Fox Renderfarm Blog

In recent years, Disney has been keen to remake classic animations and has released live-action versions of Maleficent, Beauty and the Beast. They have achieved amazing consistency between the 3D picture and the original animated picture. It can be said that the 2D animation lens is perfectly restored.Reference picture from Beauty and the Beast There is only one magic weapon to do this - Special Effects!In a VFX movie, these gorgeous effects are 24 pictures per second, even a short 10-second special effect. For the artist who produces the special effect, that is 240 pictures, and sometimes for production needs, And divides a screen into multiple layers. To meet the needs of rendering, most VFX studios choose to rent a commercial render farm for rendering. Of course, there are also a few companies that build their own render farm.But now the CG industry has appeared a technology called cloud rendering, also known as rendering in the cloud.Cloud rendering is to upload materials to the cloud, and remotely use the hardware of those companies that have cloud computing systems to render.This means that no matter where the artist is, he can use cloud rendering to complete the work quickly and easily. It's easy to use, the price is reasonable, and you can perform rendering operations no matter what time and place, without spending time to maintain.RegistrationTo use a cloud rendering service, you need to register with the platform first. Like Fox Renderfarm, there is $25 free credits for every new registration.Project UploadLog in and upload your project with the platform.RenderingThe system will automatically analyze and render your project.Project DownloadDownload the rendered frames with a few simple clicks.And, according to the urgency, you can arrange the order of rendering and monitor the progress of rendering anytime, anywhere. In addition, cloud rendering computing technology can also divide one or more rendering tasks into several parts, which are simultaneously rendered by each node in the cluster, thereby reducing the overall rendering time and shortening the movie production process.For example, if A wants to render a 60-second special effect, 24 pictures in 1 second, the cloud rendering can automatically distribute these 1,440 pictures to 24 machines, and each machine renders 60 pictures. In this way, the rendering time becomes 1/24, and the producer no longer has to worry about rendering issues!The pricing method of cloud rendering is likened to a "home electric meter", and only charges when it is usedThe development of cloud rendering is the general trend.Due to the special nature of film production, special effects studios do not always have something to do, but as soon as they receive production needs, they need to focus and render a large number of materials. If you build your own render farm, you also have to bear the burden of intermittent idle hardware, and cloud rendering is the best solution.Mr. Hublot won the 86th Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film with rendering support by Foxrenderfarm in 2014Another advantage of cloud rendering is that it lowers the threshold for special effects production. It allows small studios to also afford high-quality material rendering, which undoubtedly brings new changes to the CG industry. For example, Mr. Hublot, which won the 86th Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2014, was produced by an animation team using Foxrenderfarm's cloud rendering technology. This allows many teams to see more hope and the opportunity to bring more high-quality work.Three Robots of Love, Death, and Robots，which also rendered by Fox RenderfarmFox Renderfarm is a leading cloud render farm service in the industry. Since the foundation in 2009, Fox Renderfarm has earned a good reputation for its quality performance, great customer service and flexible pricing scheme.

With the rapid development of 3D movies in recent years, VFX movies have also received more and more attention. From the point of view of the box office of European movies, the top 5 movies Avengers: Endgame, Avatar, Titanic, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Infinity War. They are almost inseparable from VFX production. And Disney relied on the 3D animated film Frozen series, sweeping $ 2.574 billion in the world, creating a new record for the global animated film box office.image via internetWhy do you need to use a render farm? Rendering is indispensable behind these movies, and rendering is almost done by various render farms of all sizes.Rendering is the later part of 3D animation production, and rendering is a very time-consuming step in the later stage. An 80-minute animated movie can often be rendered in thousands to tens of thousands of hours.In the animated film COCO, 29,000 lights were used in the scene of the train station; 18,000 lights were in the cemetery; 2000 RenderMan practical lights were used in the Undead World. The production team used the RenderMan API to create 700 special point cloud lights, which expanded to 8.2 million lights. These massive lights are a nightmare for the rendering artist. For the production requirements, the test can not complete such a huge rendering. They once tested rendering and found that these light-filled shots actually took 1,000 hours per frame! They continued their research and shortened it to 125 hours and 75 hours. The rendering time of one frame at the time of final production was 50 hours and one frame. The movie is 24 frames per second, 1440 frames per minute, if a movie is calculated as 90 minutes. That 1440 frames * 90 minutes = 129600 frames, 129600 * 50 = 6480000 hours. Converted into adulthood is 740 years?image via internet"To render Avatar, Weta Digital used a 10,000-square-foot server farm. There are 4,000 servers with a total of 35,000 processor cores. The