Render Farm

[glorybound]

I just got my Rebus output. It cost me about $30, and took about an hour. I hit render at the same time, locally on my small render farm, and it's now in Prepass 4 of 4. I am seeing noise, so I'll need to up the settings, and this is only 3840x2160, which isn't all that large. So, if this was a final, I can see it costing about 4x as much, which is still decent.

[voltron7]

Looking good Bobby, and thanks for sharing RE: Rebus. I have been planning to try them lately.

I know you need tech-look, but I have a few thoughts to maybe help...(I bet you already were onto these anyway.)

-It is very hard looking, so maybe some softer or even fabric elements in the scene would make it more comfortable.
-perhaps adjust your glass panel material so it has a little more green on the edges.
-the large mouse pads look cool and I want one! But make the iMacs sit on the desk surface, or on the mouse pad thing, not both. My wife has one of those macs and it would not want to sit that way, on the edge. (I know, total nitpicking.)
-I like the pipes and ceiling light fixtures, which draw my eye to the ceiling. It just seems like too white and perfect up there...I know you don't have a lot to go on from client, but IMO it could use some kind of texture or dirt, or even grain. Alternately you could adjust view to show less to save your time

Good work, and again, thanks for your comments on Rebus.

[glorybound]

I got feed back from the client. The got rid of all the stuff... bike.., and they went with a different desk type. I did add texture to the concrete, and I added a splash of color by adding red to the chairs.

[voltron7]

figures!

So, during the "uploading" in the rebus manager, can I now exit the scene and or 3dsmax?
Couldn't find that info on their site...

Thanks, will look at your update, if you post it...

[glorybound]

yes. once it's uploaded, you can do whatever you want. You can exit MAX before it is uploaded, actually, because the manager is separate.

[voltron7]

Thanks, I just did it anyway and as you said, it was no problem.

[voltron7]

Well, my first impression of Rebus is positive. Very straight forward and easy.
I am wondering if others experience very slow upload speeds when the manager is uploading?
My upload speed peaks around 102k/sec but is usually staying in the 80s.
It is a large scene with many heavy proxies, so maybe it just is going to take a long time...
Anyway, it seems great, as I need to render for a 96" x 48" Billboard.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Well with EC you pay around 0.48$ per 1 hour of 16 core rig... so if rebus farm takes 1h on 1 computer and cost u 30$ amount then amazon 1 pc will cost u 0.5$ for 1h more or less...

If I have 10h render on 1 PC I tend to start 5 Amazon EC servers and run it for 1-2h in distributed... Cost around 10£ (not $!!)

[voltron7]

Amazon EC2 servers. The only solution. I pay 0.40£ per 1 hour of 2x 8 core if I'm not wrong.

U set it up urself, u run it urself u pay for what u use only.

I would do help you out with it but I'm too busy atm to spend 2h a day on managing the workload :s

Sory,GL !

DADAL, Do you mind sharing which pricing option you use so I can try this, too, for a comparison?
I wonder if being a prime member will help pricing in any way...
Anyway it also looks good.

Thanks

[voltron7]

edit: here is the pricing page

When I tried to edit my post above, it came up empty...never saw it do that before.

[Morne]

The Amazon pricing sounds very good. But it sounds like a mission to set things up. Rebus seems more convenient, although at an added cost...

Bobby I'm curious, if your 1 image took roughly an hour, then I wonder how is it that their calculator is telling me my 2500 frame animation will also take roughly an hour...

Well the support seems very quick. I sent few questions in 2 different mails, and Rebusfarm replied to both in about 5 min (if not less)

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I use spot instance and the one I use its 16 core and 60+ gb ram or so. It runs at around 0.48 cents last time I check... haven't used it for 4 months tho...

Yea the amazon is a bit more work... but you know. U can have any plugin installed anything running and if u need changes you can do them remotely on the server and render so u don't have to reupload stuff... Its a lot more convenient for more advance users...
Thanks, bye.

[flino2004]

I used Robus before for an animation (1200 frames) if I remember well it was long time ago..pre-calculated IrMap/LC and i paid around $850...5 min per frame with 100 computers average.

[glorybound]

Mine was 3200 x 1800, and my settings were far from optimized.

The Amazon pricing sounds very good. But it sounds like a mission to set things up. Rebus seems more convenient, although at an added cost...

Bobby I'm curious, if your 1 image took roughly an hour, then I wonder how is it that their calculator is telling me my 2500 frame animation will also take roughly an hour...

Well the support seems very quick. I sent few questions in 2 different mails, and Rebusfarm replied to both in about 5 min (if not less)

[voltron7]

well, I tried rebus for a billboard still, and it seemed good, but a bit expensive for a single frame. It was going to cost almost 1/4 of the entire project fee...I didn't let it finish so no true review.
It was very easy to use and I might try it again some day. i bet if the scene were optimized it may have been do-able...Keeping in mind, that if it is a big scene, like mine, the upload took between 6-9 hours.
Not the farms problem, but something I forgot to account for in the schedule.