When it comes to rendering, independent 3D studio Lacave Paris maximizes both to beautiful effect

When comparing CPU rendering and GPU rendering, it usually boils down to two things: quality and speed. Generally speaking, if photorealism and the absolute highest quality of final renders are what you are after, CPU is the way to go. When speed is the ultimate need, GPU it is.

But there’s also another important factor: software. There are 3D programs that can only render via CPU. There are others that render purely on GPU. And there are those that can render on either one (not both).

The same choice constantly faces Lacave Paris, a small independent 3D visualization and animation team in France. When you run a studio like theirs, one whose projects vary from visualizing interior design concepts to motion graphics to narrative animation, you have to be versatile with your rendering solutions. To achieve this versatility, Lacave Paris turns to not one but two rendering superfriends: GarageFarm.NET and Xesktop.

As a “small” 3D studio, it’s not cost-efficient for Lacave Paris to set up top-of-the-line spec’d machines for rendering and operate it in-house. So they turn to cloud rendering services GarageFarm and Xesktop for their rendering needs. Otherwise, they’d have plenty of irate clients.

 

Enter Render Farms

The difference between GarageFarm and Xesktop boils down to two things: render farm at scale (GarageFarm) and powerful remote GPU servers (Xesktop).

If you’re not familiar with cloud rendering services (also known as render farms), allow me to explain to you what they are. The short answer is: they are online services that let you connect your computer to multiple powerful, state-of-the-art servers and use these monster machines to do the rendering for you. Think of it like getting into a street fight and suddenly turning into The Hulk.

The longer answer is that all 3D artists know that rendering is a pain in one’s rear side. If you have any experience with 3D, you already know that rendering takes a lot of time. But perhaps you’re not exactly sure what really happens under the hood as you wait for that progress bar to complete.

Rendering 101

In a nutshell, rendering is the process of converting a three-dimensional object from your 3D software into a two-dimensional image that can be displayed properly by a laptop, mobile phone or TV screen. This 3D-to-2D conversion involves a lot of mathematical calculations that your computer’s CPU or GPU has to solve at warp speed, like a trillion math homework due every second. Now depending on your design’s complexity (scale, texture, lighting, shading, particles, etc.), rendering a single image can take hours. If you’re dealing with animation, the time needed for rendering goes up exponentially. Needless to say, it’s going to be hard to meet deadlines when you’re rendering just on your own computer.

That’s where an online render farm like GarageFarm.NET comes in. The render farm lets you connect to very powerful computers (called nodes) whose sole purpose is to render your 3D frames for you. Depending on your budget, you can access multiple nodes that allow you to render multiple frames simultaneously, seriously cutting down on render times. It’s like having an army of elite special forces at your fingertips. No rendering task is too big for this bada** machines.

Now some 3D software only renders on a computer’s GPU and is very specific. That’s where Xesktop comes in. Essentially, you get direct access to the nodes that house multiple powerful GPU cards. The added benefit of Xesktop is that you can run any 3D software on it and use a node just like your own computer but without taxing your own computer. You simply connect to Xesktop, where you get your own Windows desktop, install the software of your choice, and render away!

Lacave Paris’ journey

Now that you have a better understanding of cloud render farms and the rendering process, you can also better appreciate the challenges that Lacave Paris faced when they were starting out. Lacave Paris first started rendering their projects using GarageFarm. They landed on GarageFarm because when they were looking for a render farm to partner with, they realized that not all render farms support Modo, their 3D software of choice back then. The other render farm they looked at back then, unfortunately, ran into lots of trouble with character animation involving .mdd files. When they switched to GarageFarm, the issues were gone.

When Lacave Paris decided to switch to Octane Render (for faster renders), they realized they needed a new rendering solution since Octane isn’t available on GarageFarm, and it only renders using GPUs. Since they were very happy with their experience with GarageFarm, they chose GarageFarm’s GPU server rental service, Xesktop. The speed was incredible, and the 24-hour support was invaluable to the team at Lacave Paris.

“The experience was extremely positive,” Stephane Mordelet, director at Lacave Paris, said about Xesktop.

We’ve talked quite a bit about the work that Lacave Paris has done. For better appreciation, it’s best that you see their work for yourself. Here are a few:

Stepsol

A film for a startup’s commercial presentation, this short animation won awards for the client.

Art d’Arnould

This hybrid of live action footage and photorealistic 3D simply oozes class and sophistication.

