Animations for non-interactive media, such as feature films and video, are rendered much more slowly. Non-real time render max enables the leveraging of limited processing power in order to obtain higher image quality. Rendering times for individual frames may vary from a few seconds to several days for complex scenes. Rendered frames are stored on a hard disk then can be transferred to other media such as motion picture film or optical disk.

Techniques have been developed for the purpose of simulating other naturally-occurring effects, such as the interaction of light with various forms of matter. The architectural rendering process is computationally expensive, given the complex variety of physical processes being simulated. Computer processing power has increased rapidly over the years, allowing for a progressively higher degree of realistic rendering. Film studios that produce computer-generated animations typically make use of a render farm to generate images in a timely manner. However, falling hardware costs mean that it is entirely possible to create small amounts of 3D animation on a home computer system. The output of the renderfarm is often used as only one small part of a completed motion-picture scene. Many layers of material may be rendered separately and integrated into the final shot using compositing software.

Real-time

Rendering for interactive media, such as games and simulations, is calculated and displayed in real time, at rates of approximately 20 to 120 frames per second. In real-time rendering, the goal is to show as much information as possible as the eye can process in a 30th of a second. Rendering software may simulate such visual effects as lens flares, depth of field or motion blur. These effects can lend an element of realism to a scene, even if the effect is merely a simulated artifact of a camera. This is the basic method employed in games, interactive worlds.Rapid increase in computer processing power has allowed a progressively higher degree of realism even for real-time farm render, includes techniques such as rendering Vray.

A useful tip is to make sure the processors in your render farm are the same as the processors in your workstation, as there may be differences in rendering between processor architectures, which could mean small differences in your final rendered frames.

So it is highly recommended that you get yourself the latest versions of 3ds max and rendering Vray to get things started. Another very useful piece of software is Photoshop – this is very useful in the post processing of images.

So you are interested in getting into 3d rendering and architectural visualisation? Want to know what software and hardware all the professional cg artists are using? In this article I will explain everything you need to know to start creating high quality 3d architectural renderings.

If you are interested in architectural visualisation it helps to have some sort of a background in architecture or design…simply so you are able to easily read and interpret the often complicated architectural drawings. This is by no means essential…but it helps! If you don’t have a background in architecture or building design there are thousands of resources on the net which can help you to get a grasp of the major concepts.

The first thing you will need is a computer. Architectural rendering is a very cpu intensive business, so the more powerful your computer is – the better. Try to get at least a quad core processor and as much RAM as possible (6gb is an ok start). Use 64 bit operating systems…this way you can access more RAM. Also spend a bit of money on a good graphics card. Once you start getting serious about your 3d renderings you will want to think about a renderfarm, which is a series of computers linked together to make a big powerful processing unit. But for now a good quality, powerful workstation should do the trick.

Render Farm

Configuring the Remote Desktop is not required, but it’s a good way to log-in to your rendernodes to troubleshoot or make system changes remotely. It’s also handy if you are using rack-mounted rendernodes without a dedicated monitor/keyboard/mouse or a KVM switch.

Now, if you want to connect to a rendernode from another machine on the network, simply go to Start->Programs->Accessories->Communications->”Remote Desktop Connection.” In the Remote Desktop window, type the name of the rendernode you want to connect to, then click on Options and type in the user name and password of that specific rendernode. You will now be able to take control of the remote PC in a render farm as if you were sitting right in front of it.

Render Farm

You will need to find out if your network uses the DHCP protocol to automatically assign IP addresses to each computer. With DHCP, a computer will be assigned a new IP address every time it reconnects to the network. This can be problematic if the renderfarm is not set up to accommodate this. If it’s not enabled, your IT person will need to manually assign specific IP addresses to each new machine on the network. If more than 10 nodes are to be networked, a PC running Windows Server 2003 must be present on the network due to an inherent limitation in Windows XP built-in networking.

Make sure that all PC’s in the render farm are behind your company’s firewall, and on the same network segment. If not, you will need to have your IT person configure Ports 3234 and 3233 on any firewall or router to allow for communication between network rendering nodes.

But creating such cluster is expensive. Each system needs to be a capable system to be able to contribute properly to the process. This where the costs really start to escalate. Thankfully, solutions do exists and you do not have to physically go somewhere else either.

There are good renderfarm that operate through the Internet and offer you prices based on how much processing power you will need. The calculation is done on the basis of per Ghz of processing power required by each renderfarm. And you do not have to worry about the types of architectural rendering they support because integration is provided for all major softwares and their rendering types. This includes Maxwell render, mental ray, v ray render, final render, and vue, just to name a few. All major softwares like 3D Max render, Maya, Blender, etc are fully supported.

This has created the great demand that enables so many studios to come up in so little time. But the catch in this business is the cost of equipment for setting up a farm render. Systems for 3D graphic creation are expensive and they require a high amount of initial investment. This includes buying the main computers on which the main creation process will take place. Then come the usual accessories for creating the drawings and the wireframes. There is also the cost of infrastructure plus software packages that add to the total sum that needs to be spent.

Till this point, it is still possible for studios to get away with investing in basic equipment to keep it cost effective. However, when it comes to building a 3D rendering system, costs start to skyrocket. As most professionals and even amateurs would immediately, rendering is a processor intensive process and it takes a lot of processing power to crunch the data in at least twice that of real time.

However, the reality is that you need to have a very high amount of processing power to achieve decent speeds and one single CPU is never enough for this purpose. So most professionals create smaller clusters of CPUs instead of seeting up a big render farm. This is based on the same principle that multi-core chips are based on – many hands make light work. This called parallel processing and it is how all high-demand computational jobs are carried out.

Renderfarm  is a cost-effective way for design studios and post-production facilities to render long sequences of complex synthetic images. A  render studio can start small, then easily add rendernodes to ac­commodate changing requirements and project demands.

At the same time, renderfarms can deliver exponential increases in computational power. This means more creative flexibility and a greater capacity for “iterative” design. Artists can experiment with their work, add new creative elements and prepare different versions of the product or project for review.

When creating an animation, keep in mind that the complete path to any image used as a texture will be recorded by renders 3d . If the image is on a local hard drive, that file and the path to it will have to be created on each machine in the farm render. If you have multiple animators, you will have to assemble a complete collection of files from all of their machines, then distribute them to all machines in the farm.

It is better to keep all the files for the animation on a file share, mapped to the same drive letter on each machine. If the file share is hosted on XP, be mindful of the limit on concurrent connections to that share.
The render Manager and Servers will not function properly if the machine name begins with 0-9. If you have such names, you will either have to get the network administrator to change them, or use IP addresses. If you use IP addresses, fixed addresses are preferable; if you use DHCP, the render farm will have to be reconfigured when the IP addresses change.