How do Render servers work?

[Shutset]

Lately, I've been interested in building my own server and have been looking into the things I could use it for.

One use that caught my eye was using it as a render server for your 3D and video editing.

 

So yes, this is a noobs question but when I'm doing all my work on my main desktop, how do I get a separate server machine to do all the rendering work for it?

 

Thanks.

[jaslion]

6 minutes ago, Shutset said:

Lately, I've been interested in building my own server and have been looking into the things I could use it for.

One use that caught my eye was using it as a render server for your 3D and video editing.

 

So yes, this is a noobs question but when I'm doing all my work on my main desktop, how do I get a separate server machine to do all the rendering work for it?

 

Thanks.

Basically you give the "farm" the project and it will render it out for you. For example blender allows you to setup a network of clients that will spread out the load on a single file.

However having a rendering system for yourself is kinda pointless unless you do a lot of work constantly where you really need to be able to use your main pc without hitches.

[Eigenvektor]

It's a bit like Folding@Home. You have one machine handing out jobs and lots of clients processing these jobs. When it comes to rendering the collection of clients is usually called a render farm. The client (software) is usually installed on a server (machine) which can get a bit confusing It's a specific use case of "distributed computing".

 

This makes the most sense for someone like a movie studio where you have to render thousands of images and each image can take hours to render. If you distribute that across hundreds or even thousands of computers things go a lot faster (well, not really faster, but because you can render multiple images at once stuff is completed more quickly overall).

 

As @jaslion said, software like Blender explicitly supports that. You install a render client on each machine that you want to render for you and then use your work machine to distribute jobs to these machines. So the the answer to "how do I get my server to do stuff for me" would be: Use software that supports distributing work across multiple machines.

[Shutset]

16 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

As @jaslion said, software like Blender explicitly supports that. You install a render client on each machine that you want to render for you and then use your work machine to distribute jobs to these machines. So the the answer to "how do I get my server to do stuff for me" would be: Use software that supports distributing work across multiple machines.

Is there a render client for Adobe Creative Suite CS6?

Forget about CC, I like to save my money as long as I have Adobe full stop.

[Eigenvektor]

3 minutes ago, Shutset said:

Is there a render client for Adobe Creative Suite CS6?

Forget about CC, I like to save my money as long as I have Adobe full stop.

Not overly familiar with Adobe products, but a quick Google search says there might be something for After Effects: https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/automated-rendering-network-rendering.html and that CS6 added better support or something.

Quote

After Effects CS5.5 had to be serialized on render-only machines due to licensing issues. In After Effects CS6 and later, you can now run aerender or use Watch Folder in a non-royalty bearing mode, so serialization not required.

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, Shutset said:

Is there a render client for Adobe Creative Suite CS6?

Forget about CC, I like to save my money as long as I have Adobe full stop.

There is a pretty good way to do it for after effects, 

 

FOr premiere, just run it on the other system and remote in. 

 

You can also have media encoder encode when a file is in a watch folder.