How a Blender Render Farm Can Save You Time and Money on Your Next Project
May 26, 2023
As a creative professional, you know that rendering can be one of the most time-consuming and resource-intensive aspects of any project. Whether you're working on a 3D animation, architectural visualization, or visual effects for film and television, rendering can take hours, if not days, to complete. That's where a Blender render farm comes in. By harnessing the power of hundreds of computers, a render farm can significantly reduce rendering times and help you deliver your project on time and within budget. In this article, we'll explore the benefits of using a Blender render farm and how it can save you both time and money on your next project. So, whether you're a freelance designer or part of a larger production team, read on to discover how a Blender render farm can revolutionize your workflow.
What is a Blender Render Farm?
A Blender render farm is a collection of computers that work together to render your Blender 3D graphics or animations. It allows you to distribute the rendering process across multiple machines, which can significantly reduce the time it takes to render a scene. Render farms are used by professionals in the animation, architecture, and film industries to create high-quality, photo-realistic images and animations.
A server farm plugs away at calculations
In case you're not already familiar, Blender is an open source 3D creation software that is widely used in the industry. It is free to download and use, making it an affordable option for small studios or freelance designers. Blender has a few built-in render engines, including Cycles and Eevee, that allow you to render your scenes locally on your computer. However, for larger projects, the rendering process can take a long time, and you might need to render multiple scenes simultaneously. Enter the Blender render farm.
The Blender logo
Blender Render Farm vs. Local Rendering
Local rendering is when you render your scene on your own computer. This is the default option in Blender, and it works well for small projects with simple scenes. However, for larger projects with complex scenes, local rendering can be slow and unreliable. A Blender render farm, on the other hand, allows you to distribute the rendering process across multiple machines, which can significantly reduce the time it takes to render a scene.
With a Blender render farm, you can render multiple scenes simultaneously, which means you can complete your project faster. You can also render scenes at a higher resolution without worrying about your computer crashing or running out of memory. Plus, since the rendering is done on separate machines, you can continue working on your computer while the render farm is working in the background.
How an Online Render Farm Can Save You Time and Money
Using an online cloud render farm can save you both time and money on your next project.
The most apparent benefit is that it can significantly reduce the time it takes to render a scene. With a render farm, you can distribute the rendering process across multiple machines, which means you can render your scenes faster. For example, say you need to render a 1000-frame animation, in which each frame takes an hour to render via local rendering. Your animation would take over a month to render locally! If you use a render farm with 100 comparable machines instead, each machine can handle 10 frames simultaneously and your render will be ready in just 10 hours! This can help you deliver your project on time and meet your deadlines.
Additionally, a Blender render farm can reduce the cost of rendering. Since the rendering is done on separate machines, you don't need to invest in expensive hardware to render your scenes. You can rent the computing power you need from a render farm service provider. This can save you thousands on hardware and maintenance costs.
Most importantly, a Blender render farm allows you to improve the quality of your renders. You can render scenes at a higher resolution without worrying about your computer running out of memory. You'll have time to render your scenes with more samples, too, which means your images will have less noise and look more realistic. This is made possible because the rendering process is distributed across a network of many machines, so each machine only has to render a small part of the animation.
The Blender 3.5 splash screen
Factors to Consider When Choosing a Blender Render Farm
When choosing a Blender render farm, there are several factors to consider. First, you need to consider the computing power of the render farm. The more powerful the render farm, the faster it can render your scenes.
Next, you need to consider the price of the render farm. Some render farm services charge based on a subscription, while others have you pay by usage. Many even require you to purchase a set amount of credit prior to rendering. You need to choose a service that offers a pricing model that works for your budget.
You also need to consider the reliability of the render farm. You don't want to choose a provider that has a history of downtime or technical issues. You need to choose a provider that has a proven track record of reliability.
Finally, you need to consider the level of customer support offered by the render farm service provider. You want to choose a provider that offers excellent customer support, so you can get help quickly if you encounter any issues. Any render farm without 24/7 rendering and support is unlikely to meet your needs when it's 2 AM and you need a rendering to meet a deadline the next day.
