Fox Renderfarm Blog

Continuous effort will always bring substantial results. So does the 3d short animation: Life of Bri’ n Chris. Although with limited human resource and budget, Anthem studios tried their best to solve the tough difficulties and finally released the 8-minutes 3d animation. Great congratulations to them. And thanks Michael Wakelam so much for offering the opportunity for the short interview between Fox Renderfarm and Anthem Studios as below.Fox Renderfarm: Hi Michael, would you please give a brief introduction about yourself and your studio?Anthem Studios: My name’s Michael Wakelam and I founded Anthem Studios in 2012 with a vision to bring entertaining stories and new characters to life. We’re based in London and work in a variety of styles using various software.Fox Renderfarm: So when and how did you get into the CG industry?Anthem Studios: I started through TV design and then got into motion design and branding. I started to develop more knowledge and interest in visual effects and animation and then as I grew in experience, I really wanted bring my love of stories and characters together with animation.Fox Renderfarm: Wow, sounds great, then what is your most satisfied work in these years and why?Anthem Studios: I’m most proud of Life of Bri’ n Chris, because it was so ambitious as a project. Most short films of this length have a huge crew, ours was a core crew of 7 or 8, with a bunch of other people helping out in little ways. We had no budget but had generous support of a few key partners, such as Fox Render Farm, Chaos Group and Adelphoi Music.Fox Renderfarm: That's amazing, while since your new short film Life of Bri’ n Chris is going to be online soon, would you please share with us about what’s the story and why you come out the idea of making this film?Anthem Studios: The film is a comedic tale of Bri’, a scottish Common Lizard, and Chris, a hapless Australian Chameleon, whose overly competitive attitude leads to a crazy accident. When I was growing up in Australia, we had these lizards called blue tongue lizards that we would catch, but when trying to outrun us kids, they would drop their tail. I found out a few years back that Chameleons are one of the only species of Lizard that can’t drop their tail in self defense. I though it could be a funny idea and developed it further.Fox Renderfarm: Really interesting experience : ) For making the short film, what 3D software, renderers and plugins used for it? Do you have any preferred one and why?Anthem Studios: For modeling and animation we used Maya, rendering we used Vray and for compositing we used After Effects. Maya’s main attraction was it’s robust referencing system, and Vray is an outstanding renderer. I used After Effects because I was doing the compositing myself, and that’s the tool I knew best.Fox Renderfarm: Haha, you guys are real professionals. While what difficulties you met when making this short film?Anthem Studios: The biggest challenge for me was learning producing and production management. The number of assets and shot was more than I’d ever handled on short form branding and advertising, so it was a steep learning curve for me. The other challenge was the technical side of render ‘render wrangling’ and file management.Fox Renderfarm: Em, really happy that you guys solved all of the problems. So where would you plan to submit/release the video? Any interest for battling for some 3d animation awards?Anthem Studios: We’ve already screened at a few festivals, but want to be seen by the widest audience possible, so decided to release the film online.Fox Renderfarm: Sounds great : ) We'd like to ask why choose Fox Renderfarm as the partner and what you think about us in the rendering phase?Anthem Studios: I had used Fox before I started this project and what always stood out to me was the service. To have people available 24/7 on skype has always been so valuable. We all know that late nights can be a regular occurrence in this industry, and often we can’t wait until the next day to solve a problem, and no one else offers the service you offer.Fox Renderfarm: Thanks so much for your compliment : ) Do you have any thought for making the next short film?Anthem Studios: I’ve started looking at developing Life of Bri’ n Chris into an animated sitcom. Because it’s mainly set in one room like a traditional sitcom, we could get a very high quality render, which would be unusual for TV animation. I’m also continuing to write and develop other stories, live action and animation, so stay tuned.Fox Renderfarm: That's really a great news, we are looking forward to the next video. OK, is there anything else you would like to add or say?Anthem Studios: I’d just like to thank Fox Render Farm once again for your support throughout the project. I couldn’t have done it without you.Fox Renderfarm: Thanks, it's our pleasure, and hope we can have more cooperations in the near future. And thanks for your time to take this interview.

