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".
Okay, so what I think happened was I was using a version of 2.7 built upon 2.8.
I have the linked one downloaded now, so let's give that a whirl and see what happens.
It's very interesting to see how even when it says 2.7 there are problems underneath you wouldn't think would be problems. My unintentional breaking of things comes in handy once again!
silentheart00 Well at least you weren't wrong about your potential to break things 😅
Thanks a lot for sticking through the mishaps, Silent. Lets hope the version of 2.79 you downloaded will work fine. 🤞🏼
dostovel I always joke I would be a great tester because I genuinely tend to break things upon first try, but I also like to think it makes me a better debugger, too.
I rendered a couple of frames. They look to be the appropriate size, but now I need my PC to work. If you could check and confirm they're right that would be great. Don't worry, we got this.
silentheart00 I will, as soon as one finishes rendering. You deleted the ones you had rendered so far, so now there aren't any with your name on them. The ones that have your name are at 0kb so that probably means they haven't finish rendering.
@theluthier Well, apparently it totally is a thing. Here's hoping everything is smoother this time around.
Greetings Sirs, cgcookie comunity discord server ready to assist. I will message the most activce members and ask them to help out. In adition my deputy "Phil Osterbauer" just put something up in one of our channels to make sure this doesnt just drift away.
aarev Thank you Arev, and thanks 
phoenix4690 for spreading the word around.
dostovel No problem Omar, in adition i just pinged all the discord server members...
dostovel Just a question. Since we have to download the render packs it might seem like everyone who helps, have to render the whole animation. Isnt there a way that removes a spesific file once someone renders it, so that that others can render another file?
aarev Yes, Blender has an option called "Placeholders" you enable it and that prevents people from rendering the same file, so if Blender sees I'm rendering frame 5 and frames 1 to 4 have also been rendered, your will automatically jump to frame 6 to render.
But you don't have to download the blender packed file, just open it from Google Drive and render away, nothing has to be in your local hard drive. There are directions at the top of this post. Also inside the .blend there is a short instruction that guides you.
And most important: "USE BLENDER 2.79b TO RENDER"
Frames 152 and 156 are broken. I will update the small video test in the folder, same location.
EDIT: All fixed now. Also removing doubles. Testing all files before doing something of course.
dostovel Sorry for any duplicates, but I think I have everything hammered out now. Hopefully. 🤞
I am a bit confused: I followed the instructions and am using Insync on Linux. Is it supposed to download all the finished EXR's to my computer? Not that I mind, but the syncing takes forever!
I have never done anything like this, so I don't know if this is how this should work, but it seems a bit strange to me....
spikeyxxx I think that is the software @theluthier said was giving him trouble on Linux, he had to buy a paid alternative which works fine. Syncing is taking forever probably because there are at least 5GB of EXR files at this point on the shared folder on Google Drive, so it's syncing all those files first and that can take a while. After it is done syncing (we are on frame 400 at the moment) if you hit render, your computer would start rendering frame 401.
