new AfterBurner network -- plz critique

My opinion, FWIW, would be that you will save a bit of render time with copying footage locally, but it is a potential asset management nightmare, should your footage ever change (and it may not for the keying job). I would also recomment 1 GB RAM, but that is not based on any scientific data. I wouldn't bother with servers for the Servers, unless you can't find the FSB and proc. speed you need on a lower-end configuration. I'm not sure if a split network will help, but someone here should know.

I use a 4-machine farmette, and deal with video footage by sharing my workstation RAID over the network.

-jeff

Since your proc. speed is a bit slower (2.8 vs. 3.0 MHz) if I read correctly, it will be a bit longer than 15 hrs. Add in some network overhead and a better guess might be 17 hours. But, split it into 2 sessions, and that's less than 10 hours each; in other words, 2 overnight renders.

The estimation displayed in C* is only based on frames rendered. If the comp gets more complex, it will take longer. Conversely, if all the heavy effects and layers are at the start, and the middle to end only has 2 layers with no effects, it will be much faster.

-jeff

1. if you are going single processor for render machines, i'd build them yourself and save a ton. ive built machines with 2 gigs of ram and hyperthreaded P4's for like 800 bucks. http://www.shuttle.com for some real nice/small machines that have built in networking, sound, graphics cards... just add ram, cpu and tiny hard drive. if you want dual proc, then you can still save money buidling them yorself, but those often require rack mounts. a 1U profile machine will cost a ton due to custom motherboards and everythign else. 2U machines will be WAAAY less expensive cuz they can use normal motherboards.

2. i would not copy the footage local, that almost defeats the purpose of automatic rendering. IF you do want to take the time to manually copy project resources local, then i cant recommend enuff alan's combustion archiver application (http://www.handmadedigital.com).

ps- one of my master classes at sigGraph is on network rendering and backbuner. details at http://www.discreet.com



//garyD

gary m. davis // visualz.com
application training specialist
3ds max | combustion
"don't key DV!"

please email me offline because i'd like to get that source at dell and talk to them. im putting together ballpark numbers and configurations for my lecture at sig and this is, indeed, news to me to get gigabit, 1u, dual xeon for that cheap

//garyd@visualz.com



gary m. davis // visualz.com
application training specialist
3ds max | combustion
"don't key DV!"

Dell, catch them on their free second processor deal, and buy the PowerEdge SC1425. The free second proc gets you a box at $800+shipping, $150 for the upgrade to 1GB, and youre done.

Enjoy:)

Yeah, I hear you, 60 hrs isnt unreasonable. Problem is, we have 30 of these renders to get done by end of july. At 60 hours each, Im going to be rendering till december unless i buy some more boxes.