average time to render a single frame is 2 hours, 160 minutes of video. The overall rendering time takes 2880000 hours, which is equivalent to 328 years of work for one server! "image via internetIf the rendering work is only on a general computer, this is almost impossible. So the production team created its own render farm, powerful machine performance and huge number to complete such a huge amount of work.For small teams, studio, freelancer, and individual producers, rendering take the same time. If they want to spend a lot of time using the computer for rendering work, this is undoubtedly a time-consuming thing, and they are unacceptable. These various reasons, coupled with uncontrollable factors such as computer crashes, special effects artists often cannot complete the work within the time specified by the producer due to rendering problems. Moreover, the labor, material, and electricity required to maintain computer rendering. The cost is also a big fee for the production company!So it is very necessary to work with some render farms. Not only can it save the time of the production staff, but also can use a large number of machines in a limited time to complete the work in a short time.The emergence of cloud rendering technology makes the render farm more mature. Cloud rendering is to upload materials to the cloud and use this cloud computing system of the rendering company to render remotely.Another advantage of cloud rendering is that small studios can also be responsible for rendering high-quality materials. In the film industry, this technological change is no less than the change that cloud computing itself brings to the IT industry.Taking Fox Renderfarm as an example, no matter where the special effects technician is, they can use cloud rendering services to complete the "trilogy": 1. Upload your project; 2. Wait for the rendering to complete; 3. Download to the local machine. In addition, they can call more machines according to their urgency, and they can arrange the order of rendering and monitor the progress of rendering at any time. At the same time, the price is relatively low, which is accepted by many film and television special effects companies, rendering studios, and individual designers. So, why not have a free trial on Fox Renderfarm now? to experience the amazing cloud rendering services to speed up your rendering.

As the leading cloud rendering services provider and GPU&x26;CPU render farm, Fox Renderfarm is here to tell you what is a rendering engine. Rendering engines represent different things in different industries.For example, for people doing web applications, rendering engine means Gecko, KHTML / WebKit. All web browsers, email clients, e-readers, and other applications that need to display content based on a representative markup language require rendering engine.For artists making games, rendering engine refers to the core components of some edited computer game systems or some interactive real-time graphics applications. The rendering engine category includes PC, mobile, PlayStation, Xbox, VR devices, etc.For CG artists and 3D rendering, rendering engine has a different meaning.Whether it is "Avatar", "Titanic" or "Iron Man", the success of these world-class blockbusters can not be separated from building models in 3D software, and then to visual effects, rendering the final image in the renderer, and post-production software in composition, editing, and other processes.There are currently built-in rendering engines in popular 3D production software. Below we introduce several rendering engines that are currently mainstream in CG production,V-RayV-Ray is applicable to SketchUp, 3ds Max, Maya, Unreal, Cinema 4D, Modo, etc.. V-Ray is a well-known renderer in the rendering software industry. It is designed and completed by Chaos Group. It has "ray tracing" and "global illumination" rendering software. It provides high-quality pictures in 3D modeling software and animation rendering for different fields.ArnoldFrom "Gravity" to the " Logan" and "Avengers", the blockbusters you see now basically have it in it. Arnold can perform huge scene file calculations with high accuracy. It tries to imitate the real world as much as possible without taking shortcuts, which is also related to the algorithm used to calculate images at the bottom.CoronaCorona is suitable for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D. Corona Renderer is the latest photo-level renderer that can improve the rendering quality of pictures and simulate the most realistic texture. It is regarded as a rising artifact for the rising star. Because Corona Renderer in a similar way to Photoshop layers, it is very easy to get started.RedshiftThe Redshift renderer's global light algorithm is similar to V-Ray, but also four algorithms, divided into PrimaryEngine and SecondaryEngine. And its HDRI lighting is very powerful, the light comes with soft shadows, and the built-in powerful rendering technology can help users complete the rendering of large scenes, making users render works better.OctaneOctane is also a GPU-based renderer. First of all, its SSS and replacement functions are very good in comparison, the speed is also very fast, the light is soft, and the rendering looks comfortable, too. If the scenario is solved with PL, the efficiency is a bit problematic.The production software and rendering engine used in the CG industry have their own advantages and disadvantages. It is most important to choose the one that suits you.What is a rendering engine? Fox Renderfarm hopes this article will be of some help to you. It is well known that Fox Renderfarm is an excellent cloud rendering services provider in the CG world, so if you need to find a render farm for your rendering engine, why not try Fox Renderfarm, which is offering a free $25 trial for new users? Thanks for reading!

