Render nodes using Distributed Rendering.

[jgriffin]

So this is fun...

During an overnight render last night, I noticed that one of the render nodes (my workstation) was rendering frames in about 1/4th the time as all of the other render nodes. It turns out, I had left "Use Distributed Rendering" checked before submitting the scene for rendering and my machine was actually distributing the render task to up to 15 other machines.

Does anyone actually render this way intentionally? Submitting a render job to a farm where each node then further distributes each frame?

Seems like it might be a good way to squeeze a little more performance out of the farm.

Thanks!

- J

[vlado]

It's a convenient way to queue several high-res still renders, or different views of the same scene and still use the render farm to speed up the rendering. I know that 3ds Max users do it all the time. Of course, this only works if you have more machines than images to render. If you have a long animation with more frames than machines, then regular frame-by-frame rendering is better.

Best regards,
Vlado