• Lynnel

  almost 5 years ago

  Not the cheapest option - use this application and AWS to render your projects, an 8-core processor (rendering time 1:26 minutes on the BMW 27 scene, which is slower than on the GTX 1060 6Gb on my LAPTOP) and when you need to render 400+ frames it's too expensive.

• 

  CG Cookie

  almost 5 years ago

  We definitely need to do a better job translating AWS to people new to AWS. As mentioned before, the instance you used was not an instance with an 8-core processor, instead it was an instance with 2 virtual CPUs hosted by a system using that processor.

  One great feature of AWS EC2, is that you always have more than one option when it comes to the instance you can use, and it's always best to try a few different instances to see what works. Regarding the BMW scene (v2), it can be rendered on a c5.9xlarge for $0.018 in less than 2 minutes, an option much faster, and cheaper to use.

  In your particular case it wasn't the cheapest option, since you had access to a local company renting actual GPU hardware in 24 hour blocks, and you were able to make full use of that time. While you could get really close to that performance and cost with multiple high-end c5 spot instances, it would still be a bit cheaper from your local farm. Outside of your particular case, compared to any of the other rendering platforms out there, it is still significantly cheaper.
• Aapo Saaristo

  over 5 years ago

  Could I provision EC2 instances, install Blender, upload my blend files and write a bash script to render headlessly with the --background and --render-anim or --render-frame command-line arguments? Sure.
  Is it _infinitely_ more convenient with Barista? Yes!
  Barista makes it so easy to juggle multiple rendering jobs in parallel, cleans up after itself so I don't have idle instances hanging around, gives me a nice overview of all my jobs in one place and automagically helps me keep everything in budget.
  Some of the best money I've ever spent. Can't wait to pester Amazon to increase my limits on GPU instances :D

  Support is also amazing, had a few hiccups in the beginning due to having a lot of stuff on my AWS account already, and was able to solve them very quickly with a good hint about what the issue might be.

  As convenient as a render farm, but 100% in your control and often cheaper, too.

• Matt Dunn

  over 5 years ago

  Barista is great! I can't wait to see how it grows.

• Brandon Hix

  over 5 years ago

  This is a powerful piece of software built for POWER-USERS, not beginners.

  You're not going to buy this and be up and running in 30 minutes unless you've been around the block with a render farm before.

  But, when you do get it set up (and they have a great step-by-step guide on how to do it) it has amazing potential to save you both time and money without having to go to a third party render farm solution.

  It gives you options for rendering animations and also splitting large, single frame renders across multiple servers. I love this feature because so many render farms limit this capability.

  Barista is also, of course, catered for Blender rendering, which again most render farms out there are not, so this makes it a great piece of software that stands out in a crowd.

  Currently, from what I can tell, it's lacking support for GPU rendering options in the server list. This is based on my experience and what I've seen so far. But hopefully, they'll expand this in the future.

  Some tips on starting with Barista:

  - At the time I purchased, Barista would still be running in the background on Windows 10 after I closed it in my task bar, check your background tasks and make sure it's fully closed when you want to close it or it will cause problems when you try to relaunch.

  - It's going to be a bit of a setup with Amazon S3 and EC2 through their AWS platform, but take it slow and follow the instructions included and you'll be fine.

  - Make sure to either pack your .blend file when you upload to the server for rendering, or set your paths to relative. Also, if you're going to include the entire directory uploaded in a .zip file then the .blend file has to be named the same as the .zip or you will get errors when you try to render.

  It may seem expensive, but it will definitely save you money if you need a render farm for more than a few projects. It's worth it, and I love my purchase!

• 

  CG Cookie

  over 5 years ago

  Thanks for the feedback Brandon!

  The 1.2.0 version that we released just a few minutes ago gives you GPU rendering as one of the new features, and you no longer need to stop Barista from the Windows app tray. 🎉

  We certainly understand that there is a lot to take in, so we offer a documentation file with each release that explains how to use every single one of Barista's features, as well as how to use basic AWS functionality through the AWS console. There is also a table of contents so you can jump to the features you're most interested in, and this includes preparing your packed and multi-file renders.

  I know a doc file is not always ideal and can also be intimidating, so this is why we plan to add this documentation to the app itself in the near future. 🍪
• Alex

  over 5 years ago

  This is not 2.8 ready. They don't specify the exact versions of Blender running on the server. So for me, I cannot select the frames to render or even focus the camera. They should be extra explicit on the about page. I'll return when they are ready.