As the leading cloud render farm in the CG industry, Fox Renderfarm knows that in the creation of excellent works, if you do not follow some basic principles, even the best technology in the world can not help the works achieve real effects. Although 3D software has made great progress in the realism field, it can only let you finish 80% at most, and the remaining 20% is that the effect is between 'it looks real' and 'real'.If you are a creator of 3D technology, you need to know the needs of a scene that combines many aspects to create a true photo-realistic image. If not, you feel that a work does not achieve the goal you want, and you can't find the problem. This is very frustrating and time consuming. Here are 5 tips to make rendering more relistic, hope this can help you.Sharp edgeThe computer is perfect, and the real world is not perfect.This is especially true for the edges of objects. Making a cube in any 3D software, its edges are perfect, but the perfect angular edges are usually unreal, they don't exist in the real world.The two surfaces of real-world objects cannot intersect at perfect right angles while remaining completely sharp. If you look at any intersecting planes, they will have rounded corners, broken and uneven areas where they meet.&x3C;p class='img-source'>Rounded corners look more realisticObserve the surrounding objects and see how they differ in their edgesThis natural fillet is very important for creating visual accuracy, they produce highlights, define planes, divide surfaces, and increase volume.Even the sharpest edges must be chamfered. A better practice is to add some subtle scratches to the edges. Popular render engines such as Arnold and Vray have their own technology to achieve this.Pay attention to the shadowShadows are easily ignored by 3D artists, and it's easy to be too bright or too dark to notice the parts of the lights and shadows. And a common feature of CG light sources is that the edges are too sharp, and another disadvantage is that the shadows have no gradients or changes in hue.The shadows in real life are generally softer, and the farther the shadow edge is from the shadow projecting object, the softer it becomes. It is illuminated by the light portion of the surrounding environment, which affects its color and intensity. In general, the shadow intensity (shading) decreases with distance from the shadow projection object.You should avoid using the two light sources below, or use them very carefully.Point Lights /Omni Lights - emits light from all non-physical points in space in all directions. Not only do they produce fake lighting effects, they also produce sharp shadows.Ambient Lights – This light source has the effect of boosting the dark and midtones of the image, allowing more light to bounce off the scene, but it results in a desaturated, faded effect. The best thing is to increase the amount of global lighting bounce or add more lights to the scene.Area Lights Area Lights – This is a glowing surface. Like windows or photographic soft lights, area lights create natural shadows with soft edges and true attenuation, and they also provide the benefits of being visible on reflective surfaces, helping to add realism.Dome Lights /Skylights – Simulating large light sources, such as the sky, introduces a global light source that is useful for establishing realistic lighting conditions.Remember a simple rule that large light sources, such as area lights and dome lights, produce soft shadows, and smaller light sources, such as spotlights, produce sharper shadows.Add imperfectionsFor some even planar models, you need to add some imperfections to its surface. Like walls, those surfaces that look relatively clean and unweathered can still be diverse. Such as light, dust, wear, scratches and unevenness to highlights and shadows.Add noiseQuick and easy to break the perfect, noise can easily do this.A variety of rendering engines provide a wide variety of noise, try to add noise to your diffuse color or texture, adjust the scaling, so that the effect is not particularly obvious, and can subtly break the balance of the surface.&x3C;p class='img-source'>Perfect wall&x3C;p class='img-source'>Add small bump details&x3C;p class='img-source'>Mix a large bump to further break up the highlightsVery simple, right?Be careful not to overuse when adding noise patterns. You can reduce the effect by 20% when the effect is obvious, which will have a very large impact on the authenticity of your image, especially in large-scale indoor scenes.Focal lengthWhat is the default focal length of the camera in your 3D software?If you don't understand the effect of focus on the image, then it's a big obstacle to rendering realistic images.When the photographer composes the picture, he will pay great attention to choosing the appropriate focal length and framing frame. This is a side that 3D artists often overlook. It's too easy to start framing with the default camera. Many people don't even think about the focal length used.It is very important to have a basic understanding of the principles of composition and focal length.A common mistake is that the ultra-wide lens has no distortion, and the wide-angle lens has no depth of field. Distortion and depth of field are turned off by default in 3D software.It's best to come up with a real camera (preferably an SLR camera), experience the workings of the physical lens, study the results, and understand the choice of the lens, which will make your work better.Add realismHighlight highlights and bloom.The highlight in the scene will be the visible light source and its reflection. The camera and lens will handle these bright areas as much as possible. In this case, using "copy" is correct, because when dealing with these bright areas, the lens will produce some illusions. The side effects of these strong spots are usually high light and glow. These imperfections have become part of our vision, so they can add a lot of realism to the image.It is recommended to add these effects to post-production.The image above is the original rendering. The picture below adds glow and glare.Add graininessThe film used in traditional cameras will cause the image to produce an image of particles, while the 3D image of the camera can not produce graininess, and we will break the perfection of 3D images by adding some imperfect particles.In post-production, two main grainy sensations can be added to the image. It can be programmed in a program like Photoshop or Nuke. The advantage is flexibility and height adjustment, which can be fine-tuned according to the RGB channel of the image.It is also possible to use a material containing particles for superposition, although the degree of adjustment is not high, but it is fast and effective.Increase in graininessAll these tips have a common feature that breaks perfection in order to be more realistic.The best results can be achieved by observing the real world and discovering the nuances you see, making up for the gap between the 3D world and reality.Fox Renderfarm hopes it will be of some help to you. As you know, Fox Renderfarm is an excellent cloud rendering farm in the CG world, so if you need to find a render farm, why not try Fox Renderfarm, which is offering a free $25 trial for new users? Thanks for reading!

