Nvidia getting into render appliances.
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It has been talked (a little and most over the name 
) in this thread.
but you are right, it seems quite interesting.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11695
) in this thread.but you are right, it seems quite interesting.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11695
Now NVIDIA digital film group releases eval copy of Gelato.
http://film.nvidia.com/object/gelato_eula.html
http://film.nvidia.com/object/gelato_eula.html
I have been waiting for hardware-assisted 3d rendering for a while now. With the capabilities of modern graphics hardware this should really be possible.
I don't see this being used in film all too soon (the big companies aren't abandoning RnderMan/Mental Ray too soon and they have the money to buy huge renderfarms anyway) but where I can see this helping big time is in smallish TV FX houses (especially small startups that don't have a prior investment in a hardware/software pipeline and that can build around this). What they might be able to do is use their workstations to do the final rendering at an acceptable speed without the need for a renderfarm at all (maybe just a few extra computers with quadros in them). I'm not sure how cost effective this would really be though since the Gelato license isn't all that cheap ($2700 and something) and the quadro cards cost a lot too (the workstation machines would need them anyway though). The important question is: how fast is this? I.e. how many Athlon64/P4 boxes would you need compared to one box with a QuadroFX? I'm being a little vague on the hardware since it isn't that important but a rough ratio would be very interesting. Anyone have that info?
I don't see this being used in film all too soon (the big companies aren't abandoning RnderMan/Mental Ray too soon and they have the money to buy huge renderfarms anyway) but where I can see this helping big time is in smallish TV FX houses (especially small startups that don't have a prior investment in a hardware/software pipeline and that can build around this). What they might be able to do is use their workstations to do the final rendering at an acceptable speed without the need for a renderfarm at all (maybe just a few extra computers with quadros in them). I'm not sure how cost effective this would really be though since the Gelato license isn't all that cheap ($2700 and something) and the quadro cards cost a lot too (the workstation machines would need them anyway though). The important question is: how fast is this? I.e. how many Athlon64/P4 boxes would you need compared to one box with a QuadroFX? I'm being a little vague on the hardware since it isn't that important but a rough ratio would be very interesting. Anyone have that info?
It seems at that price, you could afford 10-ish cheap render boxes to one workstation with the spiffy card.
Is this card really cost effective for replacing a render farm?
Is this card really cost effective for replacing a render farm?
yes, you could afford the renderboxes BUT what about the licenses to run the renderer? A single PRman license will cost more than a Geltaro license. Then, you get into dual- or quad-cpu machines and you have to buy two or four licenses just for that machine (you buy CPU licenses, not machine licenses).RussSchultz said:
Hrm. That's what gnutella is all about.Sage said:
>Q: How much does Gelato cost?
>A: The license fee is $2,750 per node plus a $525 annuity for maintenance and support.
>Bundled pricing with NVIDIA Quadro FX GPUs is available.
>Facility pricing for both license fees and maintenance and support can be negotiated.
>There will also be hardware/software bundling options, rental options, and academic pricing.
http://film.nvidia.com/object/gelato_faq.html#requirements
And Gelato implements new shading language "GS"(Gelato Shading language).
>A: The license fee is $2,750 per node plus a $525 annuity for maintenance and support.
>Bundled pricing with NVIDIA Quadro FX GPUs is available.
>Facility pricing for both license fees and maintenance and support can be negotiated.
>There will also be hardware/software bundling options, rental options, and academic pricing.
http://film.nvidia.com/object/gelato_faq.html#requirements
And Gelato implements new shading language "GS"(Gelato Shading language).
http://www.boxxtech.com/asp/1rendernodes.asp
I expect BOXX would develop RenderBOXX w/Quadro FX 4000 and Gelato for Render Farm.
I expect BOXX would develop RenderBOXX w/Quadro FX 4000 and Gelato for Render Farm.
I didn't even think about the fact that you would need a license for each of the regular boxes and yeah, RenderMan ain't cheap. I hadn't seen the stuff about the bundle deals and so either; looks like for a new shop setting up to do TV work this could be great solution, much MUCH cheaper than a renderfarm.
Pixar doesn't do volume licensing, atleast with small companies. Company I used to work for tried it, they won't budge. Maybe for large hollywood studios they might budge, maybe not.