• 

  CG Cookie

  over 5 years ago

  As mentioned before, we would love to see the issue you are having so we can address this issue, but so far you are the only person to report an issue with 2.8 rendering.

  We did explain how you can select frames, and frame ranges, but it sounds like you have a specific process that needs more explanation. If you would like to give us more feedback so we can address such problems, we would love to hear it.

  Feel free to reach out to us via your inbox to allow us to help troubleshoot these issues further. You can message us via https://blendermarket.com/inbox
• Peter Flynn

  over 5 years ago

  Barista is a great idea and shows a lot of promise. My own experience is both good and bad, with the bad resulting in $500 worth of charges from AWS for two instances running idle for a month. It seems that when I thought Barista had terminated all instances, it had not. Considering the seemingly clunky mess that is AWS this is not a big surprise. Learn from my mistake and personally log into your AWS account and double check the status, do not rely solely on Barista to manage the instances. (Good advice whenever using a third-party product that manages a complex system.)
  On the good side Barista is a nice clean front end for an ugly backend (AWS). But there is (as in everything in this world) room for improvement.

• 

  CG Cookie

  over 5 years ago

  That's horrible to hear about the charges Peter. If you haven't already, please contact AWS Support letting them know you had some instances running without your knowing, and they will be more than happy to help remedy this issue.

  While this was possible with older versions of Barista, changes have since been made to make sure all running instances show regardless of the situation. If you haven't already, upgrade to the latest version. Thank you for the feedback!
• Ryan Gorley

  over 5 years ago

  This application is a huge time and money saver. For example, I was able to render an animation that was going to require 30 hours on my 32-core CPU in just 2 hours (including upload and config) on AWS for about $7 with Barista. It is incredibly comforting to know that when I'm up against a deadline I have nearly an unlimited amount of computing muscle at my disposal, and I don't have to worry that it's going to cost me a fortune in markup or that my artwork is going to exceed some artificial time-per-frame limit dictated by a third-party.

  Initially I had some issues getting the application working properly on Linux due to a bug in the 1.0.1 AppImage, but the team was responsive and released a fix within a few days. I still experience oddities that I need to report, but nothing that has prevented me from getting my work done. It is new software so don't expect everything to be flawless, but the value makes up for these inconveniences I trust will be solved with time.

  I don't know what is on the feature roadmap, but it would be nice to have a couple improvements:

  1) The ability to select different scenes from uploaded files would be a huge time and space saver. Currently I have to upload .blend files repeatedly with different scenes as the default. Our project files with everything packed can approach 1GB.

  2) A "kill-instance-when-job-complete" switch or "kill-instance-when-idle-x-minutes" setting would be nice for render jobs that need to run unattended overnight. I think the render budget is meant for this, but it's hard to forecast where to set that budget in advance of a project.

  Overall, Barista is a brilliant solution and is going to be my go-to tool for animation jobs. It has probably paid for itself after just one project. I recommend it. Buy it. Great work!

• Ana

  over 5 years ago

  Was really easy to set up with the provided video tutorial. I had a small freak out because the AWS account I set up wasn't working, but I tried going through the steps again and it worked perfectly. The only other real issue I've run across is the program freezing when I'm clearing my server of all files. I had to go through the AWS manager to delete everything.

  I only wish that the UI was more polished. The text is pretty small, especially in the loading bars for uploading files. Also, the server text doesn't show in dark mode. I think the layout would be better if step 1 was a column, step 2 was a column, and step 3 was a column like OS X Finder's column view instead of the current layout where the linear steps aren't super clear. The small icons next to your project files are also hard to understand for a beginner. There should be clear labels or tool tips when you hover over those icons. I also think the download folder is a choice I want to make each time I render. I organize my files by project and by versions so it's a tiny hassle to go into the settings to change it every time.

  and one last thing I'm kinda salty about: description said that the sale ended April 7th. I thought that meant that once the day turned to April 8th, the regular price would be put up, not that the sale would end the minute the day turned to April 7th. In hindsight, I should've just pulled the trigger but I had other things to consider during that time. It is still worth the full price though.

  Overall, great add-on. Renders just like with professional render farms but cheaper.

• Artell

  over 5 years ago

  The latest Barista update allowed me to render flawlessly using the "on spot" servers, which comes with very competitive prices compared to renderfarms. Thanks for this great tool!

• Corrado Conti

  over 5 years ago

  Great tool, easy to use and very user friendly! I've been looking a tool like this for weeks.

  It's great to be able to render without relying on expensive render farms or killing our own pc.

  Good job!

• Displaying ratings 11-20 of 21 in total

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