and this is an important point in the article - you should clone the job and Chaos Cloud will suggest you to render the missing frames.
• Once you become more experienced with Chaos Cloud after using it, it will be easier for you to evaluate what the cost for rendering a job will be without rendering frames. But even then it will be better to first render a few frames with the desired quality to check both - cost and whether everything renders as expected. This is important as animations render really fast because of the concurrently rendering frames. Though you can stop it while watching the live preview.
• I admit that it's important to find a way to predict the rendering cost and progress. And this is our task. But this is difficult to achieve even when rendering locally. We haven't given up and that's why we add such guides which help our clients to get to know Chaos Cloud. And we will continue adding and improving these guides.

Thanks,
Vladie

[linda_melchione]

Hi vladie,

Thank you so much for your patience trying to solve my issues. I really appreciate it.

I applied 20 trial credits with another account to try out few months ago. The issue is, my phone number connected with that account already, this is why I could not use this account to apply trial credits anymore. Not sure if either you could disconnect my phone number from that account or just activate the trial credits on this account, either way would be really appreciated!

Talking about cost calculation, I also tried few other render farms like Rebusfarm, I do not know how they did it, they can calculate the numbers roughly depending on your machine configuration without doing yourself. Technically, we all know it won't be accurate, but that is something I could save time on my end and see the cost without testing.

Anyway, thank you again for all your support!

Best,

[vladie]

Hi linda_melchione,

Can you please let me know which email you have used to register this account? I'll ask to add another 20 free credits to it. If it's more convenient for you, you can share the email in a direct message to me here in the forums.

As for the approaches which the other render farms have implemented to predict the render cost, we are not confident that such an approach will give us a good prediction all the time. And such a feature is kind of a promise made by us to our clients. If we don't meet this promise, and as a matter of a fact any promise, we should be held accountable. And this is normal. But it's more important for us to help users accomplish their goals and solve their problems instead of apologizing for bad calculations and adding more problems. We are still committed on creating solutions that will help users learn how Chaos Cloud works and what will cost them to render a scene in Chaos Cloud. Expect more from us.

Thanks,
Vladie

[linda_melchione]

Hi vladie ,

Just sent you a direct message with email address. Thank you so much!

Best,