Thales

The project required a lot of upstream work to storyboard and script defense scenes with vehicles and military equipment and model the various materials without plan or source files. The challenge was also in the delivery size of the file, a video file in 20,000/3,800 pixels that was then broadcast on a hemispherical screen!

As Lacave Paris works clearly show, excelling in one’s craft takes dedication. It also doesn’t hurt when you have powerful allies like GarageFarm and Xesktop. With these cloud render services, Lacave Paris are not only able to complete projects on time; they are even able to provide real-time updates to clients, something that wouldn’t be possible if they were rendering projects on their own machines. They get improved speed and improved quality on their finished renders, proving that faster rendering doesn’t have to come at the expense of render quality. Cloud render farms like GarageFarm and Xesktop have allowed Lacave Paris to get both.

No reason why you can’t, too.

If you are interested to learn more about cloud render farms, read more here and here.

Director and VFX Artist Cesar Alejandro Turturro’s imagination comes alive through 3D

The year is 1982. High up in the Atlantic skies, two Argentine A4C Skyhawks intercept and harass two British Sea Harrier FRS1’s that were serving as the British Royal Navy’s eyes. But in a spectacular feat of aerial maneuver, the Harriers execute a turn that put them behind the Skyhawks instead. The prey becomes the predator. Meanwhile down below, three Argentine M-5 Daggers, each carrying 250-kilo bombs, fly low, almost kissing the dark swirling waters of the Atlantic, to avoid radar detection and get close enough to the British fleet and rain down fiery destruction…

This is a scene from one of the most important documentaries about the aviation industry produced in Latin America by the History Channel called Malvinas: La Guerra Desde El Aire. Not a single video camera was anywhere near the site of the 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and the UK, but armed with a wealth of film directing experience, and first hand interviews, Cesar Turturro or “Ceturtu” implemented his most powerful tool – his imagination – to bring to life a critical moment in modern world history that would otherwise be only remembered by the pilots and sailors that took part in them.

But you might say, “Hey, this isn’t world building. How can you say that Ceturtu is a world builder? World building is Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings, or Game of Thrones.”

Well dear reader, you are right. Ceturtu’s work with History Channel isn’t world building. Not yet. You see, his work with the History Channel gave him the skills he needed and the time to mature in order to create his masterpiece – Invasion 2040, a post-apocalyptic science fiction series where the Earth is invaded by extraterrestrials and the hope of humanity lies in AI androids. And that dear reader is definitely world building.

But that’s getting ahead of the story.

Imagining the end of the world as we don’t know it

Speaking of post-apocalyptic, Ceturtu’s earlier work for the Latin American version of History Channel’s Life After People, may be closer to the themes he, later on, develops in Invasion 2040. Back in 2008, this series imagined and visualized what could happen to our cities, buildings, and other structures if humans were to disappear off the face of the Earth. The documentaries feature interviews with physicists and engineers who trace the sequence of civilization’s decay, from the first day the Earth becomes human-free up to 10,000 years after we’re gone.

However, what made Life After People one of the most watched shows on History Channel were the visualizations that Ceturtu helped create. From grass overtaking Argentinian roads to wild vegetation reclaiming Peruvian buildings to the crashing of the Redentor Christ in Brazil, the Buenos Aires Obelisco and other landmarks of Latin America after centuries of disrepair, Ceturtu’s 3D renderings of things that have never happened (or is soon to come! Hello, global warming) kept people intrigued episode after episode.

Imagining non-human intelligent life

That kind of covers Ceturtu’s first encounter with the post-apocalyptic. Contacto Extraterrestre, another History Channel mini-series in 2013, introduced him to the possibility of extraterrestrial presence on Earth across history. And it tantalized him. The show investigated the most relevant UFO cases and sightings, interviewing experts and eyewitnesses in search of answers to the ultimate question of whether we are alone in the universe. Ceturtu supervised the VFX production for the show, leading him to imagine what extraterrestrial biology and interstellar travel-worthy spacecraft could be like.

Birth of his masterpiece

All these experiences converge and culminate in Ceturtu’s latest and soon-to-be-released (as of writing) work, Invasion 2040. If the multi award-winning prequel to it – Genesys One – is any indication, Invasion 2040 looks to be amazing alchemy of live action filmmaking, storytelling, world-building, and visual effects. Take a look at Genesys One for yourself.

If that didn’t excite you enough, here’s the trailer for Invasion 2040. It’s like Transformers meets the Last of Us.

