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