is it possible to produce Fly-Throughs using a render farm?

[Anonymous]

general scenario:

-Win Xp as the OS
-About 5 computers in the render farm
-ArchiCad 11

any ideas or knowledge on this topic

Thanks in advance fellow archicad users.

[TomWaltz]

Sort of.

When rendering the walk-through, you can render each frame to an image file (JPG, TIF, etc). With that logic, you can set each machine to render a range of frames (like 0 to 100, 101 to 200, etc).

You would then need a video editor (I like Quick Time Pro) to assemble them into a movie file.

Does that make sense?

[Anonymous]

TomWaltz wrote:
Sort of.

When rendering the walk-through, you can render each frame to an image file (JPG, TIF, etc). With that logic, you can set each machine to render a range of frames (like 0 to 100, 101 to 200, etc).

You would then need a video editor (I like Quick Time Pro) to assemble them into a movie file.

Does that make sense?

It makes sense. I guess this brings me to my next question....Can the distribution of frame sets (0-100, 101-200 etc.) be set from within archicad (my main machine) so that the render jobs be divided unto the render farm? (like 0-100 gets rendered in computer 1, 101-200 in computer 2...etc).
Or will I have to run a different instant of archicad per range of frames?

[Anonymous]

junior wrote:
It makes sense. I guess this brings me to my next question....Can the distribution of frame sets (0-100, 101-200 etc.) be set from within archicad (my main machine) so that the render jobs be divided unto the render farm? (like 0-100 gets rendered in computer 1, 101-200 in computer 2...etc).
Or will I have to run a different instant of archicad per range of frames?

From memory (I haven't done this for about a year, and it was in V9) you have to set up the rendering on each seperate machine - so open master copy on each computer (copied to home drive/off network to be extra safe). Then go into rendering settings of each instance and change the range of frames you are rendering.

I don't know if you could do something clever with teamwork? but with only 5 computers it's not to strenuous to set up each one indiviually.

TomWaltz wrote:
You would then need a video editor (I like Quick Time Pro) to assemble them into a movie file.

Or iMovie on your mac.

[Anonymous]

Tom wrote:
From memory (I haven't done this for about a year, and it was in V9) you have to set up the rendering on each seperate machine - so open master copy on each computer (copied to home drive/off network to be extra safe). Then go into rendering settings of each instance and change the range of frames you are rendering.

I don't know if you could do something clever with teamwork? but with only 5 computers it's not to strenuous to set up each one indiviually.

Thanks for the info. And thanks for bringing the possibility of teamwork being involved in the process. Its worth experimenting with.

TomWaltz wrote:
You would then need a video editor (I like Quick Time Pro) to assemble them into a movie file.

Tom wrote:
Or iMovie on your mac.

I didnt know iMovie could be used as an assembly tool. I should look into this.

And thanks also Tom.

Please, any new or extra info on this matter is still welcome...

Im also seeking the possibility of rendering bits of 1 image in a render farm (like 1/4 of the image is rendered in computer 1, and the other 1/4 in computer 2...and so forth....and then saves as one file full size in the end) ...
i bring this topic up along with the whole fly-through thing i first mentioned in this thread because I heard about how these things are possible with render farms but most commonly used for rendering multiple frames to make a movie sequence and how significantly fast they came out using the juice of multiple computers.
Its been done with maya and other stuff and has made me interested of the possibilities of using this technique when trying to create fly-throughs in archicad.

[Anonymous]

junior wrote:
Thanks for the info. And thanks for bringing the possibility of teamwork being involved in the process. Its worth experimenting with.

Yeah - however i have no idea where you'd start, as i don't really use teamwork. would be interested to see how you go though.

junior wrote:
I didnt know iMovie could be used as an assembly tool. I should look into this.

I find it heaps easier to drive than Quicktime Pro, and having a mac, you already own it (not that QT is going to break the bank.)

[Anonymous]

Tom wrote:
Yeah - however i have no idea where you'd start, as i don't really use teamwork. would be interested to see how you go though.

When I come to it, I will definitely return to this thread with the status of my findings/progress and most likely more questions. I am currently putting my flagship computer together and I have 2 computers in my render farm (still need to setup though). I plan to acquire 3-4 more scrap computers in the upcoming month which will hopefully complete my render farm.

But not to worry, if things dont work out with this whole concept, I have a secondary plan/use of the computers.

[stefan]

Even if you would be able to do this with ArchiCAD, you still have the mediocre control over the movements in ArchiCAD...

I all cases, it would be better to do this in external rendering software (unless you have GDL objects scripted for animation).

Most other software supports render-farms. Some even allow distributed bucket rendering (rendering parts of an image on different machines).

E.g. 3ds max comes with free netwerk rendering (you install the single license on all network machines as rendering nodes, without additional licenses required). Cinema4D XL comes with 3 nodes. Many others support it too.

[Anonymous]

stefan wrote:
Most other software supports render-farms. Some even allow distributed bucket rendering (rendering parts of an image on different machines).

I admit, I may have to explore other software to do what I intend to do. I personally like to keep the number of applications I use to a minimum..but still willing to explore better possibilities.

I remember my first fly-through using ArchiCad 7... was okay for a first. But I still wanted quality and speed in the same time....so I started using artlantis for fly-throughs....it gave me good results with a tolerable amount of time, even renderings. But then I got hooked onto lightworks (kudos dwight) and well I just liked the fact that I dont need to switch to another software to come out with decent renderings. So, with this in mind, I'm pushing myself to try to use Archicad in all areas...including fly-throughs....and I dont know, maybe fly-throughs in ArchiCad has improved since version 7...

My last fly-through attempt was on version 7..... had never done it on 8, 9 10, nor 11... so I'm kind of eager to see what it could do now, has it improved, are there new options? etc etc...

I attempted to use Cinema4d for fly-throughs but kind of left it hanging as I did not have the time to learn the basics.

If I could produce fly-throughs in archicad that meet my standards, I'm all for it considering AC is my main program.