The work behind the magic

Even for just a trailer like that, you can’t pull that off without being deep in film and 3D craft. Ceturtu has 20 combined years of working behind the camera and in front of a computer. He formed his own studio, CreaVision, in 2001 and started getting more involved in the 3D industry in 2011. His history with the History Channel Latin America gave him the opportunity to master rigging, texturing, animation, and rendering.

And for a project as complex as Invasion 2040 and Genesys One, even a master like Ceturtu needed help. He turned to Xesktop. If you’ve watched the links above, you’d see how much detail goes into every frame, detail that would take really long to render without the help of a GPU rental service. Here’s how Ceturtu tells it:

“I sent some complex scenes where there was a lot of noise or volumetric stuff on it. Some characters in Invasion have a lot of reflections and detail. Or in other scenes, there are a lot of objects in huge scenarios. The aircraft must fly over thousands of meters. So you need it all over the scene. It’s impossible with my own GPU to get a very realistic and high quality scene with lots of volumetric cloud. All of it was rendered in a short time with Xesktop. Very practical.”

And as any 3D artist would know by experience, a lot of issues can crop up during rendering. Especially when you’re dealing with a huge number of frames. That’s why for Ceturtu, Xesktop’s real-time support was crucial:

“The good communication and the easy-to-use app were perfect. I got to send and receive the material with no problems. All issues were solved by the staff. Good compatibility with my software, good communication, good price… this is why I always recommend Xesktop.”

Ceturtu looks forward to new developments in 3D to inject more realism into his imagined worlds. Some of the new technology that can help him in his work are:

“Scanned models, high quality humans with realistic expressions–these will make a huge change in the filmmaking industry, allowing small productions to make very high quality scenes, where it would be impossible to do in real life (stunts, extras actors, film equipment, etc.)”

And for him, the future definitely includes GPU rendering:

“Today, big GPUs allow us to make the biggest simulation particles, realistic rendering, huge scenes, with a lot of models, trillions of polygons, you can illuminate, animate, watch in real time how your scene will look. This is priceless.”

There you have it. Watch out for the release of Ceturtu’s Invasion 2040. If you want to learn more about him and his work, click here.

Find out more about Xesktop and how it can help you in your 3D projects here.

Powerful GPU Rendering With Octane

When it comes to 3D GPU rendering, Octane will always be on the top list. Despite being relatively new in the market, this rendering engine is highly regarded. It promises the speed and quality rendering that 3D artists are surely aiming for.

In this article, we’ll dive deeper into this GPU rendering engine, find out whether it lives up to its reputation as one of the best when it comes to unbiased rendering, and give you necessary points that could be valuable in deciding whether this product is worth a purchase. 

What is OctaneRender?

As per Otoy’s description, OctaneRender is the fastest unbiased GPU render engine capable of providing unparalleled quality and speed. In simple terms,  will allow you to create digital reality quickly and easily.

Also, OctaneRender is one of the pioneers of GPU rendering and is currently one of the leading GPU render engines. This is probably partly because the product can integrate with a wide array of plugins for digital content creation such as Modo, LightWave, Maya, and 3ds Max. Plus the platform is known for its user-friendliness. Even new 3D artists will be less likely to have a hard time working their way around the engine. OctaneRender enables its users to concentrate on the artistic side rather than the technical side of things.

OctaneRender’s Key Features

OctaneRender is feature-packed. In this article, however, we’ll only cover the functionalities that take the product apart from its competitors.

Fully GPU-based

OctaneRender leverages the power of the GPU. It claims to have the ability to quickly render final quality images, specifically 10 to 50 times faster than its CPU-based rendering engine counterpart. On top of that, the engine can scale nearly absolutely. It is capable of handling multiple GPUs. With every GPU added to your system, you can expect a boost in its performance.

Standalone Application

One of the features unique to OctaneRender is its standalone application. Of course, the platform still comes with add-on plugins.

With the standalone application, a scene will be imported to the platform from 3D modeling software. Once the scene is already on the standalone platform, you’ll have the freedom to adjust lightings and materials as you wish. To give you maximum interactivity, the rendering settings and render resolution are lower. When the scene is ready for final rendering, the platform boosts the resolution and increases the render settings. The rendering can be completed in a matter of minutes.

Octane’s standalone application can be a very useful tool because it gives you the opportunity to test a wide array of elements. 

Insanely Fast & Responsive Preview

OctaneRender’s preview window is probably the most impressive and responsive in the digital content space. Depending on the plug-in, you can get quick access to the focus point selection, material selection, and AOV or render layer preview. 

