OTOY Forums

Hello all-
I would love to know if anyone has set up any rendernodes and how the process went. I'm interested to know how Octane splits up frames- specifically does it send a frame to each GPU if it's a multi-GPU workstation? Which software you use Octane with isn't as important to me.

Thanks in advance,
M.Shelton

hi, M.Shelton,

network rendering allows You to render the same frame on multiple machines, meaning that when the scene is being prepared, data will be loaded to all GPUs, those on Your machine and on network nodes. Then information will be rendered and sent back to main PC, samples combined and frame will be saved. For this to work good, You should be looking into 10G network.

if You want to split Your frames You can use Dealdine. However, this will requite not only setting up Deadline, but also buying more license. For instance, You can use multiple machines if You leveraging OctaneRender's Network rendering feature, but if You se deadline, then You have like a separate workstation instead of node and for each of those You will need host app and plugin licenses.

hope it helps.

Thank you Glimpse, that is super helpful. Basically if I want to split up a gpu per frame instead of having several gpu's compute together on one frame, then I need seperate machines. Unless Deadline can actually view individual gpu's and assign frames to them. I intend on buying more licenses, that isn't an issue. I just want to be sure I'm approaching network rendering in a logical way.

Really appreciate you taking the time to answer!

Best,
Michael

as far as I know, Deadline allows (at least allowed) to "split" the same machine.. but You need to consult the manual and try things out.

also there could be some built in tools in host apps, but I'm not too much into those, so maybe others will give some feedback on that.

why do You want to slit frames? if You have fast network, then Network rendering as it is goes pretty smooth. Just curious.

By split frames I mean one frame assigned to each individual gpu. And I can be totally wrong about that being needed, I've never set up or relied on an entirely gpu based renderfarm. At the end of the day getting shots rendered as quickly as possible is the goal, and I'm talking about hundreds of shots at 4k ( this renderfarm is only for the cg renders, comp has it's own farm). So my task right now is figuring out what the investment is- workstations with 2+ gpu's each, etc.

The other thing I'm curious about is the licensing as my current subscription gives me 10 rendernode licenses. Does that mean if I have 10 machines I am covered for licenses already as long as the machines only have 2 gpus?

Thanks again for your input!

Michael

Hi Michael,
please consider that distributed rendering solutions can only be used on final rendering, while the beauty of Octane Network rendering is that the Network power can be used in any phase, from scene editing to final rendering, speeding up a lot the entire workflow, and also on single frame rendering with huge resolution.

About license, yes correct, no problem, you can have one primary Workstation + 10x Render-Node machines with a single Studio+ license, and there is no GPU limits per machine!

While with distributed rendering solutions, like Deadline or Tram Render, you need one full Studio+ license per machine involved.

In your case, you could have 2x Studio+ license, one for preparing the scenes (possibly with one or more Render-Nodes), and another one to be use for final rendering with big Network rendering power.

ciao,
Beppe

MShelton wrote: Does that mean if I have 10 machines I am covered for licenses already as long as the machines only have 2 gpus?

You can have more GPUs per machine, if You wish (and able to build) You can have 10 or 20 GPU/machine..

As Beppe pointed, it makes sense to use built in Network render feature, but You can have two licenses: one for workstation, other for network rendering master + multiple nodes (as single license would cover all of those) - this way You would have a bit of flexibility and and also, Your main workstation would be clear for work and tweaks.

Last thing to advise, get dongle, at least for one of those licenses that are mission critical, so lack of internet would not stop Your render job - it's a simple offline license option, that You update once every few month and if internet is down You have no worries - Your render farm would keep on running as it should (same could be said for UPS to those workstation and render nodes).

Thank you Glimpse and Beppe- this has been really helpful. As this evolves I'll post updates in hopes that it helps others looking to scale up rendering needs.

Best,
Michael

I setup a mac to PC render node and created a PDF with some pointers that might help.. In my case for Cinema 4d.. everything just works!

Once PC is booted and has the daemon running I never have to touch it again!
I do all the work from the mac studio!

This is great CJ! Thank you for sharing, will keep the thread updated with how it's going once I have it all set up.