Basic Steps to Start a Render Farm

The following steps are just a guideline to start your render farm. It is assumed that you already have the master and client nodes communication, shared filesystem, permissions and usernames synched. Let's take the example of a network with 2 PCs: the master and the client. On the client we set 5 tasks; on the master we set 2 tasks.

  1. On the master computer, use Settings Preferences Performance tab to set up a Render Farm:
  2. For external network nodes, now we must join the nodes created to instances of CINELERRA-GG. On the client computers ( 192.168.1.12), on the terminal, start 5 background CINELERRA-GG tasks via:
    cd {path_to_cinelerra}
    cin -d 10650 
    cin -d 10651
    ...
    cin -d 10654
    
    In practice, at each instance that we start, the cursor will be positioned in a new line ready to enter the next command, without exiting the task. If we have several PCs on the network, repeat these steps for each new client (with its own ip address).
  3. Similarly, on the terminal, we must join the local nodes (internal to the Master node) created to instances of CINELERRA-GG. On the Master node (localhost), start the 2 background CINELERRA-GG tasks via:
    cd {path_to_cinelerra}
    cin -d 10655
    cin -d 10656
    
    Similar to the previous point, the cursor positions itself in a new line ready to enter the next command, without exiting the task.
  4. When your video is ready, setup a render job via File Render or File Batch Render and check OK.
  5. The results will be in the shared file path/filename that you selected in the render menu with the additional numbered job section on the end as 001, 002, 003,...099 (example, video.webm001).
  6. When finished, load your new files on new tracks via File Load concatenate to existing tracks or if you used ffmpeg, run RenderMux from the Shell Scripts icon.
  7. If you plan on doing more rendering, you can just leave the master/client jobs running to use again and avoid having to restart them. You can also close the terminal, but the jobs will remain active until you turn off the PC. Or you can kill them when you no longer are using them.

The CINELERRA-GG Community, 2021
https://www.cinelerra-gg.org