Material Library

OctaneRender comes with various materials which are easier to comprehend, making it ideal for new 3D artists. It also supports subsurface light scattering (SSS), chromatic dispersion, and complex IOR to name some, enabling artists to create the best materials possible. Artists can also create complicated materials using the platform’s node editor. Furthermore, this render engine supports toon shaders, metallic materials, and allows the import of complex PBR textures. 

Huge Octane Community

It is not a built-in feature but still worth mentioning as it can be of huge help in figuring out how to make the most of the engine. Octane’s Facebook group has over 30k members. There’s also an Octane community on Reddit and other forums so there’s a lot of channels where you can find valuable Octane-related information.

Supported Software

OctaneRender supports the following platforms:

• Linux (64-bit)
• Windows 7 or higher
• macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra 

If you will be using Windows or Linux, you’ll need a recent NVIDIA driver while a CUDA runtime file is required for macOS.

Pricing

OctaneRender, given its power, isn’t cheap. The lowest price offered by its developer is over 600 Euro billed on an annual basis. Their pricing structure is a bit confusing. If you want to know more about the pricing details of this product, don’t be shy to visit their website. 

The Drawbacks

OctaneRender is undeniably powerful but it isn’t perfect, just like every other software out there. We won’t omit the drawbacks of the engine so you could make a deliberate decision.

We’ve mentioned that this engine requires NVIDIA GPU to work on Linux and Windows. It could be an issue for those who lack resources but it is not really a deal-breaker.

Also, since Octane is GPU-based and it uses VRAM video cards, it has limited storage capacity. This can lead to several issues, such as fewer polygons rendered in the scene and low quality of textures and solutions, like fur displacement and motion blur. In this case, you might want to use a more powerful engine like Nvidia to offload memory to RAM. 

If you have a tight budget, you can also try renting a GPU. Xesktop, a GPU rental service provider, offers powerful GPUs for rent at reasonable prices. It’s an ideal option for 3D artists who wish to cut the time they need to render their graphics but lack the funds to purchase the necessary equipment. 

So far, those are the only disadvantages of the engine. 

If you wish to know more about the product and know whether there are other cons, the vendor offers a free trial. It is also a great opportunity to see whether the product suits your preferences before you make a purchase.

OctaneRender Vs. Other GPU Rendering Engines

OctaneRender isn’t the only GPU rendering product in the market these days. There’s Redshift, VRay, and Arnold to mention some. 

Each of them has its respective strengths and weaknesses. But if you are looking for quick, quality results, OctaneRender is a go-to. 

Generally, the best will still depend on your preferences. But one thing is for sure – Octane is definitely a powerful GPU rendering engine. And it is worth a try. Besides, it offers a free trial so you can see things for yourself without risks involved. 

As a 3D artist, you probably have already experienced waiting for hours just to render your creative project. If you are using a low-end device, rendering a still image may even take a whole day to finish. It can be a headache especially if you are on a tight deadline or just have tons of animations in line for post-production.

Not only is rendering time-consuming, but it is also resource-intensive. It demands multiple computer components, including your graphics card, your hard drive, RAM, and the 3D software to operate in unison. The quality of the aforementioned components also matters. If your graphics card is low end or your RAM does not have sufficient capacity, you won’t be able to render your work at a high speed.

But you are probably already aware of all of these things, and chances are you found your way here because you do not have a high-powered graphics-processing unit (GPU) capable of rendering your 3D works seamlessly. Also, you may have landed on this post because you want to know more about GPU server rentals and you’re considering hiring a server rental service to ditch your underpowered GPU.

In this seven-minute read, we’ll talk about everything you need to know about server rentals—what a GPU Server Rental is, who should use it, and when should you use it.

What is GPU Rental?

In its simplest definition, a GPU rental means offering a server in the cloud for rent. Since the server is in the cloud, you can connect to and use it remotely. It allows you to have a powerful workstation without actually having an actual GPU server at your workplace.

A GPU server rental can be used by different professionals for various purposes. Since it is in the cloud and accessible anywhere, it can be used for collaborating with teams from opposite ends of the world. It can also be used by businesses that deal with massive overhead on hardware and need to constantly upgrade their system, as well as creative professionals including 3D artists whose hardware cannot keep up with their project requirements to mention some.

Usually, the dedicated server comes with a high-end GPU and other specifications, such as high RAM memory. With a high-end machine, GPU server rental is a good option if you need to finish rendering a 3D work quickly, have large projects, or unexpected tight deadlines but do not have the right device to get the job done nor the resources to buy a new one.