What is the importance of video rendering, GPU or CPU? Video rendering is different from CG rendering in that they are completely different rendering methods.Video rendering, in general terms, is to combine the various models, effects, or animations that were made in the early stage in the post-production software. In these processes, complex effects and effects are inevitably involved. It is difficult to achieve real-time display with the current computer computing power, so after editing the graphic image, the final effect we need is output by adjusting and modifying, that is, video rendering.Video rendering requirements for graphics cards and CPU.For professional design work, 3D modeling / video rendering, general CPU multi-core and multi-thread parallel processing is very important, and requires a faster and larger cache of the CPU to temporarily store a large amount of computing data, this time CPU computing power requirements are very high.Therefore, the general professional work computer, the CPU requirements are relatively high, the general advanced architecture, multi-core, large cache high-end CPU can better meet the demand.In video rendering, the graphics card is more of an acceleration, 3D effects will rely on graphics cards.Take Adobe Premiere video editing software as an example. This professional software relies more on CPU multi-threading performance. The more cores and threads, the faster the video processing speed will be. In some video size compression and format conversion, transfer a certain amount of GPU graphics card resources, but the mobility is limited, ordinary low-end GPU graphics cards can meet the demand.Of course, it is not that professional graphics, GPU graphics are not important, general 3D modeling is more dependent on GPU graphics than CPU.In general, the modeling of 3D software depends on the CPU. Regarding the professional design, it depends on the CPU or GPU. The main focus is on the scene and the software. Generally, the CPU is mainly clipped, the GPU is accelerated, and the 3D special effects production depends on the GPU. CPUs and GPUs are important for professionally designed computers.In the rendering of video compression, the higher the GPU, the lower the GPU occupancy rate. At present, it is like Adobe Premiere video editing software, mainly based on CPU work, GPU is supplemented by such a state, and as long as Low-end GPU graphics can be very demanding.

Are render farms worth it? The answer is sure, YES. When your project is tight, the render farm can accelerate the rendering speed of your project, greatly reducing rendering time, and allowing your project to be completed ahead of or on time. Renderfarm is also a good choice when your local machine can't meet the urgent rendering needs, reducing your cost, labor, and resources, but achieving the desired results. When your local machine doesn't fit your rendering needs well, you don't need to upgrade your device, use the render farm, it's easy to use anywhere, anytime.Are render farms worth it? Why it's worth using, first let's understand what a render farm is. A render farm is a large group of computers designed and organized to meet rendering services, each called a node. The calculations that occur are called parallel calculations because each node can be given a specific and unique task, so their calculations can occur in parallel (simultaneously).Typically, the task of the host computer is to assign tasks to each render node, and the software application that does this is called rendering management software or queue manager, and each render farm has its own management software.The job assigned to each node by the host computer can be a series of images, a shot, or one of the layers (channels) or other parts of a shot. The host computer must be able to intelligently assess the needs of the entire job, the capabilities of each node, and the current network state. Once the render node has finished rendering, immediately assign another task and keep the busy state of all nodes.Render farms have more than one hundred rendering servers compared to the normal rendering process, and even have greater scale and adjustability. And the software, renderers and plug-ins that the renderfarm can support are richer. Professional commercial render farms require professional staff to coordinate and solve problems encountered in various renderings. Even with greater rendering requirements, the render farm can complete the rendering work as time demands.Are render farms worth it? When you use a normal computer to complete a rendering task, it may take hours or even days to complete them. A powerful renderfarm with multiple render nodes can be rendered in a few minutes. Using Fox Renderfarm as an example, sometimes your local computer takes 1 month to complete the rendering task, but only 5 mins or less to complete the rendering task with Fox Renderfarm. And in the process, if there is any problem occurred, the rendering software will find and issue an alert to let the staff know, instead of the artist always staring at the computer.So the render farm is better able to control the time and labor costs in the production, helping the artists to focus on the creation. For rendering? Please hand it to the online render farm.

