Unfortunately for me I was unable to attend the renderfarming BoF at Siggraph, but let me throw this out to this list. We have the opportunity to expand our small render farm 16 node render farm by about 24 nodes, but we are not tied
into the old system per se, so really this is the opportunity to start from scratch. We currently have two typical work flows, one is to create in Maya>render in RendermanProServer(Tractor to manage jobs)>composite in Nuke, the other is to create in Houdini>render
with Mantra(HQueue to manage jobs)>composite with Nuke. We hope over the next couple of years to be doing even more with simulations, incorporate Mari into more of our projects, and to start exploring doing shorts in 4K. I know this is a fairly broad general
description of our workflow and where we are going, but considering the above descriptions of our workflow,
if you could start from scratch on a small renderfarm (including a new storage configuration) what would you buy or recommend? I just finished re-reading the recent thread on Storage and Renderfarm requirements. Also are there any other pitfalls that
you have run into that you could help me avoid? Has anyone tried FusionIO IOfx cards in their farm nodes? How about Telsa cards in the nodes for processing/rendering fluid/PyroFx sims? So much of this is new to us and I would hate to overlook something
important, obvious or obscure; since we will probably not be able to upgrade again for another 5 years or so.
Thank you.
John Reinhard
Computer Support Rep.
School of Technology, BYU
801-422-4109