Unlike building your own personal computer or upgrading your existing hardware, which is one of the options to speed up rendering (and costly), renting a GPU server gives you more for less. You can enjoy a high-end, up-to-date machine and experience fast and seamless 3D GPU rendering even if your local computer is a bit outdated or has low specs.

You do have to pay the cost of rent, but it costs way less than buying your own computer with high specifications. For instance, if you want to get the best of the GPU cards which is currently the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, you would need to invest hundreds of dollars. If you upgrade every individual hardware part of your computer such as the RAM, you would have to prepare a hefty amount.

On the other hand, with a GPU server rental, you can have them for a fraction of the price. For instance, Xesktop, one of the leading GPU server rental providers, only charges $6 to $8 per hour. It offers powerful servers that can be equipped with either of two specifications:

Server 1. specs

• 10x GTX 1080Ti 11GB vRAM
• CPU: 2x Intel Xeon E5 v4 8-core 3.0 GHz
• RAM: 256 GB
• OctaneBench: 2,093

Serve 2 specs

• 8x Tesla P100 16GB vRAM
• CPU: 2x Intel Xeon E5 v4 10-core 3.2 GHz
• RAM: 256 GB
• OctaneBench: 2,055

Server 3 specs

• 8x Tesla V100 16GB vRAM
• CPU: 2x Intel Xeon E5 v4 10-core 3.2 GHz
• RAM: 256 GB

At this rate, you can rent and use as many powerful GPUs as you need or want. Xesktop also offers helpful guides to help 3D artists find the best 3D rendering solutions.

If you are to build a personal computer with the aforementioned specifications, it will cost you thousands of dollars.

You might think that building your own computer would be less expensive than renting one in the long run. Fair enough. But would you still wait to acquire a huge sum of money before being able to render your 3D works quickly? On top of that, it is hard to acquire the latest graphics card or CPU considering how fast these components develop.

Aside from cost-efficiency, a GPU server rental is also known for its unparalleled speed. You can get access to high-end graphic cards which can give you a substantial rendering speed boost.

How to Use GPU Servers Rental?

It’s simple. Xesktop, for instance, lets you create an account, log in to their web dashboard, choose the machine you want to use, and get the necessary credentials to get started. Getting started is typically a walk in the park. And if there are certain things you do not understand, they have a support team who offers help.

Once you’re done, you’ll get a blank desktop that you can use as your own local computer. It gives you full control of what tools or software to install. In terms of 3D software, Xesktop supports most of the commonly used platforms such as Cinema 4D, Maya, 3ds Max, Lightwave, Daz 3D, and Blender.

Afterward, you can start transferring your files from and to the server using cloud drivers such as Google Drive, third-party File Transfer Protocol (FTP) services, or by copying directly through Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

How Do GPU Rental Servers Differ from Render Farms

In terms of rendering 3D graphics, you probably have already come across the word “render farms”. It’s not surprising since this service has been around for more than a decade and is considered as one of the ideal solutions when it comes to rendering. Well, there is a good reason behind it.

A render farm consists of various high-end computers linked with each other to make rendering fast, seamless, and less of a headache. They are mostly automated systems. All you have to do is send the source file to the render farm and the farm software will distribute your file to various computers on its network. The connected computers will then perform every stage of the rendering process simultaneously. They will do the heavy lifting, and even give you the final product quickly.

So if a render farm does a great job at rendering your 3D works, why should you still consider leasing a GPU server?

Well, GPU server rentals offer something that isn’t available in render farms – flexibility. The service gives you access to a blank system. You may still need to do all those mundane tasks such as installing a render engine and 3D software, but it also means you get the opportunity to make adjustments to your files and render directly from your DCC GUI from within a rented server. It will allow you to identify issues immediately. No need to reach out to the technical support of your chosen server rental service provider to discuss issues. But in case the need for assistance arises, server rental service providers like Xesktop still provide 24/7 live support.

Additionally, GPU server rentals give you improved control over your projects at the fraction of the cost of hiring an in-house team. It also allows you to work on a high-powered machine on the go, seamlessly carry outside tasks such as caching and baking, and solves the dreaded long queue problem with render farms.

Should You Use GPU Server Rental?

The answer will depend on your preferences, requirements, and purpose.

If you are a 3D artist who wants full control over the rendering process, then you will undoubtedly benefit from renting a GPU dedicated server. You will be the one to do everything. The GPU rental service will only lease GPU.