Online Cloud Render Farms for Blender
Popular Blender render farm service providers include Blendergrid, Sheepit, GarageFarm, and RenderStreet.
Blendergrid allows you to render your work as fast as you want, with faster rendering corresponding to increasing price. One of the best features of Blendergrid is its free price calculator. This allows you to see exactly what you'll pay before you render, which is different from most farms that only provide a rough estimate. One drawback of Blendergrid is, despite its pricing transparency, it tends to be expensive compared to alternatives.
Sheepit is a free and open source render farm that allows users to earn points by rendering other users' scenes. Its main appeal is it provides hobbyists, who often don't have the money for sophisticated hardware, with free rendering. Unfortunately, you must sign up in advance of when you want to render and run their client on your machine to help render other people's work prior to rendering your own. Since it's free, there's often a long queue, which could mean your render takes longer compared to alternative rendering services. As a result, it may not be ideal if you need to meet deadlines, render quickly, or free up your own machine for you to do other work.
GarageFarm offers a pay-as-you-go model that allows you to select various types of nodes to complete your render. It's also the largest company on our list, so they have some extra features most of the smaller Blender render farms don't have, such as a Blender plugin. This can make it more convenient to do rendering, allowing you to render on their farm straight from the Blender app. However, they have limited web support, so if you prefer to upload and render your projects via a web interface, you may prefer another option.
RenderStreet offers monthly subscription plans as well as an on-demand hourly option. The monthly subscription is unique in that it allows you to do as much rendering as you can on a single mid-power machine. This is a great option for some creative professionals with smaller-complexity workloads, but it may not suit the needs of resource-intensive work.
Rentaflop Render Farm
Rentaflop (whose blog you're currently reading 😊) is a fast and affordable Blender render farm. We're the newest and smallest farm on the list, which gives us the ability to offer you exceptional customer support via email, live chat, or even video call, and 24/7 rendering at great prices. In fact, we're the cheapest on-demand render farm on our list, and possibly in the world.
The rentaflop logo
What makes rentaflop so fast and affordable? We're unique because of how we source our hardware. We're the only render farm that pays hardware providers around the world to render your work. Millions of underutilized graphics cards represent untapped potential for helping animators render their work faster and cheaper. Since many of these machines are otherwise underutilized, their owners are happy to put them to work on your high-value render tasks at an affordable rate.
When you render with rentaflop, you can either tap into these resources for maximum savings or utilize our own and trusted partners' hardware for added security. We have two rendering tiers. Our standard tier allows hardware owners across the globe to participate in the render to maximize speed and savings, giving you the cheapest Blender render farm on the market. Our pro tier limits rendering to only machines owned by rentaflop and trusted partners, so your data is always in safe hands.
Rentaflop takes the stress out of finishing your projects because we have a satisfaction or money back guarantee. If something doesn't turn out right or you're not satisfied with the result for any reason, we'll give you a refund within 7 days after the rendering. We're confident you'll be satisfied and won't need a refund, but it's here just in case. You'll never have to submit a $1000 render job and worry about whether you've lost your money ever again.
Blazing fast render speed, industry leading prices, encrypted data for security and privacy, 24/7 rendering with fast support, satisfaction or money back guarantee, and smarter rendering transparency make rentaflop the best Blender render farm on the market!
Don't take our word for it, though. See for yourself.
When you create an account and run our free price calculator on your project, you'll see just how fast and affordable we are! Simply upload your project file(s), and we'll give you the exact price, full render time estimate, plus a few sample frames to download. You'll know everything you need to about your render before you even add a credit card. When you're ready to fully render your project, add your payment info and start the render.
Conclusion
A Blender render farm can save you both time and money on your next project. By harnessing the power of multiple computers, a render farm can significantly reduce rendering times and help you deliver your project on time and within budget. When choosing a Blender render farm service provider, consider factors such as computing power, pricing, reliability, and customer support. With a Blender render farm, you can take your Blender 3D graphics and animations to the next level and create high-quality, photo-realistic images and animations.
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