Any suggestions for multi-machine render farms for adobe after effects and r3d ?

[PatrickFaith]

My after effects work load has built up, and I'm going to be putting together a small (like 3 servers) AE render farm, which will be primarily be rendering r3d footage. Any suggestions for setting up a small render farm. The farm will be managed by me, so simplicity is key? I have seen a couple of different methods (adobe render, using multiple full adobe after effects, etc ... ). For 4k processing, things like camera blur, moving masks, etc ... just take up a lot of cpu, and I can't have everything running on one machine anymore.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Great question.

 

[SandeepDey]

+1.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Thanks for the interest guys ...

I found a bunch of tutorial on multi-machine after effects, but on those tutorials you need a full license for AE for each machine. But your suppose to be able to do this without a full license on the slave machines ... I guess what I'm looking for is how to set up after effects on slave machines in "watch" mode. [doing full licenses of AE on the 2nd machine ... is just clunky though ... is almost easier to just run AE on a second machine and just mount the files over the network]

here's the full license tutorials(which ... really are kind of obvious... but don't seem very practical ... is just easier doing a network drive and starting the projects as a whole separate run):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaCogkquNv4
http://podcasts.creativecow.net/after-effects-tutorials-podcast/multi-machine-rendering-with-after

I also see some of the high end guys have some fairly expensive ways of doing this ... but that takes even more money then the full license on each machine(but atleast the other ways distribute the load to like 20 machines ... but that's over kill for me).

I'll write something up when i get it working i guess. BTW ... suggestions on going 1/4 resolution and stuff just don't work on many of the AE functions, without fully downgrading the 4k to 1080p (things just look/work funky on things like camera blur).

 

[Lliam Worthington]

Hi patrick,

Another plus one. Thanks for starting this thread. There's not a lot around on this subject.
I am in a similar boat, but don't have to gear shift so too speak just yet Look froward to seeing how you get on.

Best

Lliam

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

a little more explanation would have been nice. I think there should be better solutions.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Well ... I checked out the "watch" mode for AE ... was just too hacky (the youtubes also mention this).

I am finding the big boys run about 5 different ways of managing this though, some are fairly cheap ... but all are a major learning curve. Here's the list of render farm management software that I'm looking at, please yell which one of these is the easiest:

backburner ... this one has a lot of integration to autodesk ( looks pro ... but i'm more of a blender guy) - I'm not going to explore this ... though it does look good
Rush Render Queue ... uber if you know unix and stuff ... I'm probably going to look at this one http://seriss.com/rush-current/rush/
Qube! http://pipelinefx.com/ ... a pro package (hmm ... seems overkill for mine application).
Smedge ... http://www.uberware.net/smedge/features.php ... who knows ... pro package ... still overkill for the low end i'd think
Muster ... http://www.uberware.net/smedge/features.php ... seems very pro ... there has to be some canada red users ... that use this ???

There's also some utilities around Adobe's aerender executable ... this might be more applicable to me.

Overall ... seems cheaper to me to buy a 24 thread uber adobe after effects intel/window 7 machine, with just a 2nd adobe license ... will be easier to run. I'm finding after effects, for the stuff i'm doing ... is completely using all the processors on the computer (so far it's running 12 concurrent processors perfectly ... if it's all on one "server"). Arghhh ... quest continues.

 

[Luca Immesi]

http://aescripts.com/bg-renderer/ the pro version should work

 

[PatrickFaith]

http://aescripts.com/bg-renderer/ the pro version should work

Perfect, this is exactly the right level for what i'm doing ... i think i can kick things off with a networked drive too.