OTOY Forums

I think unlimited access would encourage excessive use, and it also appears too expensive for anyone who has just an occasional need.

I would sell blocks of time, say $25 per block to keep your handling costs reasonable. Reduce the cost per block if larger quantities are purchased at one time.

Of course you would need a way to predict the time needed to prevent the user account from reaching $0 in the middle of a render

Ed

Well, since my previous post, I have dome many trials (still with 2.2), and I have changed my mind, due to some new informations. Thanks to a post found on the forum, I have discovered that some export parameters (Triangulation and HQ) that I thought necessary when exporting from Blender (using quads) and because I wanted the best possible quality, are in fact not useful at all and have no impact on the quality for the images I'm working on. Disabling these parameters divided my export time by 3, so it is now 1 minute per frame. I still think that a better exporter built into Blender would be faster than a Python script, but one minute per frame is a great improvement ! So remote rendering for animation could be doable, with a big bottleneck though, due to the low uploading bitrate of internet connections !

In a second time, I tested the limits of resolution, and the impact on the memory amount. It appears that having acces to a renderfarm could be usefull when I reach my memory limit. Even if I'm going to install bigger graphic cards, 1.5GB is not much for big scenes.

So, still for non confidential works, like really big posters, it could be interesting, but I would rather vote for a "Pay per task" price, because I will have rarely this kind of need.

ROUBAL wrote:Well, since my previous post, I have dome many trials (still with 2.2), and I have changed my mind, due to some new informations. Thanks to a post found on the forum, I have discovered that some export parameters (Triangulation and HQ) that I thought necessary when exporting from Blender (using quads) and because I wanted the best possible quality, are in fact not useful at all and have no impact on the quality for the images I'm working on. Disabling these parameters divided my export time by 3, so it is now 1 minute per frame. I still think that a better exporter built into Blender would be faster than a Python script, but one minute per frame is a great improvement ! So remote rendering for animation could be doable, with a big bottleneck though, due to the low uploading bitrate of internet connections !

In a second time, I tested the limits of resolution, and the impact on the memory amount. It appears that having acces to a renderfarm could be usefull when I reach my memory limit. Even if I'm going to install bigger graphic cards, 1.5GB is not much for big scenes.

So, still for non confidential works, like really big posters, it could be interesting, but I would rather vote for a "Pay per task" price, because I will have rarely this kind of need.

Confidentiality is something that can be guaranteed by contracts.
I don't see a reason why this would be a problem.

Our cluster will be installed and setup in a location by people with a lot more skill in security that you, and we're already using remote-banking type encryption with octanelive.
I don't see a reason why a customer woud'nt prefer you used that service instead of doing it at home, even if you have a safe and burglar alarm.

Radiance

I'd go for it hands down!
It seems a great idea to have different choices on rendering speed and budget independently from your system.
One of the paying forms could use a combined subscribtion : a lower year/monthly fee + usage fee.
I think a lot of people wouldn't mind paying a low subscription if they could access the extra power only when necessary, like a fast deadline or needing extra RAM for big projects.
Not everyone needs or can buy a tesla, but you can find yourself needing one ocasionally. That could also solve the RAM issue on Nvidias till they get cheaper...

Yours sincerely Mateuet

That's mine 2 cents...
I think the idea is absolutly amazing.
Unfortunatly, depending from the price, I think it will be too expensive for me, but is a good idea !
Rock on guys !

Hi,
what about the possibility to share computing power between users, like seti home project or Vswarm? About renderfarm subscription it will be wonderful, but it depeds how, and how hi it will be charged (look at felix render, for example, octane needs to be more affordable than this beatiful service).
let's wait and see
regards

For people which are doing a lot of Arch-Viz this would be a really good benfit.

For others like me -with only archviz contracts from time to time and not so often large projects- some ability to buy per project or buy "credits". Best would be a monthly bases order. So I know I have a large project going on and need high-speed render access for one months during the project for tests and such.

This would give Refractive Software a fixed sum for one month and I have a specific time window where I can run tests or final shots without bothering rebuying credits or whatever.

due to privacy concerns i don't think that an open customer render cloud is a good idea...

Radiance

I like the idea, but I also don't think that I have enough use for it to buy in on a quarterly or monthly basis. I like the idea of having a day rate, week rate, month, quarterly rate. Even possibly a per render price, as having faster turn around would potentially add more revenue at that level, because the more people that can turn around an image and are paying for the image.

Perhaps a per month low subscription fee, with 5 images included, and a per image fee after that.

(maybe a special animation rate too for lots of images? )

Anyway - nice idea - I hope it works out well, at a price that's affordable, but keeps you guys in the black .

I would love this option for my commercial work. The annual subscription would probably be the best option for me, but it would also make sense to offer this per use for people who only need it occasionally.