Update 7/29/2019: Omar's new scene is ready to render and already underway on SheepIt. If you're part of the CG Cookie Render Monsters team, we'd appreciate you launching the SheepIt app on your computer to contribute. NOTE: Make sure on your SheepIt account "Options" you enable Render my team's projects first. Thanks!
Update 7/18/2019: Omar is polishing new scenes.
Update 7/3/2019: Omar has 2 new files ready for rendering. Let's do dis.
Update 7/1/2019: We have finished rendering two of Omar's reel projects. Way to go community. Omar still has several to prep for rendering. I'm going to unpin this thread and re-pin once it's ready to render again.
Update 6/17/2019: Omar has updated his shared project folder with new scenes to render. It was accidentally uploaded as a new folder so if you've already synced the previous folder, you can delete that one (if it's still there) and you'll have to sync this new one. From now on we know how to avoid this so no more re-syncing.
The time to render is now!
Update 6/16/2019: We've finished Omar's first 2 scenes! Way to go People 👏👏 Thanks to everyone for contributing. Now we're waiting for Omar to setup and upload his next scene.
@theluthier Kent after comparing the original Cycles renders and Element 3D real time ones, I think you are right, rendering it out of Cycles is totally worth going the extra mile for. Although you and Lampel said it was great, that it's 95% there, for a second I saw a twinkle in your eyes saying "C'mon dude, you know it, I know it... there is no spoon." And then the twinkle continued "No one eats an Oreo and doesn't go all the way to the stuffing in the middle, the cookie part is just enough". I see what you mean twinkle.
I didn't want to bother people though, but I guess if I'm going to try this there's no way around that. I don't know how to use Drop Box, I've never used it before. Should I get an account? I hope it's enough space. I remember you kinda set things up in a similar way in the Rendering & Finishing A Blender Animation course. I should re-watch that. I have never done things through the internet so this should be a learning experience.
I, Kent Trammell, am commandeering Omar's original post! [evil laugh] I'm the one that encouraged Omar to reach out to the community for helping him render his demo reel. My computer just sits collecting dust most nights and I'm happy to lend some rendering power to this project while I'm asleep. I suspect that there are a number of CGC community members willing to do the same 🙏
If you want to help out, please follow the instructions below!
The status of the project will be stated and updated at the end of the thread title in brackets. When it says "READY TO RENDER" that means a project has been submitted to SheepIt for rendering. If it says anything else, the project isn't ready for rendering yet.
The status of the project will be stated and updated at the end of the thread title in brackets. When it says "READY TO RENDER" that means it's ready to sync the project folder and start rendering. If it says anything else, the project isn't ready for rendering yet.
STEP 1 -- Sync Omar's project folder to your Google Drive.
If you have a gmail account, you have 15 GB of free Google Drive space. Just click the link and when you're redirected to the Google Drive website, right click on the "Demo Reel Files" folder and choose Add to My Drive.
If you're on Mac or Windows, use the official Google Drive app (personal version) to sync your Google Drive to your computer's file system.
Render_Scenes_1_Packed.blend
If you're on Linux like me, there is no official app. I've had some success with Open Drive but it seems to have stopped syncing on my system. I'm currently using Insync and it's working beautifully. It's $30 after the 15 day trial period, which I will likely pay.
STEP 2 -- Open one of the render-ready .blends with Blender 2.8
After the project folder has finished syncing *entirely* to your computer, launch Blender 2.8 and open Demo Reel Files > Blend Packed Files > Render_2.8-Scene_1_Packed.blend. Then follow Omar's instructions in the file for CPU or GPU rendering, whichever your machine is best equipped.
Enable viewport rendering to double check the scenes look fine (no pink from missing textures). I've tested these files myself and they should be ready to render without problems.
STEP 3 -- Render the Animation
The files should all be setup properly so anyone that opens them doesn't have to do anything but click the Render button.
That should be all you need to do to contribute rendering to Omar's project! Note that these scenes are heavy and can take an hour or more per frame, even on a high end machine, which is why Omar needs our help.
When the rendering is all done (or you need to stop and regain your own GoogleDrive space), simply navigate to the Google Drive website, right click on the folder and choose "Remove".
I notice the Render Output\Scene_1_Renders\ folder is set to view only and won't let me sync placerholders/finished exr files.
@theluthier Denoising is not On on neither of the Scene 1 or 2, do the changes you make in your end reflect here on my end? or do you turn Denoising On at your side and I have to hit refresh or something here? Or perhaps you didn't save the file?
dostovel looks to be working now. Let the fun begin ;). Are we all considered to be a fellowship now? The Fellowship of the Reel maybe?
dostovel I can confirm denoising is not turned on when I open it. If that's something you want on you'll have to save it on your end I believe.
phoenix4690 Seems like Kent updated it.
Ok so it's on, I'm going to leave 4 computers rendering here at work and my laptop at home.