Let's take a look at the effect of rendering a picture below, which looks very much like a photo of a hand model. How to achieve this kind of effect like a manual model is actually very simple, because the V-Ray artificial light source comes with such a huge "fake" incomparable property that can render your model. You will find that you are uncontrollably rendering your building into a hand model, and most of the time you are not willing.Well, it's actually very simple, stemming from the contrast between the small scales actually rendered using V-Ray artificial light sources.Let's take a look at the real manual model photo. Well, this is the final result we want to achieve.The scale of the building is very large, and the V-Ray artificial light source will have a small sense of scale. In such a contrast, it will look like a manual model. For example, the following Siza's work Borges &x26; Irmao Bank.If you change an object with a small scale, you will not have this contrast when you render it. You don't feel that it is a fake model, and you are more inclined to believe that it is real. Like this camera.How to achieve Let's take a look at the implementation process. The first step is to build a model In the second step, all ambient light is turned off, and two side light sources are added at two angles. (in order to compare the effects in both directions) The third step, rendering (wood material is only diffuse texture, no processing)Degree of completionThe first thing you need to consider is the degree of completion. This is a state. Obviously not only manual model rendering, but in any form of rendering work, completion is the most important one. High-computation works are not authentic, but let you completely forget the question of true truth, so that your attention can be paid attention to the design or the content itself. The biggest reason for the many disturbing renderings is that the completion is too low, and the entire image is full of wear, missing, and various bugs. Improving the so-called completion is not a difficult job, just a little care and patience.Come together to improve the degree of completion Since it is a manual model, should it be placed on a certain booth? Then add the booth Since it is a booth, maybe you will see the ground and the wall? Then add the ground and the wall Usually the manual model will install a few led lights to make the model more beautiful, then fill the internal lightsSince there is lighting, we probably need to prepare a few sockets and plugs. Add some paper people and paper trees to set off the volume of the building (so does it look better?)Finally, add a nameplate, um, or you can also attach a glass cover, work ~ (put the phone across) Wow, the effect looks great!So when you don't know how to add details, what you should do is find some references to see how the real manual models are placed. Remember, look at it!It's not hard to find out, if you still have a perfect attitude in the case of ensuring the degree of completion, then you need to pay attention to the lighting and composition (or shooting angle).From: Rifle Graphics

How to make a realistic **rendering**? Why does my work look unreal? Is it a texture problem? Still a lighting problem? Or is it a **rendering** problem? In the **rendering**s of the following figure, the light and shadow are a big problem from the whole: the model is not refined enough, and the material does not have the texture of the prominent object. These problems have caused no central point in the picture that can attract attention. A good model, even in the case of a prime model, still feels a real and natural feeling. Below we will look at several points in the **rendering**s that are prone to problems. Model accuracy and lighting issuesThe chandelier looks strange and looks like a lot of white aperture. If we look at the real light bulb, we will find that the light of the lamp is emitted by the tungsten wire. And the details of the chandelier model need to be increased in detail and construction. The fineness of the model determines the quality of the picture, and each part is made and properly rounded. Everything is made according to the actual situation, and the effect is different. Material problem The wall lamp looks bright, but the lampshade is black. With the normal wall light on, the entire lampshade will look shiny. Therefore, this lampshade is not only for lighting, but also for the lampshade itself. Model material ratio problem If the ratio is not correct, the picture will always look a little weird. If it is too big, it seems that the room is small, so the correct proportion will make the picture feel a sense of space. When doing textures, if you can't control the size of the object, you can use a character model as a reference. If you want to achieve good results, then the uneven seam of the floor, please use modeling, rather than using textures in the performance. Hue, composition, level, contrast A good-looking lens composition determines the temperament of the picture. The effect diagram in the reference figure lacks composition and color tone, and the picture looks very simple. The lens and composition will make your picture look more layered and more solid. The shading level is not only applied to the shape structure of the representation object, but also to the change and balance of the picture through the interlacing of light and dark tones in the frame composition. Color is also an important part of photo composition. If we can make good use of color contrast to compose a picture, it will not only highlight the subject, but also make your photo more eye-catching. If you want to have a good work, then you must repeat the debugging of modeling, material, lighting, **rendering**, and post-details to achieve the best state. For the control of light and shadow and material details, it is necessary to observe the objects in real life, and various factors can be combined to make good works.