As the largest and most influential annual conference and exhibition in computer graphics and interactive techniques, SIGGRAPH 2017 is popularly ongoing (30th July – 3rd August). As one of the most popular render farms and cloud rendering services in the exhibition, and honorably invited as the speaker of the SIGGRAPH 2017 conference, Fox Renderfarm is holding hands with SIGGRAPH and having several deep cooperations this time."CG in Asia" SpeechBenjamin Cheung, the VP of Fox Renderfarm, was invited by SIGGRAPH International Resources Committee to be a speaker on the subject of "CG in Asia". Ben shared the development of the CG industry with speakers from Digital Idea in Korea, SQUARE ENIX, CG-ARTS Society and OLM Digital in Japan. Ben focused on the topic of the current situation and development of the Chinese film industry and made a point that China has huge potential in the film industry."SIGGRAPH Student Volunteer Program" ConferenceMike, the marketing director of Fox Renderfarm, was also invited to present at the conference of "SIGGRAPH 2017 Student Volunteer Program", Mike introduced Fox Renderfarm and explained how powerful the rendering ability is, as well as the GoCloud Program which aims to help potential CG students, creative small teams and charity groups to realize their dreams.At the end of the speech, Mike even revealed an amazing news, which is about a self-developed online platform ( Vivue: http://www.vivue.io ) which is designed to help directors, producers, artists, designers, managers and media groups to save a huge time on video collaboration. The Vivue is currently available on the webpage and iOS App.Officially Authorized to Distribute SIGGRAPH Collectible Pixel ToysFox Renderfarm is officially authorized by SIGGRAPH to distribute a limited number of collectable bobblehead Pixel toys at the SIGGRAPH 2017 conference and exhibition. These keepsakes will not be available for sale but will be given away in a variety of ways throughout the conference and exhibition, including at Fox Renderfarm booth 243. Besides, there are a lot of other gifts available for visitors by playing the dart game on Fox Renderfarm’s booth.The confidence of SIGGRAPH for Fox Renderfarm’s leading position in render farm industry along with the outstanding contribution, is the most important reason that SIGGRAPH decided to start such deep cooperations with Fox Renderfarm. And Fox Renderfarm really appreciated the awesome opportunity to present themselves in front of so many international 3d animation and VFX production companies. Let’s take hand by hand to help enhance the development of CG industry.

As we all know, the Indian epic blockbuster ‘Baahubali: The Beginning’ made great success in 2015, it earned great reputation worldwide and set a record in Indian film industry. That’s the reason why so many people looking forward to the release of the Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, it absolutely does not let us down, which even broke the record again by earning $120 million during the first week, making it the highest grossing Indian film all around the world ever. Here comes the thunderous applause to Makuta VFX who produced it and Fox Renderfarm who rendered it.And we are so honorable to have the chance to interview Peter Draper who comes from Makuta VFX regarding the production of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion.Fox Renderfarm: Hi Peter, May I ask what’s your biggest issue during Baahubali 1 and 2 productions?Peter Draper: The biggest issues we had were the sheer size of the data assets that we had to work with. The environments that we needed to create were huge and kept on growing due to additional angles that needed to be achieved; from the original model designed for Baahubali 1, additional augmentation was needed to enhance angles for the second film which greatly increased the geometry and texture sizes, thus the memory overheads for not only our workstations but also the rendering aspects.Fox Renderfarm: So what's your biggest challenge during your rendering phase before using Fox Renderfarm?Peter Draper: Primarily the sheer size of the data assets that needed to be output in the short amount of time that we had to deal with within the production cycle. The post work, especially in the latter stages of the film’s production cycle, required some amendments and re-rendering which we didn’t have the scope to be able to do internally on our own farm, especially with the render times we were achieving in-house.Fox Renderfarm: OK, I see, so how did Fox Renderfarm help you on Rendering? What do you feel about us and the cooperation between both companies?Peter Draper: Fox initially approached us with an end-to-end solution for rendering, complete with back-end support. As our entire render pipeline revolved around externally referenced files and proxies due to the sheer amount of geometry, therefore we needed a mirror setting up on each node. Coupled with constant monitoring of our jobs, we needed complete back-end support to ensure that the job was maintained. Fox were on call 24/7 and helped us achieve our deadlines to the quality that was required by the client. Data transfer was fast, along with our own high-speed connection, it was like having our own tech support and farm extension!Fox Renderfarm: We are so glad to hear that. While we've just got an international market development awards recently, as a business partner of Fox Renderfarm, what do you think about it?Peter Draper: Congratulations! Very much deserved! Hopefully many more to come.Fox Renderfarm: Thanks so much for your really kind words. Since Baahubali made so much success, what do you think about your company's advantage for animation and VFX production?Peter Draper: In our short life of seven years, we’ve managed to establish ourselves as one of the highest regarded studios in India through the quality of the work that we produce and the team of artists that we have. We don’t compromise on quality and love to have the ability to work with some of the best directors, art directors and directors of photography in the industry. We absorb creativity so we look not only for the same in the talent that we hire, but also the people we work for and with.Fox Renderfarm: That’s great. We sincerely hope Makuta VFX will produce more and more awesome films in the near future and keep work with Fox Renderfarm. Thanks so much for your time.

