[RenderFred]

It seems different browsers behave differently when saving an .exe file... I have put .zip files now. It should be more compatible with everything!

[Bubbaloo]

Thanks!
(You might want to re-post your announcement on this new page.)

[RenderFred]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to introduce our new preview functions for cooperative and animation projects. In a few words, these let you see your project while it is being rendered! It works with every project (standard, MultiCam, blitz). Although the preview does not show all the subtleties of the final image (some reflections may be lost, contrast might be different), its quality gives a reasonably good approximation of the final scene. Here is an example below (scene by Felix de Montesquiou, thanks Felix):



You can also click here to see how the image quality of the preview increases with the SL. The image preview is always 1400 pixels wide/high (or less if the project has a lower res). Considering that 128 nodes are working on each project on the RANCH it was not easy to do, but I am quite happy with the result.

For animation we have a different kind of preview. It displays every 10th frame rendered (frame 0, 10, 20...) in thumbnails. More details are available in the updated renderfarm User Guide, in appendix C.

Hope you like it!

Fred

[Hervé]

this is very cool Fred...

[numerobis]

very, very cool!

[KurtS]

yes, cool
and with Maxwell 2.0 we can render 6 times faster= much cheaper...?

[RenderFred]

Ah, I forgot something. If you are a 3ds Max 2009 / 2010 animator using Maxwell as the render engine, you can now send directly your .max project to render the animation, instead of sending a lot of .mxs files (which can take a lot of space and time to upload). As usual everything is 100% automated, and the preview function I mentioned above also works in this case. More details are in section 1 of our 3ds Max-specific PDF user guide (on the RANCH for 3ds Max web site).

Fred

[Luca_Studioaltieri]

GREAT FRED!

[piroshki]

Fred,

I have a quick question - what is the relationship between RANCH and Maxwell? I have been playing around with different server farms, with various levels of satisfactions, and it occurred to me that you have premium placement in the Maxwell forums. Why is that?

Tom.

[RenderFred]

Tom,

RANCH was the first authorized renderfarm for Maxwell, and we have dedicated a lot of time to optimize our system for Maxwell (and unbiased rendering in general). For instance we are the only farm to render on 128 quad-nodes simultaneously, with reasonable HDR merging times. Maybe that is why our customers are happy. We also like to be close to the software communities, so our threads are generally very active. If you haven't tried the RANCH yet, please do (we have a $50 free trial for each new user).

[piroshki]

Fred,

Thanks for the response. I am giving the Ranch a try, and am slightly put off by the fact that I have to pay 10$ when I am supposed to have a 50$ free credit. Also I can't find a way of finding out how much credit is on my account. I'm sure I am missing something, can you advise?

Tom.

[RenderFred]

Tom,

the $50 free trial is not automatic (to prevent abuse). Just send us an e-mail saying that you want it and we will create it for you.

Fred

[gotoxy av-media]

Ah, I forgot something. If you are a 3ds Max 2009 / 2010 animator using Maxwell as the render engine, you can now send directly your .max project to render the animation, instead of sending a lot of .mxs files (which can take a lot of space and time to upload). As usual everything is 100% automated, and the preview function I mentioned above also works in this case. More details are in section 1 of our 3ds Max-specific PDF user guide (on the RANCH for 3ds Max web site).

Fred

hi fred,

is there something similar planned to support MAYA2010 ?

munch

[RenderFred]

Hi munch,

in the future probably but currently we do not render Maya projects on the RANCH, so I cannot be more precise about a timeframe... As always, we have more things planned than time to do them

Fred

[gotoxy av-media]

hi fred,

ok so we have to wait...

thx
munch