GPU server rental is also an option if you have a high clientele and are working on high-end animations and motion graphics so you need access to a huge GPU rendering power. Or if you are just fed up waiting hours after hours for the rendering to finish.

But if you don’t like working on the technical aspects, such as installing each and every software required for post-production of your 3D works, the render farm will suit your requirements better. You don’t have to do anything but wait until the rendering of all your submitted source files is finished. It’s convenient.

What’s Next?

In today’s digital world, cloud computing is becoming the new norm. It has allowed us to do things in a faster and more scalable way with more efficiency but fewer costs. This same technology has made it possible to make the typically time-consuming rendering of 3D graphics faster through the GPU rent cloud. It gives 3D artists the processing power they require to finish high caliber works and meet even the most intense, last-minute deadlines. On top of that, you only pay for what you use.

GPU server rental services, like Xesktop, are a powerful tool for 3D artists. It lets you have as many powerful render machines as you need at any moment. So instead of worrying about the processing capacity, an artist can focus on their job which is to get creative.

With the information on GPU Server rentals presented above, you gained something that could help you as a 3D artist. Hopefully, the knowledge helps you as you embark on the journey towards finding a powerful GPU server to rent for smoother and faster rendering.

To learn more about Xesktop and it works, watch this video:

Good luck with your 3D rendering experience!

You found your way here probably because you have a project you’re working on or will be working on any time soon and you know that the few years old PC or Mac you own likely won’t be able to render this beautiful CG animation within a reasonable time.

Assuming your render engine of choice is one of the capable GPU rendering powerhouses – Redshift or Octane, you will have a few options to consider to prepare yourself for the upcoming rendering terror.

If you do it right, the terror can turn into an enjoyable walk in the park. If done wrong, well, it’s not the end of the world. You will be left with your computer rendering your frames for days or even weeks. If you happen to own two computers or have a lot of time on your hands, then that might be an acceptable condition. For those of us who don’t have that much of a luxury, we will try to approach this situation with a sound plan.

First, let’s take a 10,000-foot view of the options we have. We don’t want to jump into conclusions too soon while we don’t want to stay with our heads in the clouds for too long either. We want to be pragmatic.

GPU rendering solutions

We could look at all the possible GPU rendering solutions available out there at this time. However, I’m worried that this post would potentially turn into one of those SIGGRAPH technical papers you wish you had time to read. I will look at three viable solutions any of the 3D artists or small studios could implement without too much effort now. I considered these solutions because they are accessible, they are affordable (with certain levels of variance), and most importantly anyone who has very little technical knowledge and no IT experience at all can implement them by themselves.

The solutions are:
– hardware upgrade
– GPU server rental
– cloud render farm

Hardware upgrade

When I was a kid (6th or 7th grade) and got my first PC I was astounded. I loved everything about it. I was really curious about what’s inside and how it worked. I would replace some parts and even take the whole computer apart (with the help of my older friend). That was many years ago, and even though I still feel like I’m that kid inside, now I prefer simpler out of the box solutions.

That being said, I would rather not spend too much time tinkering with the hardware, researching what’s the latest and best CPU or GPU, and then building my computer from scratch. I would rather spend more time using the computer and doing creative work.

There is something that I would do though and I think anyone else can do as well and it is to upgrade or invest in certain hardware parts in a computer I already have (I’m a PC user so I can’t speak for you Apple lovers out there).

Getting a good motherboard with enough PCIe lanes (for multi GPU setups), good power supply, and a good graphics card isn’t that hard and it doesn’t require that much effort. It does require some time to do basic research though. The parts might not be that cheap either if we’re going for a rendering machine that will serve us well at least 3 to 5 years down the line.

Let’s take a look at a few key parts and their prices. I’m not going to go into details because I’m not an expert. I just want you to get a general idea of what’s out there.

Motherboard

AMD: Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra – AMD 3rd Gen Ryzen supported motherboard with 2x PCIe x16 slots (2x GPU cards), great for upper mid-range PC builds // $300 (link)

Intel: Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Ultra – 10th Gen Intel supported motherboard with 2x PCIe x16 slots (2x GPU cards), great for upper mid-range PC builds // $300 (link)

Power supply

Corsair AXi 1600 Watt will handle 4x RTX 2080Ti cards, 64GB RAM, TBs of storage, and extra cooling // $550 (link)

Here’s a useful link to a PSU calculator.