We are so thrilled to announce that Fox Renderfarm just finished rendering the 3D animation music video named Hard Drive which was animated by EnchantedMob. EnchantedMob is a popular YouTube channel that owns 500,000+ subscribers and mainly focus on Minecraft style 3D animation music videos. The new video Hard Drive has earned more than 1 million views within one week, how popular it is! It has become an ear worm and stuck in my head for days. Let’s have a look about this awesome video firstly.And we did a short interview with Seth about himself and EnchantedMob as below.Fox Renderfarm: Hi Seth, would you please give a brief introduction about yourself and EnchantedMob?Seth: My name is Seth. Sometime in 2010, my older brothers downloaded a 2D animation program called Pivot. With the program, you could create stick figure animations very easily. We all would create whatever funny animation we could think of. It was all for fun and laughter. I was 11 at this time. Since then, I became very interested in pursuing animation. I eventually branched into clay animation and eventually Minecraft animation.Fox Renderfarm: That’s really a good start, so when and how did you get into the CG industry?Seth: Skipping over to December 8th of 2013, I discovered Blender. With Blender, I could create 3D animations. Shortly after, in 2014 I created a brand new channel for 3D animation specifically for Minecraft. My main motive for Minecraft animation was from the music videos produced by CaptainSparklez. Those videos still inspire me today. From December 2013 to February 2015, creating Minecraft animations on EnchantedMob was just for fun and entertainment.Fox Renderfarm: Blender did a great job for a lot of 3D beginners. And what other 3D software, renderers and plugins you used? Any preferred one and why?Seth: It wasn't until the summer of 2016 when I switched to Autodesk Maya. It took some time to learn, and I found the Redshift rendering engine which was referred by a fellow animator. Redshift is great and I still use it today because of how fast it renders. This year, I have been increasing the quality of each video, which has been bringing larger render times.Fox Renderfarm: Great, so how did the idea of creating Minecraft style 3d animation music video comes out?Seth: Like I mentioned previously, the idea of creating Minecraft style 3D animation was developed in 2011 and I began using this style of animation in 2014. This style came about because it is simple to animate box-like characters, and because of Minecraft’s popularity.Fox Renderfarm: I see, while what is the first music video published on EnchantedMob Youtube channel? And what is the most difficult problems you met on creating it at that time?Seth: In February of 2015, I uploaded my first music video "Survive The Night" to EnchantedMob. It was by far my most difficult video to make because of the 6 minute length of the song and the amount of characters in the video. It payed off; however, as that video is my most popular video to date, with almost 50 million views. When this video skyrocketed, I started to focus on creating more Minecraft music videos and taking my YouTube career a bit more seriously, while still enjoying animation.Fox Renderfarm: That’s really brilliant work. Would you please share some details about your just finished work: Hard Drive? Got some new problems on it?Seth: Recently, I discovered Fox RenderFarm. Fox allowed my channel to reach a higher level of render quality, while also keeping render times reasonable. This can be seen in how well the renders turned out in my newest Minecraft music video "Hard Drive." This video is unique in that it has already gotten over 1,000,000 views less than a week after its release, which is surprising given that I’ve never made an animation based on the game Undertale before.Fox Renderfarm: Since you mentioned us about the GPU rendering service, what you think about us? Happy with it?Seth: Fox Renderfarm's GPU rendering service is very good and much cheaper than lots of other render farms out there. Personally, my favorite quality of Fox Renderfarm is their willingness to help their customers. Any question I've had about Fox Renderfarm were quickly answered, and their support team took great good care of my account and render tasks.Fox Renderfarm: Thanks for your kindly compliment. Do you have any idea about your next work? Is that OK to have a sneak peek : )Seth: While I normally try to keep projects secret at first, I'll go ahead and spill the beans on my next music video. This next video is returning to the ever-popular FNAF Sister Location game, and it will be animated to a song by the Content Creator "Chaotic Canine Culture." And heck, while we're at it, I may as well say that I think the video can be finished before the end of June. So, to anyone reading, stay tuned! :)Fox Renderfarm: That’s a big news, we are so glad that we can know it here in advance. OK, so is there anything else you would like to add or say?Seth: I recommend using Fox Renderfarm. Their support team alone is a great reason to use their company. :)Fox Renderfarm: Haha, thanks again for your recommendation. Nice to talk with you, and we are quite look forward to your next work.