Time Team - Render farm and SAN for Channel 4's archaeology programme
Background:
Hosted by Tony Robinson, Time Team -
Channel 4’s popular weekly archaeology programme - has been running since 1994.
The programme is produced for Channel 4 by London-based production house ‘The
Picture House Television Company Limited’.
Problem:
Content
for Time Team projects needed to be cut and finished in 7-10 days in order to
keep to strict television deadlines. In-house 3D artists were producing content
with 3ds Max and rendering on their workstations. Time spent waiting for initial
test renders as well as for final scene renders at the back-end of projects
meant that a considerable amount of unproductive time was given over to
rendering.
The
production house wanted its 3D artists to be productive at all times, with the
ability to render jobs without interrupting their content creation. Our first
brief was simple: cut rendering times.
However,
a second key factor here was the requirement to switch production to HD: the studio
would have the same number of frames for rendering, but in higher definition,
meaning even longer render times and a more pressing requirement to speed
things up.
Solution:
Jigsaw assembled a three-man
consultancy team with experts covering the three fields of data storage, 3D rendering,
and broadcast systems.
Blade systems are a popular solution in
large render farms, being compact and energy-efficient. However, the
flexibility to temporarily re-deploy render nodes as workstations for
freelancers whenever necessary, combined with the large initial cost outlay, meant
that blades were not appropriate in this case. Floor-standing workstations were
chosen instead.
A backend Storage Area Network (SAN)
was identified as the best solution for high-volume, high-performance shared
storage between workstations and render nodes. Since the nodes would be running
Microsoft Windows, MetaSAN (by Tiger Technologies) was chosen as the best
software for managing file access. Backburner from 3ds Max was used to manage
the rendering process.
This overall solution was chosen as the
best fit with their existing workflow and provides the right level of
performance increase, meeting all requirements within budget.
Implementation:
The render farm implementation went
well. The Jigsaw team consisted of two site engineers, the three consultants,
and a project manager. Picture House staff also installed applications on the
workstations in advance of the on-site phase of the project.
Two days were spent pre-flighting the
system back at Jigsaw, running performance tests and fine-tuning the SAN configuration.
A further two days were spent in shipping and installing the system on site. The
roll-out concluded with training and hand-over of the documentation.
Benefits:
Able to meet their
production deadlines for Time Team, the 3D artists were impressed with the results
of the render farm right from the beginning. In some cases the render farm has
given a 930% performance increase compared with local rendering on a single
workstation. HD frames can be rendered in seconds rather than minutes. Some benchmark
figures are shown at the end of the article.
Render nodes can be re-deployed
as 3ds Max workstations very quickly, so additional 3D artists can be accommodated
at short notice if needed. With the click of a button these workstations can be
switched back into the role of dedicated render nodes: a huge boon in terms of ability
to meet changing creative priorities and production deadlines.
Furthermore, the open
architecture of the render farm means that performance can be scaled up by
adding additional nodes and workstations at any future time.
Summary:
Jigsaw provided a render farm for the production team of Channel 4’s
Time Team programme. Now, after producing the content on workstations as usual,
the artists can send jobs for rendering with no interruption or slowdown on
their own computers. Jobs added to the render queue are rendered according to
the priority level they are given, and during quiet periods the artists’
workstations can be added as nodes on the render farm at the click of a button
to increase their rendering power.
“With
deadlines like these, a render farm is a ‘must have’. These days creative
artists demand more and more from their applications. Render farms are a
necessity rather than a luxury.”
Charlie Hutton-Ashkenny, Jigsaw 3D consultant