How to use the Blender render farm

The SU Research Computing Group has made available their enormous computing cluster as a render farm for Blender.

By submitting Blender scene files to the farm, the renders will complete in a fraction of the time it would take to do on your computer (plus your own computer is not tied up doing renders).

How to submit files

• Email the following info to archit@syr.edu.
  • File - a link to your Blender scene file (through OneDrive, Google Drive, Wormhole, WeTransfer, etc.)
  • Render engine to use (at this point CYCLES is the only choice)
  • Starting frame (specify the exact number, such as 000, 001, or something else)
  • Ending frame
  • How many frames to run: all frames in the start and end range, or every 10th frame, or something else. On large renders, doing every 10th frame can be useful as a rough check before committing the time to a full render.
  • What type of cores to use (GPU can be faster to render but might not be the same quality as CPU)
    • CPU
    • GPU
    • No preference
  • Output format choice: PNG (default), TIF, or JPG
  • Animations: do you want an MP4 in addition to the individual frames?
  • What scene within the Blender file to run. For example in the Blender file below, the Scene Collection panel shows a list. Is there a specific scene to render?
    
• The following settings are set within your file; make sure they are correct before submitting the file.
  • Output resolution: for example, 1920x1080, 1280x720, etc.
  • Frames per second

Turnaround Time

• This process is new but we expect to be able to provide 24-hour turnaround time on weekdays based on workload.
• We will send you a link to download the output (individual frame output and/or mp4).