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LogicReinc / LogicReinc.BlendFarm

A stand-alone Blender Network Renderer
GNU General Public License v3.0
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BlendFarm

A open-source, cross-platform, stand-alone, Network Renderer for Blender

When I was trying to build a render server I was suprised most network renderers out there for Blender are either outdated, obsolete or require very specific environments to work properly. Thus, I spend the last months writing and testing a stand-alone network renderer that requires barely any setup and should work with most if not all recent versions of Blender. And should even work with future releases.

Originally I only planned on using it for myself, but decided to make it more production ready and release it to the public, and hopefully solve this for others. It consumed more time than I had planned. But as we're in a time where any modern GPU is effectively unobtainium, there is not a better time for it to exist.

SimpleRender A render using SplitChunked render strategy on BlendFarms test blendfile at low samples/res for showcase.

Why a Network Renderer

Not everyone has RTX 3090's stacked up, and even if you do, you can only run maybe 2 in the same system. A network renderer allows you to use multiple pcs in your network to work on a single image or animation. Old hardware that is still relatively fast can be used to accelerate your rendering or live preview. While a network renderer is not perfect and does have some overhead. With 2 identical computers on a sufficiently large scene I estimate you can speed up your render time by about 80-90% with the right settings.

TL;DR: Features

Watch the video below for an overview:

Demonstration Video

Why Stand-alone

Unlike some other network renderers, LogicReinc.BlendFarm runs as its own independent application. This is for various reasons:

Use-Cases

Quite some time went into getting this up. If you enjoy the software, please consider dropping a donation on my Patreon. https://patreon.com/LogicReinc

If you like to donate crypto:

Ethereum: 0xd2C3BCCc981d359e037457f0CdB9d48fdc289Feb

Planned

Limitations

Overhead

The software is not perfect, depending on the Render Strategy and blend file there will be overhead, but with the right settings additional hardware should be about 90% effective. Performance will likely improve overtime as well with features such as GUI taking over CPU tiles in Blender 2.92.0. For the fastest rendering use RenderStrategy Splitted, this does not show your image being rendered in chunks but in whole pieces per device. But has less overhead.

Permissions (Linux)

On Linux in particular, the application will need read, write and execute permissions in a directory. Unless you want to run it with sudo.

Memory Usage

Its still using Blender underneath, and thus you need to cough up the memory you actually need for the files.

Showcase

CPU Speed Comparison

Below a simple example when rendering in split mode, using all computers and a single computer 1700X + 3700X + Xeon e5 2578 v3 + 2x Xeon e5 2573 v3 Solo 1700X
SimpleRender SimpleRender
Duration: +/- 25 Seconds Duration: +/- 90 Seconds

With a well distributed scene performance scaling can be >90%

Animation Rendering

Using BlendFarm you can render multiple frames at the same time. AnimationRender

Live Render

You can run BlendFarm besides Blender, and have it re-render your scene using all your connected computers whenever you save in blender LiveRender

Source Code Notes

Technical Information

Getting Started

To get started, You will want 2 or more computers (if you actually want to distribute it).

Below is a video on how you do a basic render using BlendFarm

BlendFarm Tutorial

Platform Specific TL;DR;

Extract and run the executables, ensure read, write and execute access to directory and allow through firewall (port 15000 default) Note that LogicReinc.BlendFarm is both client and server, so you can simply use the GUI on every pc, but would add useless UI.

Getting Started on Windows

Server (Render node)

Client (GUI)

Getting Started on Linux

Server (Render Node)

Client (GUI)

Getting Started on Mac

Client (GUI)

Finding my RenderNodes

After you setup your computers render nodes should automatically appear in your nodes list through auto-discovery. If this is not the case, your network may block broadcasts. You can add nodes by IP using the fields under the list. For address use {deviceIP}:{devicePort} (eg. 192.168.1.123:15000)

Tested Blender Versions (Server)

FAQ

Which version of Blender does this work with?

In theory, this tool can be made to work with all (recent) versions of Blender. Even future blender versions may work auto-magically unless Blender's source code changes significantly. In this case I will have to add updated scripts. You select which version of Blender to render with while when opening your project/blend file.

Can I use GPU rendering?

Yup, when connected to a client you can click the gear and change RenderType to CUDA or OPENCL

Can I run this on Windows?

Yes, both the renderer and gui should work on Windows64.

Can I run this on Linux?

Yes, both the renderer and gui should work on Linux64.

Can I run this on Mac?

