Advantages of the DRE
Here you will find some information regarding the usage of the DRE, as well as the performance of the system.
Speed is the Key
In this particular example the animation consists of 3600 frames at 30 frames per second (FPS). Each frame takes a minimal 2 minutes to render. For a single computer to render all 3600 frames it will take 7200 minutes (120 hours, or 5 days). This is all for just 2 minutes of animation!
Below is a graph representation of the performance benefits of using the DRE. The graph compares render times between different sized computer clusters. Typically students have been forced to render on a single computer. If they are lucky they may be able to login to several computers to try and render across.
Note: Graph represents systems with identical computer hardware
Notice the significant significant decrease in render time as the number of CPUs increase. If a student was able to manually login to several computers (5) they may be lucky enough to drop the render time down to 1440 minutes (23.5 hours). This is a long time for a lab computer to be out of commission. Here is a list of major disadvantages to single machine(or manually login) renders:
Pre-DRE Problems
- User must remain logged into the computer during the render time. This means that they may have to sit at the computer for hours, or leave a sign (hoping that no one restarts the computer).
- Other users cannot use the computer while it is rendering. This leaves many students without a lab computer to work on.
- It is very difficult to keep track of frame rendering when you are trying to manually setup each computer that you log into.
- It is hard to organize your rendered images when you don't have an central storage location for the files.
- Students must compromise quality for speed with their projects.
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Advantages of the DRE
- Students/users simply submit from a lab computer and log off. There is no need to remain logged into a computer to render. All jobs are managed by an off-site server.
- Special software runs that monitors lab computer usage. Renders take place when a computer is not in use. If someone logs into the computer the render stops. This increases the availability of lab computers, and optimizes the availability of computers used for rendering.
- Users no longer have to divide up the render frames across several computers. The DRE will take a single frame submission and automatically distribute those frames across the network of render nodes currently available.
- Users have no need to worry about where they are going to store their rendered frames. The DRE has a central storage location that only the user can access. Frames can be downloaded from any computer on campus and then transferred to a media of choice.
- There is no longer a need to compromise quality for speed. With the DRE students can spend more time on their projects without having to worry as much about starting their render two weeks before project deadline.
- Image quality goes up significantly with the ability to quickly render out test animations students can check for issues with the render, such as shadow flickering, color distortion, and animation glitches.
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