Apple QMaster for Maya/After Effects rendering?

[Walter Soyka]

[Paul Roper] “Would I need Maya/After Effects installed on each cluster node? I’m assuming not, because the Qmaster documentation hints at using the cluster as one big processor. If I need to install additional Maya licences, then the cost would throw the whole idea out the window. I know I could install After Effects’ render engine on the machines for free, but a Qmaster/cluster setup seems much neater – one solution to render Maya, AE and Compressor jobs.”

QMaster does not actually aggregate computing power and make it available to a single machine the way you’re suggesting. It it a tool for distributing work among participating machines, each of which runs their own little piece locally, then kicks the results back up to the cluster’s storage.

You would need Maya and AE installed on all the nodes.

QMaster has a command preset for Maya renders, and you can start AE renders with the generic render command — but you will have to configure shared storage and understand a bit about how aerender [link] works.

Watch folder rendering [link] with AE may be a bit simpler to understand and implement, but you still need a very fast network and fast shared storage to make it worthwhile. See my recent post on network rendering with AE [link] for both an overview and a lot more detail.

Note too that none of these are “real” render farm management solutions.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Paul Roper]

Thanks, Walter.

I suspected that I “would need Maya and AE installed on all the nodes”, but the way Qmaster describes itself in the instructions kinda suggests otherwise. I thought it’d be too good to be true, and indeed it is.

I do occasionally use a single machine AE render ‘farm’ (smallholding? chicken shed?) with a ‘watch folder’ just so I can offload renders and carry on working on the project. It’s great that Adobe lets me install as many render nodes as I like, and would love to automate a way of loading AE Render Engine on other peoples’ machines in the office when they’re not using them – kind of like an AE screensaver! But those other people keep USING their computers for other stuff!

[Walter Soyka]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!

[Paul Roper] “I do occasionally use a single machine AE render ‘farm’ (smallholding? chicken shed?) with a ‘watch folder’ just so I can offload renders and carry on working on the project.”

I like to refer to small render farms as render gardens — so maybe a single-computer render farm could be a render pot?

If you haven’t seen it already, check out Lloyd Alvarez’s awesome BG Renderer script [link]. You could skip the pain of collect files and render in the background on your regular machine.

[Paul Roper] “But those other people keep USING their computers for other stuff!”

Some people have a lot of nerve!

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Kendall Kaiser]

Not sure what version of AE you have, but according to the After Effects Community’s post on Network Rendering, you can install AE6 Render Engine without serializing. In other words, one license for your whole farm. More info here, and lots of good info on qmaster setup, etc in apple’s qmaster manual.

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103a4f2dff7-79a3a.html

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103a4f2dff7-79a3a.html

Check your version # on qmaster to see if you have the right manual. Best of luck! I’m going to be doing qmaster farm with 10-15 part-time service nodes sometime in the next few weeks. 🙂