Technical post (Patreon)

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So, I need to reduce render time. To do this, I bought a new computer based on Ryzen 7 processor. It 3-6 times faster and 6-12 times more economical in electricity consumption compared to old one. But it was still not enough, so I combined both computers (new and old) into a network, see Fig 1. Old computer could be unstable, so I kept important files on the new one, which was also a file server. This all worked well in render, but caused a lot of problems in the process of creating animations: my software lagged due to use of hundreds of network paths.

Because of this, I wanted to merge file server and workstation into one device. This would work well, but to have time to do at least one long animation per month, I need at least four render nodes (not purchased yet). It would be very expensive. Cost of one node is about 2000 USD, even with help of patrons I'll need up to four months to buy one node. Main part of funds is needed for software, see Fig 3.

So I decided to try something completely new - a GPU rendering. It's still far from CPU rendering, but it already supports almost all features I need. It is known that GPU rendering supports hair, it will be a different hair system, most likely new hair will look better than current. Also it's known that GPU rendering doesn't support 180 degree camera yet, it needed for VR animations, so VR still need to be rendered in CPU mode. It's also not known how GPU rendering will increase speed of rendering. I haven't had time to do a full GPU render test on a real scene yet, only small tests. And GPU render has very unpleasant oddities, for example it smoothes sharp contours of objects, but I think it can be solved.

So what is advantage of GPU rendering? - I don't have to buy a render nodes! I will only need one computer with 1-2 graphics cards and one set of software that I have already bought. This solution is much cheaper!

I want to fully test GPU rendering on new animation and if all goes well, buy a new graphics card (my current card is almost six years old).

Also, I finally fixed my VR headset! Hurray! :D