• Adobe After Effects

  After Effects Render Engine across multiple computers

  Posted by Marcio Souza on July 24, 2017 at 7:04 am

  Hi everyone,

  I want to build a render farm for After Effects using multiple computer, my plan is to have 8 computers for my render farm since AE does not support multithread, and render TIFF sequences out of those.

  I was wondering if there is a way to make this process somehow “smart” by rendering more than one project at the same time when required, for example.

  -An animator save a project in the watch folder and it will take 5 hours to render across all 8 computers (project 1), an hour later another animator exports a quick sequence that would take 20 minutes (project 2). I don’t want do set a specific number of machines to render from before start rendering because I never know when a new render is coming to the queue. What I want AE to do is render project 1 using 4 computers and the project 2 using the remaining 4 once the second project is added. Prior to that all computer would be rendering project 1 and after project 2 is completed all 8 computers would go back to rendering project 1.

  Hope I’m clear and all makes sense.

  Thanks in advance!

  Walter Soyka replied 9 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Walter Soyka

  July 24, 2017 at 1:38 pm

  Ae’s built-in watch folder network render is pretty naive. For more control, you should look into a third-party render controller, like Thinkbox Software’s Deadline or Pixar’s Tractor.

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

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