Biggest cost of a renderfarm node is the software. Gnutella route? Pixar is a very litigious company. You are seriously risking your company by crossing them, playing with fire. I'm sorry, but the warez route is only for personal use.
Remember, Pixar "took out" BMRT/ExLuna. They practically had to sell out to NVidia because a free tool (and their commercial tool) was starting to get used seriously by commercial studios. Pixar sued ExLuna multiple times, for trade secret violation, copyright violation, AND patent violation. They almost put ExLuna programmers *IN JAIL*, that's right, not just fines or injunctions, but *criminal charges*. BMRT was a free renderman tool written by Larry Gritz when he was in graduate school. It was used by thousands of animators. It did radiosity and raytracing along with REYES way before PRMan had it.
As a result of this generousity to the artist community, Larry Gritz and his partners had their company's future ripped from them, BMRT was removed from the internet (used for YEARS by teachers at universities to teach graphics), and their only recourse was to sell out.
Don't f*ck with Pixar.
Biggest cost of a renderfarm node is the software. Gnutella route? Pixar is a very litigious company. You are seriously risking your company by crossing them, playing with fire. I'm sorry, but the warez route is only for personal use.
Remember, Pixar "took out" BMRT/ExLuna. They practically had to sell out to NVidia because a free tool (and their commercial tool) was starting to get used seriously by commercial studios. Pixar sued ExLuna multiple times, for trade secret violation, copyright violation, AND patent violation. They almost put ExLuna programmers *IN JAIL*, that's right, not just fines or injunctions, but *criminal charges*. BMRT was a free renderman tool written by Larry Gritz when he was in graduate school. It was used by thousands of animators. It did radiosity and raytracing along with REYES way before PRMan had it.
As a result of this generousity to the artist community, Larry Gritz and his partners had their company's future ripped from them, BMRT was removed from the internet (used for YEARS by teachers at universities to teach graphics), and their only recourse was to sell out.
Don't f*ck with Pixar.
@3dcgi - From the Alias website: "Seamless mental ray integration and interactive high-quality rendering in the viewport for real-time previews." Not really specific and could mean anything but it sounds like their hardware/preview rendering has indeed been upgraded.
What I'm waiting for is proper support for consumer cards (my R9700Pro in particular) either from Alias or in the Ati drivers. I have used the hacked FireGL drivers and with them Maya works fine (harware overlay planes?) but of course it's not so good for games (can't force AA/AF, no SM2.0 support). With the Catalysts it runs unstable and doesn't work properly with some tools. I know, they don't care, they want you fork over lots of money for a pro card. Meh.
What I'm waiting for is proper support for consumer cards (my R9700Pro in particular) either from Alias or in the Ati drivers. I have used the hacked FireGL drivers and with them Maya works fine (harware overlay planes?) but of course it's not so good for games (can't force AA/AF, no SM2.0 support). With the Catalysts it runs unstable and doesn't work properly with some tools. I know, they don't care, they want you fork over lots of money for a pro card. Meh.
Yeah I know. I did say that they don't care. Its just so ridicules that the pro cards cost 3x as much as the gaming ones and are barely different but you still have to buy them because the high-end apps don't run well on the standard drivers. No biggie, at least there are the nice people that made SoftFireGL to make things good for meSage said:
In related news I just saw this on cgnetworks.com: "mental ray 3.3 takes advantage of NVIDIA Quadro hardware acceleration". Sounds like MentalRay are in the game too and with MentalRay shipping with Maya and SoftImage I'm betting on them to be more successful here. Of course I'm not sure if they are doing exactly the same thing but it does sound like it. MentalRay is getting a lot of use lately (e.g. the Matrix sequels) so this sounds even more interesting than the Nvidia renderer, which still needs to build a user base.
DemoCoder said:
To be fair to Pixar, its more complex than that. Larry developed some of BMRT while AT Pixar, and they were happy for him to release it as free/shareware, the problem occured when he left Pixar and released a high-end version of BMRT as a commercial product (Entropy). Pixar decided that he had used trade secrets to produce Entropy, so went to court. Intially the Exluna were confident of winning (the first cases were about antialiasing patents that were clearly rubbish) but the next lawsuits were about trade secrets that he had access to while at Pixar. They weren't going to win that one, so made a deal involving NVIDIA.
It sucks that BMRT got caught up in the chaos, but Exluna were always on dodgy ground due to unclear lines of what was BMRT and Entropy.
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