Case Studies

Deadline® Render Farm Software Powers CafeFX and The Syndicate

Since Frantic Films Software debuted its render farm management system Deadline® in 2004, the software has earned raves among visual effects facilities for its reliability, flexibility, competitive price point as well as attentive and friendly support. Originally developed after Frantic Films became increasingly frustrated with the render queue solutions it was employing in its Los Angeles, Winnipeg and Vancouver studios, what originated as an internal proprietary software has evolved into a tool integral to dozens of high-end visual effects facilities. The newest version – Deadline 3.0 – was unveiled at the SIGGRAPH Conference this past August, and provides a hassle-free method to both administer and render on Microsoft Windows, and now, on Linux and Mac OSX-based render farms of all sizes.

Three of Deadline's biggest fans can be found at feature film visual effects studio CafeFX, based in Santa Maria, Calif., and its commercial and music video division, The Syndicate, headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif.

CafeFX's render manager Brian Openshaw, network systems engineer Larry Thomas, and The Syndicate's system administrator/render manager Lap Van Luu all rely on Deadline® to crank out projects both large and small-everything from feature films containing several hundred VFX shots, to 10-second television interstitials. Recent projects out of CafeFX include Evan Almighty, Spider-Man 3 and the multiple Academy-Award nominated Pan's Labyrinth by director Guillermo del Toro, while The Syndicate's telecine, VFX and design departments have worked on network packages for ESPN Monday Night Football and a recent Ford F-150 commercial with director Kathryn Bigelow, both of which earned Promax/BDA Awards this year.

CafeFX and The Syndicate know first-hand the rigorous demands of feature film and commercial digital effects production, and how important a render queue solution is to managing an efficient production pipeline.

The Search for the Ideal Render Queue Solution

Located on a beautiful eight-acre campus in California's Santa Barbara wine country, CafeFX's idyllic setting belies the magic taking place within its walls. Fierce explosions, vertigo-inducing crane disasters, and fantastical creatures both sweet and horrifying-all are brought to life by the effects artisans at the studio.

Headed up by Render Manager Brian Openshaw and Network Systems Engineer Larry Thomas, CafeFX's render farm processes all this magic from a Windows-based, render farm consisting of over 1,000 render nodes. Software packages sent through the render farm include Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, eyeon Fusion, Softimage|XSI, and NewTek Lightwave.

Openshaw and Thomas made the switch to Deadline® after their previous server-based render controller had issues with the master server that distributes and assigns frames to the thousands of render nodes within the studio. These problems meant the software would eventually have limitations and/or bugs that could come back to bite the studio at the most critical stages of the production pipeline.

"We were always looking for something better that justified the expense," said Thomas. "We wanted a product that could automatically recover from brief network or server issues and that would allow us to add our own scripts and renderers. Deadline® was the answer we were looking for."

Several key features attracted CafeFX to choose Deadline. The company found the software completely stable-they never had to reboot the server hosting the Repository to clear the programming or machine. Also, the frames were rendered to the local disk of each render node before being copied to production servers, assuring Openshaw and Thomas that multiple renders were not lost due to a network issue. Deadline's ability to add custom renderers, programming and scripts to automate more tasks before, during and after a job is done, was also a main selling point.

Said Openshaw, "We can easily write and modify Deadline plug-ins to our liking, which makes a lot of things automated. Deadline's interface is also very user friendly-you can tell it was designed for artists. Plus, if you're already familiar with how other render solutions work, the learning curve with Deadline is practically zero. That means you're quickly experimenting with the cool advanced features once you get the basics down."

"Deadline is the only render queue that we use for almost all our software, so it's critical to our organization," continues Thomas. "Customer support has always been friendly, helpful and quick to address all of our concerns, including adding new features that help our company be more efficient. And because many things can be automated in Deadline, we can focus on other render duties instead of managing the queue, which allows us to do our jobs better"

Deceptively Simple Solution Hides Powerful Features

Small in comparison with its main campus facility, CafeFX in Santa Maria, sister company The Syndicate has over a hundred dual processor nodes in its render farm, ranging from a single and dual to quad core processors on either an x86 or x64 environment operating system, and with over a Terahertz of render power at its disposal.

Overseeing the render farm is Lap Van Luu, who first joined The Syndicate as a System Administrator/ Render Manager in 2004. Now a three-year Deadline® user, he credits the software with not only increasing his work productivity, but also making his job more worry free.

"Prior to joining The Syndicate, I had tried other render management solutions. Deadline®® was so intuitive from the start that after the first day on the job, it felt as though I had been using the program for years. It seems deceptively simple, but has proven to be an extremely powerful asset in our pipeline, with anyone able to manage an entire farm of hundreds of render nodes or just a single machine."

Luu also praises Deadline's built-in toolset that enables users to run scripts or troubleshoot a render node through several means, as with the support for remote access via programs like VNC or Remote Desktop. Luu is able to submit jobs, manage them while they are rendering, troubleshoot if necessary and quality control the frames, all via the Deadline® monitor. And because Deadline® is able to centralize all management controls in one location, Luu is able to dedicate his time to performing his other job functions.

"Maintenance is also a breeze when Deadline® is running. The slave client provides a plethora of information that can assist me in troubleshooting either the system or the job on the farm. The Deadline® monitor and slave will report what type of hardware is in a node, along with what type of operation system is installed. When a node is rendering, the slave client will report current CPU and memory usage, and whenever a job is complete or failing, a log is recorded and I simply review them for troubleshooting purposes. Most of the time, the error log will tell me exactly how to fix the problem."

Luu has also seen just about every software imaginable thrown at Deadline®, with consistently great performance results. "At The Syndicate we use 3D programs such as Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya, NewTek Lightwave, and Maxon Cinema 4D, and 2D tools eyeon Digital Fusion and Adobe After Effects. Deadline® is compatible with all of these packages, as well as dozens of others. In the three years I've been here, I've also seen Deadline® powerfully crank out every assignment that has come through our doors. I've seen small to large-scale projects hammer the software and I'm still able to have a good night's sleep. To me, that's priceless."

Recently, The Syndicate completed over 200 visual effects shots over the course of two weeks for a music video for the band Lifehouse. Once the scenes were scripted, Luu fired them off through the farm non-stop for four days, and over 100,000 frames rendered with zero issues.

"Overall, Deadline's reliability, flexibility and vast number of applications it supports, paired with the highest level of customer service, makes it an easy choice for The Syndicate," Luu relates. "I have recommended Deadline® many times over the years and each time, friends and colleagues have come back to tell me how friendly the interface is, and how they wished they had started using Deadline® earlier because it saves them time and money."

For additional information about Deadline®, including how to purchase, visit http://franticfilms.com/software or contact deadline-sales@franticfilms.com.