#RenderFarm Proposal
I work for a data processing solution provider in Pennsylvania, and I'm
thinking about submitting a proposal to the management to allow me to use the
networks and PCs at night as a 3DS render farm business. The company has three
classrooms each provided with at least 15 networked 486 machines with 20 megs
of ram, and the newest is equipped with pentiums. With all these machines not
being used at nights, weekends, holidays and some days as well, I see a great
opportunity to put them to use.
In order to start writing my proposal I need to put together some of the facts.
Answers to the following questions would give me a good start with putting this
together. I appreciate any replies and welcome hearing about any experience you
might have with setting up a render farm business.
1). What tape formats are in the largest demand for render farm work?
2). What are the standard render farm rates?
3). Can the process be automated so several jobs can be run unattended after
startup for 'light out' operation?
4). What equipment other than the PCs, networks and 3DS is necessary for
automating laying rederings on tape?
5). Is it better to use a digital frame store like an Abakus and a standard
editing recorder, or just use a single frame recorder? For large jobs is a
single frame recorder too slow?
-Andy