I've got a pretty impressive renderfarm, that goes about 80% unused. Anyone know what the legalities would be on running a public rendercow network? I'm not talking WETA or anything, but i've got a couple of dual cpu 2k mhz machines with a gig of ram, 6 1.2 - 2.8 class, and about 10 200-1200 mhz I could throw on. any thoughts?

Oh, i think you will find a lot of thoughts when you do a little search in this forum. This was discussed not sooo long ago already in a lot of detail. My pov is always - nice offer - but the technical aspects are very tricky (my scenes mostly are more than 200 MB big). Copyright issues too. To send someone a scene that contains copyrighted stuff is a problem. I think there is a similar situation with graphic designers and print companies - use of copyrighted fonts and photos. Maybe you know a printer that can tell you about the situation there. But again, do the search and see what others said about this here already.

It's a great idea, but I think the copyright issues would be the biggest problem, as Walther mentioned. Wouldn't you have to have the "customer" send all elements of the scene file along with the scene? So for example, if I had a scene with some of Lyne's Vista animals in it that I purchased, I'd have to send them along with the scene file? That's clearly against her copyright and distribution. That's a fact with many many models and textures, that any kind of redistribution is prohibited, whether they're purchased or freebies. So that would definitely be a major stumbling block.

Message edited on: 09/19/2004 05:20

Nice idea ...I haven't used rendercow before ... because I have only one PC !!! I don't know excatly how it works but another idea is : is it possible to configure the nodes so they can work through the web ??? something like a worldwide public rendercow farm ??? It's a question ... if it where possible ... I don't think that all the scene and it's element are copied on each PC that works to render ... it's another question

Message edited on: 09/19/2004 06:16

I'm still on dialup sigh...the amount of bandwidth that would take boggles the mind, lol!

I was thinking of doing everything over the web. There are 2 approaches I can see (keeping in mind I'm not actually able to get to a computer that has any of this software installed until monday, and as such am operating from a very faulty memory); approach 1 the user could put the IP address of the public node into bryce lightening / rendercow, your computer would just use my farm as a supernode. I would have to write some code, but nothing too nasty. approach 2 (what I was pretty much think on doing) would be for me to allow people to set up virtual machines on a main server, and launch the render process local to me. in niether approach do I see a major copyright issue. Under no circumstances would I be interested in this if I had to actually touch a user CD; web only. everything else would get into too many legal issues. I guess I could set it up for people to mail me a encrypted drive image on DVD, which they could then mount over the internet if bandwidth was an issue. As to previous discussions, I see quite a bit about people setting up their own personal farms, but nothing on a public one. link?

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I think this is very close to the thing you are coming up with. Could you please tell us how you technically want to deal with things? #1 we are talking about huge amount of data - my biggest scene is more than 700 MB, the average i would say lies around 300 MB. I can hardly imagine how this will go through email or any other Internet transfer without problems. #2 when you buy Mover 5, you have the right to install the RenderCow to maximum 5 computers. I really wonder how E-on would react when someone offers a public render option and therefore undermines their marketing strategy for Rendercows. #3 doesn't the permanent ip connection between your computers and mine as render server open a big hole for others to break into my system? Or yours? I would think so but i am not an expert for that of course. Sorry for being so negative. I love the idea you had and i wish it can become possible.

#1: I have 2 possible answers to that; answer 1 is, it's not for you, it's for people with scene files under 100mb who are doing a LONG animation. Answer 2 is, I'll set you up with a shell account running SMS 2.0, you send me the DVD/CD with the stuff on it (encrypted, of course) i'll mount it, you can access your shell account, unencrypt your media, then launch the render locally. 2# I would think they wouldn't be real happy about it. However, as long as no one started creating additional public nodes, and then tieing them together in some fashion, I don't think it would get them too bent out of shape. 3# smallest problem; my main server already has VPN set up, it's virtually no problem. I'm still working on this, BTW.