Comments

Cheesehole wrote on 5/23/2002, 1:05 PM
good idea.

has anyone figured out how to network render to an AVI file though? MAX network renders to stills. so does AfterFX, and it uses a trick so you don't need network client/server apps. you just open the project on multiple boxes, and then check a box that says... only render non-existing frames. so each AfterFX box just renders away to one common folder, ignoring any frames that are already in the folder. it's a cheap trick but it works. but still, no network rendering to AVI.

so first VV needs to be able to render to sequential stills! it makes a lot of sense... I look at VV as a great compositing tool just like AfterFX. I don't understand why sequential still output was left out. at least VV has sequential still INPUT now.

then they could use the same trick as AfterFX to give network rendering to Vegas without programming a complicated client and server app.
Luxo wrote on 5/23/2002, 8:34 PM
I second this motion. Make it so!

Luxo
SonyDennis wrote on 5/25/2002, 12:04 AM
How important is it for more than one box to be working on the *same* rendering? Wouldn't it be just as useful to be able to queue up renderings, and have available machines each working on (all of) one rendering?
///d@
seeker wrote on 5/25/2002, 6:46 AM
Dennis,

I think these guys are on to something. As a project grows in length and breadth and uses elaborate layers of effects, its render time to high quality MPEG-2 could mushroom to many hours or conceivably days. Just breaking the project up into pieces and putting each piece on a separate machine has several disadvantages, including the fundamental legal issue of the Vegas Video license. Each machine would require its separately licensed copy of Vegas Video. And then you would need some way of combining the separate renderings into a single rendering ready for the DVD burning software. Perhaps the pieces could be "chapters".

NewTek's LightWave 3D modeling and animation software can encounter render times measured in days or longer for a production. A single frame can take several seconds. Because of that, for several years LightWave has shipped with "ScreamerNet" network rendering software. LightWave is a relatively expensive piece of software, and it is dongle protected so that any temptation to run LightWave on more than one machine is thwarted. With ScreamerNet, LightWave is installed on a single machine and parts of the animation are sent over the network to other machines that have the ScreamerNet process running. ScreamerNet needs no dongle, since it contains only a copy of the LightWave renderer. ScreamerNet can also be used for batch rendering on a single machine. But its main function is to allow you to divide the rendering time by the number of available machines, approximately. For long rendering times, that can be a life saver. I can see how a similar network renderer could be a big help for Vegas on large and/or complex projects.

-- Burton --
swarrine wrote on 5/25/2002, 8:05 AM
I have a friend who has a render "Farm". About 10 dual gig machines, networked and each does a piece of the project. All of it controlled by a specialty software package which assigns parts to each computer, then reassembles. I forget the name of the software, but I can tell you between the machines, software, licenses, etc. it cost a small fortune.

While it would be nice to have, I hope SF concentrates on various other things that are more needed.
kkolbo wrote on 5/25/2002, 9:29 AM
For me, I would like a render client that I can legally use on my other machine to que up renders and turn it loose while I edit or burn on my primary machine. That would entail a Legal use of a render engine on the other machine and just the ability to que up renders. I have asked about this a couple of times but no one will answer it. The render engine could just be a reduced price license of VV to use on the other machine.

$.02 deposited.

K
Cheesehole wrote on 5/25/2002, 10:59 PM
>>> but I can tell you between the machines, software, licenses, etc. it cost a small fortune.

I'm not sure this is typical though. 3dsmax for example is expensive ($3500), but you can run network rendering clients on as many PC's as you want with no additional license (similar to lightwave). I have 6 semi-powerful PC's and would love to have a few of them rendering the same Vegas project. if I can cut a 3 day render down to 1 day I'm really happy :)
PixelStuff wrote on 5/27/2002, 2:52 PM
I've been giving this a great deal of thought over the last year or so. The only draw back to network rendering, that I can see, in Vegas is the bandwidth limitations of current networks. Rendering a file from 3DSmax only needs to download the scene description file which is fairly small compared to DV source footage. With 3DSmax you still have to transfer the final rendered frame, but you don't have to get 3 or 4 frames from the host computer first. If this kind of transfer is happening on 3-4 computers the data rates could get pretty big. Of course with the new advances of 1Gig Ethernet and 10gig Eithernet it would be nice to already have the technology implemented.

Sonic Foundry seems to be one to plan for the future, I think they should add nework rendering for the future even if it is a little slow now. I thought that's what they were doing with CPU only rendering - planning for the future. Just think what Vegas will do on a new CPU in 5 years. And better yet, what Vegas will do with 4 new CPUs in 5 years.

JBJones
Cheesehole wrote on 5/27/2002, 3:23 PM
>>>And better yet, what Vegas will do with 4 new CPUs in 5 years.

good points. and hopefully by then we'll have multiprocessing *within* each of those CPU's :D