Render Farm?

[orphanage]

Is there are render only version of SilhouetteRoto? If I create mattes in AE and then need to render on the Render Farm, it would be great to be able to keep the mattes live as opposed to baking them into luma/alpha matte.

[paulm]

Not yet, but this is a good request, and something I hadn't thought of.

[orphanage]

What would be great is to have the roto be able to be done in SR but not editable... this would allow you to take advantage of it's results but just not be able monkey with the splines.

[paulm]

We're talking about the best way to deal with this.

Is it safe to assume that on your render nodes there is an AE GUI that could be used to enter a license?

[orphanage]

It is safe to say... but I think there might be a smarter easier way to rollout a render node. I'll try and do some research on our other render node plug-ins.

[paulm]

I'd appreciate your feedback. I don't have much experience with rolling out render-only plugins on large AE render farms.

[Malc]

:confused:
Hi,
glad to see there's a bit of interest in putting sfxroto on renderfarms.
Hope I'm not veering off topic but along similar lines we'd really like to
see a render only version. We have some stand alone sfxrotos so we'd
really love the following.

Be able to run the render only version from the command line
and supply it with the frame range and script name.

Be able to add a menu item to the standalone GUI so we can
run our own pythonlet with frame range and script as arguments (which
will ultimately, from a render box, cause the sfxroto standalone to be
run.

Is this what you guys have been looking at, or something different?

Basically, we'd like to be able to do what we were doing when we were
rotoing in Shake since we're using Silhouette as a replacement. I guess
there's a good argument for you guys in terms of making it easier for
people to ditch rotoing in Shake by providing the render only version
as a command line tool that takes a handy set of flags.

Cheers,
Malc.

[jbills]

I think, using the shake plugin, there is probably already be an infrastructure in place for rendering on a farm using your existing shake setup.

However, pricing is a big issue. Having silhouette's stadalone+shake plugin licensed on each machine of a renderfarm is cost prohibitive. Hopefully some progress will be made in this area soon.

[Malc]

The Shake plugin would do it but since we're effectively trying
to replace a Shake with a standalone sfxroto that's obviously
not ideal. What we'd be after would be sfxroto standalone + cheap (Free?)
commandline rendering version that picks up a floating license and
can be triggered from the standalone's GUI.

Any words of encouragement from Paul M. or Marco P?;)

Cheers,
Malc.

[marcop]

A command line / render only version is on it's way for the next version. However, I doubt that we can provide a render only version for free, as some have suggested. What do you think would be a fair price for a render only version?

[perryk]

Every piece of software we offer has to be tested, maintained, supported and improved. These tasks are not free.

[jbills]

It doesn't hurt to ask for feedback, but to some extent this isn't a fair question to ask of artists, who are by choice not check-signers.

Would it be fair for us to ask how long it would take you to code it?

I don't think anyone here wants silhouette to go under, perry! if you're looking for those people, head over to the Motor forum. :)

ok, all snide comments aside - you know we want it, we know you'll give it to us. just please be gentle. historically, render-only licenses have been a fraction of the cost of the real deal, and there have been those companies bold enough to do it for free as a marketing move to drive sales of the gui versions of their products. as a non-check-signer, couldn't tell you if it's worked for them. maybe deon could comment.

honestly, I'd rather see this dropped in the overall scheme of things. Silhouette renders very fast and since it's only being used by our roto dept and not facility wide, I can't see recommending us for more than a few (5-10) render licenses at the moment. can't speak for anyone but me, though.

what we really need is paint development. (sorry, malc)

[Malc]

Hi Marco,

We reckon around 15% of your standalone price would be sensible.

Obviously for you guys, since it won't have a gui and should just use
in most cases the same code as the standalone it's not a massive
investment you have to claw back in creating such a thing but you
want to maximise your return but if it's too pricey then you won't
get a lot of take up. Obviously bulk discounts would make sense
and perhaps an introductory price for a limited period may work
for you. Rented licenses would go down well also I'd imagine.

Ta,
Malc.