March 6, 2007
 
RANCH Computing is proud to present the RANCH renderfarm : the first - and only - entirely automated commercial renderfarm dedicated to Vue 6 !
 
You can visit the website (english and french versions) at : www.ranchcomputing.com
A comprehensive RenderFarm User Guide and the press release (both in PDF format) are available for download on the site.
 
This rendering service will be close to the Vue community. A sticky thread will be maintained at www.cornucopia3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php. It will serve as a way of communication between the RenderFarm team and Vue users.
 
Thanks for your attention !

Hi,

Looks good, does it work with spectral atmospheres? I can't render them over my own farm, hope you had better luck :)

But great news, a nice dedicated Vue renderfarm is exactly what was needed.

Cheers
Jon

Hi Jonj1611,

about the SATM yes it works with them. As you can see on the benchmark page on the site, the 'Peaking Through' scene, which uses a spectral model, is correctly rendered.

Cheers

Fred

Excellent :) Just registered.

Jon

Best wishes for your business!  I will keep this in mind for some of my bigger renders.

This is a great service from a serious Vue rendering, networking and systems expert - well worth looking into!

Congratularions on your launch Frederic!

From what I saw, this looks like it could be a good service overall.

We started to use them earlier on the port animation project, then had a few language barrier issues (but hey, their English is infinitely better than my French so...) and the client decided he wanted to go with stills...and then even later decided, no, he wants the animation again.  We had to use ResPower due to the WIP status of this farm because we needed a 2000 frame, 1 day turnaround) but it did seem easy enough to use and automated nicely from the little I was in there.

Note though, coordinate systems differ in V5I and V6I so if you're using a V5I animation to be rendered on Vue 6 Infinite's farm, be careful.

Hello Ryan,

I just wanted to point out that you did not submit your scene with the correct parameters the first time... So we helped you see that you had made a mistake in your scene parameters (freely) and then after that you sent your project to Respower. How nice.

I am sorry that you did not resubmit it. You probably would have been surprised about the turnaround time.

Fred

Hi Fred,
I'll be sending some animations to the farm as soon as my new broadband connection is up and running.

Quote - Hello Ryan,

I just wanted to point out that you did not submit your scene with the correct parameters the first time... So we helped you see that you had made a mistake in your scene parameters (freely) and then after that you sent your project to Respower. How nice.

I am sorry that you did not resubmit it. You probably would have been surprised about the turnaround time.

Fred

Fred,

At this time, we had issues with the CC acceptance...one being we had 3 files to render and your system allowed a CC to be used only once in an entire account.  I had to use the 2 company cards and my own personal card. 

Well, we used 3 CCs trying to get it to render the 1st time and when the parameters were wrong (my fault), we did not have 3 more CCs to use.  Your employee told us the solution was to setup a paypal account instead as that was a proven solution until the kins were worked out.  The bank told us 2 to 3 business days to even set up the PayPal to our account...so we were sort of left high and dry due to where development of the farm was.

In fact, I was coming on here to praise the farm as it was nice and user friendly...just wasn't ready for the public yet like I'm sure it is now.  We will be using your farm in the future as it's much better priced and doesn't have the average wait that ReSpower does.

I don't think we did any sort of a$$hole thing here.  We used it to a few issues:

1. I sent way too high of parameters for the farm.
2. CC acceptance issues were there with no time to set up PayPal
3. There were some confirmation issues with the files at that time
4. The deadline caused the language barrier during farm setup to be a bit too much this go-round

Like I said, we used it in pre-release.  These issues I'm sure in no way exist anymore, but simply put, the timing of the project was just shit and had to go to respower.  Think we liked that it cost us and the a bunch more to go through them? No.  But when the client switched back to animation from stills the day before due date (after we said time was too close for animation), and Respower said they could run it on 250 comps at one time for me with zero wait and a client breathing down my neck....I had no choice.  I'm sure turnaround time would have been fast...it wasn't a speed issue.  Other circumstances caused this decision.  Please understand.

You'll get our biz next go-round.  There will be 2 or 3 more 2-3 minute animations coming in the next 6 months...this one just couldn't happen.  Came to us too late, with no time on our hands, and you in final stages of going public.

-Ryan

OK Ryan,

no hard feelings and no problem. 

It's just a bit frustrating as we are eager to demonstrate our system, as an entirely automated renderfarm is something completely unique in the Vue world, and we worked very hard to make it happen. But I understand the particular issues of your recent project, of course.

As for payment, the best and easier way to pay is clearly a PAYPAL account, for the customer and for us. However our tests with CB did not lead to the problems you encountered (I could pay several times with the same card without problems). But PAYPAL is really super-simple and secure and we clearly recommend it.

Fred

Glad to hear you're not salty.

I want to say again, I'm impressed with RANCH, found it extremely easy to use (minus our pre-release issues) and if those are cleared up, Ranch Computing will be an absolute top-notch automated renderfarm.