The Helmer used Plexi glass rather than aluminum to sit the mother boards on. Plexiglass is both cheap, and i would think, insulated and firesafe...<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 12:29 PM, arjuna <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:brahmaforces@gmail.com">brahmaforces@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Peter:<br><br>Thats amazing and insprational:<br><br>Vincent, this would address your concern about beowulf for animation rendering and also cost...<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="Ih2E3d">On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 9:40 PM, Peter Brady <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:petertbrady@gmail.com" target="_blank">petertbrady@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Hello,<br>
<br>
If you're interested in do it yourself clustering for rendering<br>
purposes you may want to check this out: <a href="http://helmer.sfe.se/" target="_blank">http://helmer.sfe.se/</a>.<br>
<div><div></div><div><br>
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:47 AM, Dmitri Chubarov<br>
<<a href="mailto:dmitri.chubarov@gmail.com" target="_blank">dmitri.chubarov@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> Hello,<br>
><br>
> my first reply missed the list by mistake so I will repeat a few points that<br>
> I mentioned there.<br>
><br>
>><br>
>> What is 1u?<br>
>><br>
>> What is a blade system?<br>
><br>
> Compute clusters are often built of rack-server hardware meaning boxes<br>
> different from desktop boxes and chipset that have features not necessary<br>
> for desktop PCs like ECC memory, redundant power supply units, integrated<br>
> management processors, RAID controllers, that altogether provide better<br>
> reliability, since the failure rate for a cluster of a 100 nodes is 100<br>
> times higher than for a single node. You may not need any of it for a 16<br>
> node rendering farm.<br>
><br>
>> Anyone using clusters for animation on this list?<br>
><br>
> We are just writing up on a research project on distributed rendering.<br>
> Rendering is the part in the animation process that requires the most<br>
> processing power. We used 3dStudio Max (3DS) for modelling and V-Ray for<br>
> rendering. 3DS has its own utility, called Backburner, for distributing<br>
> frames among a number of cluster nodes.<br>
><br>
> We observed that V-Ray failed on some certain frames thus stopping the whole<br>
> rendering queue, therefore the process was not completely automated.<br>
><br>
> I would also repeat that a storage subsystem that uses an array of disks is<br>
> essential for performance.<br>
>><br>
>> At this time I am trying to figure out the racks. Am meeting the hardware<br>
>> guy on Saturday and we were thinking of opening up the PCS i have lying<br>
>> around and taking measurements of how the mother boards fit into the<br>
>> cases,with the intention of creating a rack from scratch. Any ideas of what<br>
>> goes into a good rack in terms of size and matieral (assuming it has to be<br>
>> insulated)<br>
><br>
> This sort of rack is more of a research project. On the contrary, the usual<br>
> kind of rack is an IEC standard server rack,<br>
> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_inch_rack" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_inch_rack</a><br>
><br>
>><br>
>> Am planning to run animation software (like blender) on it. Since<br>
>> animation software requires large processing power i am assuming they have<br>
>> already worked on parrallelizing the code...<br>
><br>
><br>
> Blender does not seem to have a driver to distribute rendering (I might be<br>
> wrong) but it can generate PovRay scripts and povray can make use of<br>
> parallel processing in a number of ways.<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
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><br>
><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div></div></div><br><br clear="all"><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><br>-- <br>Best regards,<br>arjuna<br><a href="http://www.brahmaforces.com" target="_blank">http://www.brahmaforces.com</a><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Best regards,<br>arjuna<br><a href="http://www.brahmaforces.com">http://www.brahmaforces.com</a><br>
<br />--
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