Yes, both the renderer and gui should work on OSX-64, however may not run on ARM CPUs. (At the moment only 64bit blender versions are used)

Can I run this in Docker?

I haven't made a docker file yet, but I plan on it since its not that much effort. So expect it in the future Iguess. If you want to make one yourself, you can easily do it by copying the linux executable, assign a persistent volume to its parent directory and run it on boot and you're good. When I make the docker file I'll make some changes to the code so that environment variables can be used instead of Settings file.

Can I run this on Linux headless?

Yes, the render node server is a console application and has no GUI.

Can I donate for your work?

Every donation is welcome through my Patreon https://patreon.com/LogicReinc. No tiers or rewards at the moment. Just for donations. All current software is available freely.

Render Animation gives a set of images, how do I get a video?

Currently I have not embeded ffmpeg into the application, you can easily merge it using ffmpeg command line. In a later version I may embed ffmpeg to automatically generate mkv/mp4/etc.

Do I need to port forward?

Assuming you're running this over a local network, there is no reason

Can I run this over the internet?

Sure, In that case you do need port forwarding, I do not recommend exposing the renderer on the internet cuz there is no security, private VPN maybe? Also note that syncronizing will be slower.

The scene is rendered without textures or similar?

This is likely due to missing texture files. Make sure you pack your textures into your .blend file (File->External Data->Automatically Pack into .blend). This ensures remote computers have the textures.

My Blenderfile requires script to run during rendering, can these be run?

At this point in time Blendfarm will not execute scripts in your Blendfile as this would be a security concern. I may add something so you can explicitly enable it somehow at a later point. (While I do not recommend it, create an issue if you really need this)

My Blendfile requires special addons to be active while rendering, can I add these?

Blendfarm has its own versions of Blender in the BlenderData directory, and it runs these versions always in factory startup, thus without any added addons. This is done on purpose to make sure the environment is not altered. Most addons don't have to be active during rendering as they generate geometry etc. If you really need this, make an issue and I see what I can do. However do realise that this may make the workflow less smooth. (As you may need to set up these plugins for every Blender version instead of just letting BlendFarm do all the work.

Automatic Performance doesn't distribute work equally

The software tries to equally distribute it based on past renders, there might be run-to-run variation that can cause it to be off. Also keep in mind that automatic performance is only applied after completing a renderin (so not cancelled). This is an area to improve.

My internet is slow, downloading the Blender version for every pc takes too long

In theory you can download the zip/tar.xz from blender directly and extract is into AppDirectory/BlenderData (unless you changed it in settings). Just ensure you use the right naming format, generally blender-x.xx.x-osversion64, for example blender-2.91.0-windows64, and in case of linux ensure you chmod -R u=rwx that directory

I fail to connect to another computer

The most likely reason connection failed is simply a firewall on the target pc. If you can ping the computer and the firewall is allowed for the used port there should be no general connection issues.

Render fails due to Gdip

You're running Linux or Mac but did not install libgdiplus and libc6-dev, install these and you should be good.

Render fails on Linux

You may not have the required blender system dependencies. Easiest way to cover them all is to just run apt-get install blender to fetch them all. (It does not have to be an up2date blender package, its just for dependencies)

I'm seeing artifacts in the end result

Depending on your settings, there can be a variety of reasons for this. In general, if you're rendering for an actual export. I recommend using Render Strategy Split, this doesn't give you a nice live preview of progress, but it does render a single chunk for every device, this generally causes favorable results. When using strategy SplitChunked with Workaround enabled, this generally causes line to appear due to rounding issues. In summary, use Split for final renders and SplitChunked for live previews

Chunks are rendered in the wrong location

Try toggling the Workaround checkbox. In versions of blender (atleast 2.91.0 and below), persistent renders don't work together with changing of render settings, which this software relies on, in this case Workaround should be ON. If this causes the tiles to render in the wrong location, turn it OFF. It may be fixed in that version of Blender.

Each chunk is shown surrounded by black, but they are never merged

In some projects the background around render borders is rendered in black, I believe this has something to do with compositing. I still have to figure that one out and is on my TODO list.

Syncing takes too long

This highly depends on your project and local network connection. Blend files can get very big. There is little I can do about that. Make sure computers are connected by cable and not over wifi.

It is rendering slower than it should

There could be a variety of reasons why rendering is slow, and most of them you can likely fix with the settings.

I have a different issue

You can create an issue on Github, please make sure you checked all your settings beforehand, and add as much details as possible in your Issue description. Steps you did to reproduce, etc.