There's a duplicated file. It's likely that Blender doesn't see the file since it's still uploading onto the internet and probably goes away to rendering it and then it arrives but it's too late. I guess I'll have to keep an eye out for those and delete them? the ones with (1) on them.
Although maybe is not that easy, since the (1) is the right one. I just noticed it in Blender.
Also flies are now larger for some reason. The only difference I can think of is that first 12 rendered frames didn't have Denoising On, after those Denoising was turned On, perhaps that's it? Nothing else besides that was changed I think.
dostovel Looks like 2.8 EXR's are not compatible with 2.79. I tried compositing the sequence in both versions and it errors out. Bummer.
I'll bet this is also causing the file size difference. I will delete my files and start rendering [slowly] with 2.79 😔
PS: Kinda cool that we can see who contributes which frames on the Google Drive website.
@theluthier Yeah I was doing some compositing also and saw the pink frames. :(
The horror! the horror! So it doesn't matter if I remake the files on 2.8 for you to render on your GPU? there will be a clash between 2.79 files and 2.8 files? It is better to leave it at 2.79? This sucks by the way. I remember when I heard people bragging that you could open any Blender files in any Blender version, I guess that's over.
I tried Linux once, I remember giving up on it because of the lack of drivers and things like that for software's to use. No Adobe of any kind and small programs I wanted to use never were available on Linux. I did like though the cleanliness of it, it felt smooth for some reason.
When I build a rig I'm definitely trying it again.
It is cool that you can see the details on Drive of everything that goes on. On the other hand we could go full Kim Jong-Un and reward the families of everyone that supported the most and imprison the ones that lacked in conviction. I'll see if that can be turned off, that feels like a very judgmental and vulnerable data and one that can get people unease.
dostovel Maybe try updating the second scene for 2.8. I mean the render happens fine but something's different about the passes perhaps. I didn't troubleshoot it, just opened and rendered. It'd be great to get back to 6 min frames on my machine.
So far Linux has sufficed for my needs. I'm pretty much used to open source alternatives to my core apps, namely Krita for Photoshop and Kdenlive for Premiere Pro. It wasn't the smoothest of transitions but I feel good about making it.
I'll see if that can be turned off, that feels like a very judgmental and vulnerable data and one that can get people unease.
Lol I guess if someone complains sure, but I see it as a positive. No one is obligated to contribute any frames but thanks to anyone and everyone who does regardless of how much! It also provides some good documentation, like since all my frames were triple the file size we can know that it's something I'm doing specifically. Helps us troubleshoot. So I say leave it on 👌
dostovel Just wanted to pop in and say it took my GPU about 15 minutes on the first frame I rendered, so hopefully everything is all synced correctly and this bad boy can get a good chunk done by morning! Here's hoping a stupid random Windows update doesn't take this down while I'm sleeping lol.
silentheart00 Silent, you're rendering with 2.8 and the frames you've rendered are getting a black frame thingy now instead of pink. Cancel the renders. You have to use 2.79
The 60 something MB files are the one that are being rendered with 2.8, I will go ahead and delete them.
Some files are getting duplicated. No biggie, I'll erase them.
@theluthier You're right, it was good documentation for seeing the files were coming from Silent. A tool is as good or bad as its wielder. Take that Kim Jong-Un.
Sorry for throwing you under the bus Silent. Please accept this cookie 🍪 as an apology.
@theluthier Also Kent, you said you were going to have to buy a software for doing this, please don't spend money on it. If anyone has to spend it's me. If you have to buy that software tell me and I'll buy it for you or I can reimburse what you spent. Don't say no. 👍🏼
dostovel I use google drive regularly so it would be purchasing the app for myself. Not to worry. This project just happened to be the one that revealed the free alternative app wasn't reliable.
It's so cool to see people contributing to this! silentheart00 I also tried rendering with 2.8 and had to delete a bunch of frames. Something breaks about passes and/or EXR from 2.79 to 2.8 🤔
@theluthier Alright, well if it's something you use. Still I'll figure something out.
I made a small test video and put it where you put the first one. iMacs here at work are 5K and the video looks sooooo bad here. It's a whole dilemma this 4K, 5K stuff. Resolutions for screen are going too fast and computing power is not catching up as fast.
dostovel I really don't think anyone expects higher than 1080p. CG studios and artists know better than anyone how difficult that is to achieve without a massive renderfarm at one's disposal. On my display the test looks great, aside from the missing frame flicker.
Seriously it looks soooo good 🤘🤘
@theluthier Cool, thanks. I'm eager to see the whole thing done.
I guess the time has come... I'll download 2.8 and try and see what's going on with the EXR that get rendered in them. I hesitate though since I have to be preparing the other files from the reel that have to be render ready and animate the camera shots. And I don't know how much time it'll take me to get used to 2.8. Plus I'm afraid to start work on 2.8 and then not being able to work in it and getting stuck since files from 2.79 and 2.8 are not interchangeable.