Graphics card

RTX 2080Ti – 304 OctaneBench 4 – a beast of a GPU card but very pricey // $2,000
RTX 2060 – 170 OctaneBench 4 – probably best GPU per dollar spent //  $350

Check out this super useful performance per dollar benchmark results based on OctaneBench 4.

Alternatively, if you have some decent savings or got an upfront payment for a large project, you could also invest in a PC built by BOXX, for instance, who are known for building rendering beasts. You can choose a model of a GPU rendering workstation that matches your needs, simply customize the parts you want like the CPU, RAM, storage, GPU cards, and you will have a render box delivered to your door. It’s pricey but if you want peace of mind and want to save time, then go for it. Here’s one of their rendering workstations – APEXX x4 (with 4 GPU slots).

Price: $9,395
– Intel i9-10900X 3.7Ghz
– 128GB RAM
– 1x RTX 2080Ti 11GB (with additional 3 slots for possible GPU upgrade)
– 1TB SSD NVMe + 500GB SSD SATA

Now, it’s a bit of an investment to get a PC like this but as with any good investment, it should yield good returns over time. Another upside is that with the setup like this you could buy a few more GPU cards in the future and get a substantial speed boost without much hassle.

GPU server rental

When I say server rental I mean servers in the cloud we can connect to and work on via remote desktop. You could also rent a physical server. Some companies specialize in building powerful rendering rigs and they rent them per day. Those tend to be expensive and we won’t talk about them here.

So why would I need some server in the cloud?

Well, the answer is quite simple – speed and price. Contrary to a still common belief that has stuck around since the dawn of modern cloud computing 20 or so years ago (AWS launched in 2006, also read: a brief history of cloud computing), the cloud isn’t expensive. It used to be but it isn’t anymore.

Another belief is that using cloud computers or cloud rendering as a whole is too difficult and too technically challenging. I’m here to tell you that it isn’t true. Again it might have been true 10 years ago and even 5 years ago but now it’s a very different story. Now we have SaaS (Software as a Service) clouds that are very friendly.

Technology and tools have improved to the point that there are artists who thought they would never be able to understand what’s all the deal with the cloud, now use it daily (I’m one of them). True, they still might not understand how it works (me again) but the point is it has been made possible thanks to artist-friendly services built on top of the complex cloud technology.

These services allow you to rent a powerful server, one that you could only dream of owning, at an affordable price. You can get access to GPU rendering servers that can easily cost upwards of $25,000 (what!) at the fraction of the cost. Who wouldn’t want that?

Imagine having a machine with 10x 1080Ti on board? You can have one just like it a few clicks and a few minutes later. How about a server with multiple Tesla V100? Yes, please! I might even have two!

It’s very simple and takes no time to set up. You create an account, log in to the web dashboard, select the type of machine you want to use, give it a name, and hit “start”. A few minutes later you have a machine you can connect to remotely. It’s like having your computer, the difference is you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to buy it.

You can install your 3D software and any tools that you normally use for work. You can shut it down any time you’re done using it. You can rent it for a few minutes or a few days at a time. You are in full control of how you use it and when you use it.

You might think “I’d rather buy my computer, it’s cheaper”. Fair enough. Not everyone can afford to invest a hefty amount of money upfront in hardware. You could save up and get your own computer like that. The problem is it’s practically impossible to have the latest graphics card or CPU because as soon as you buy one, there will be a new one 3-6 months from now. Not to mention, while one rendering rig is great to have when you’re just starting or don’t do much animation work, at some point you will need more rendering power.

Services that offer GPU server rental give you a lot of flexibility and peace of mind. You can use them as your main go-to-rendering solution or have it as a backup plan for unexpected tight deadlines or large projects. However you choose to use it, it’s a great addition to your current GPU rendering pipeline. Don’t take my word for it. Test it for yourself. For example, through Xesktop service you can get a trial that will allow you to test the powerful GPU machines and see if you like what you see before you commit.

Cloud render farms

You might have heard the term render farm quite a few times by now. You might have even considered building your render farm. It’s not that hard putting a few Xeon render nodes together after all, isn’t it? Well, honestly it takes quite a bit of time and effort so probably it isn’t a solution for someone like me (but you should decide for yourself, some useful pointers).

Cloud render farms as a service is something that has been around for over a decade. In its early days, the technology wasn’t sophisticated enough nor there was a high enough demand for rendering in the cloud and thus cloud rendering wasn’t popular at all. On top of that, the common concern was questionable security and bandwidth limitations. In 2020, we don’t need to worry about security or internet speed anymore (for the most part). The demand for rendering has been gradually increasing and technological development reached a point where cloud rendering isn’t only a viable option for studios but also freelance artists.

