🎨 3D Rendering & VFX · Network
Render Farm Network
The network of a VFX studio's render farm: artist workstations, render nodes, high-speed storage and a cloud burst link.
Drawing diagram…
What this diagram shows
- Render nodes and storage share a 25/100 GbE backbone
- Artist workstations are on a separate network
- Cloud nodes join over a private link when the farm is full
Prompt used
Render farm network topology: artist workstations on a 10 GbE studio network; render nodes (CPU and GPU) on a high-speed 25/100 GbE farm network with a spine switch; shared high-performance storage (NAS/parallel file system) connected to both; the render manager (Deadline) server; and a private cloud interconnect to burst render nodes in the cloud. Internet access only through the firewall.
Mermaid code
flowchart TD
subgraph STUDIO["Studio Network 10 GbE"]
WS1[Artist Workstations]
RM[Render Manager Deadline]
end
subgraph FARM["Farm Network 25/100 GbE"]
SPINE[Spine Switch]
CPU[CPU Render Nodes]
GPU[GPU Render Nodes]
end
STOR[("High-performance Storage")]
FW[Firewall]
CLOUD[Cloud Burst Render Nodes]
WS1 --- STOR
RM --- SPINE
SPINE --- CPU
SPINE --- GPU
SPINE --- STOR
WS1 --- RM
SPINE -->|"Private interconnect"| CLOUD
WS1 --- FWRelated templates
Cloud Render Farm Deployment
Where each part of a cloud render farm runs: artists' workstations, the render queue manager, autoscaling GPU render nodes and shared storage.
3D Production Pipeline Data Flow
How assets move through a 3D animation or VFX pipeline: modelling, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting, rendering and compositing, with review in between.
3D Digital Asset Management Schema
A schema for managing 3D assets in a studio: projects, assets, versions, dependencies (textures, rigs), shots and reviews.
Render Job Lifecycle
The states of a render job on a render farm: submitted, queued, rendering frame by frame, failures and retries, and completion.
VFX Shot Review and Approval
How a VFX shot is reviewed: the artist submits a version, the supervisor reviews in dailies, the client approves, and notes flow back.
VFX Studio Pipeline Platform
The studio systems that tie a VFX pipeline together: production tracking, asset management, render farm, storage and client review.