There are a few large public cloud providers like Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure with massive infrastructures and thousands of machines available for processing and rendering. They don’t provide a cloud render farm as a service themselves, however, if you’re tech-savvy or are a studio with an IT team, you can build your private render farm on top of their cloud computing platform. IBM has a very good learning resource exploring basic cloud computing topics https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/cloud-computing.

There are also dedicated cloud render farm services either built on top of those large public clouds or they have their own private clouds (a.k.a. their own data centers and their own hardware). These types of services are much higher in numbers these days which is a good thing because competition often breeds innovation. One service that knows a lot about innovation and what it means to be artist-friendly is GarageFarm. You might want to check out their GPU rendering offer, you won’t regret it https://garagefarm.net/gpu.

Now, I talked about the server rental services earlier and how they are easy to get started and how affordable they are. Cloud render farms have gone a long way too and what you can get today is really a game-changer.

But first, you might be wondering.

What is the real difference between a GPU server rental service and a cloud render farm service?

Simple answer, they both are GPU cloud services and they both are GPU rendering solutions. However, their approach to the solution is a little different.

The GPU server rental services give you more control over the rendering process and, in general, offer more flexibility. It’s simply another computer you can use to render your project on, not much different from rendering locally on your machine. It also means you need to install your own 3D software and render engine on the computer because usually, it’s a blank system.

The cloud render farms or the GPU cloud render farms (P.S. they aren’t always both CPU and GPU compatible), aren’t as flexible as they follow a certain workflow but are mostly automated systems. You basically install a plugin for your DCC app and send your project to the farm through their software. Then you interface with a web dashboard or some desktop app where you submit and manage your render jobs. You won’t be rendering your scenes on your computer and you won’t be rendering them through a 3D app GUI as you do locally. Instead, all the processing and rendering happens somewhere else on the farm’s end through the network rendering system, and what you get back, in the end, is your rendered frames downloaded to you.

Why would I want to use a cloud render farm?

Cloud render farms are very convenient and very powerful, much more powerful than renting a GPU server or a few servers (even the mightiest of them all). They are convenient because, for the most part, you don’t have to worry about installing and configuring any complex software. All you do is you work with the tools that you’re already using and are familiar with.

The render farm plugin for 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Blender or any DCC app you’re using takes care of all the heavy lifting for you. It will detect all your settings and it will prepare the project for rendering on the farm automatically. After all, your data is uploaded to the farm and a few clicks later, you will get access to dozens or even hundreds of machines dedicated to your project. At this point, you just have to wait for the finished frames to download back to your computer.

Imagine having 20 or 50 or even more machines with powerful GPUs rendering all at the same time? At this speed, rendering a few hundred frame animation would be a breeze. And all that without any hassle, no upfront investment, and for the price that is accessible for most of the artists.

What’s best for me?

If you’re a freelancer with moderate rendering needs and do 1-2 projects a month, I would suggest investing in a good computer you can rely on. Occasionally, you might look into renting a GPU server for several hours here and there.

If you’re a freelancer with a high clientele often busting out high-end motion graphics and animations, you would need access to large GPU rendering power on-demand to chew through the projects efficiently. In this case, you should go either for GPU rental or use a GPU cloud render farm. Both will do. It’s up to your preference what solution suits you better and the frequency you use them with.

If you’re a small but growing studio with regular work coming in and increasing demand for high-end animation work, you would probably want to consider integrating your pipeline with a cloud render farm. You would want it to be always there as a tried and true tool in your CG toolbox.

Next step

Now that we discussed the most common viable solutions to GPU rendering and some use cases, it’s time for you to look at your needs more closely and think about where you are.

Are you a freelancer who is just starting out? Are you an established freelancer with high demand for animation work? Are you a studio taking on larger projects? How much money do you have saved up? How much can you invest in your business upfront without feeling the impact?

Even if you aren’t pressured by a looming deadline or don’t need to think about a rendering solution at this stage, you might want to consider educating yourself a little and maybe even taking a small step into the future and experimenting with what’s out there. You might be surprised how simple and harmless certain solutions are. You might discover that you could become a more effective, efficient, and capable artist or business. Who knows? It doesn’t take much effort and you have literally nothing to lose (a lot to gain though).

Happy rendering,
Lucas B.