Im not talking about a "dedicated f95zone located renderfarm".. im talking about community based rendering. Theres absolutely no reason renderfarms need to be physically closely located. I cant think of the name for what I'm talking about because.. tired.
Something like the old, but very good, Berkeley's "Seti@Home" for Internet/Crowd-Data-Computing
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How ever....
The following in a more or less detailed summarised form:
General thoughts
There are some flexible software products out there which could be used as a basis to make such a project happen already. No time or need to reinvent a basic wheel.
Such a wheel is not for "free" ofc. A functional platform for a fair render time service for consumers, but an attractive participation return for the ones who make their hardware available is not done by that. Anyway, by taking advantage of nearly perfect fitting solutions it should be possible to keep the initial invest relatively low compared to "made from scratch" attempts.
Just to be clear: "From scratch" has it's VERY grave technical and VERY economical benefits, but it depends on the "productiveness", or rather more important, "quality" of the ppl. involved.
To manage the "Consume" and "Participation" balance some kind of a "credit" system may be favorable instead of handling real and different currencies for every single action and to prevent "misuse" I think.
Ideal for the ones who uses both (consuming render time and providing CPU power). So, bought or earned credits could be invested (spend) for fast rendering, but earned again by providing "work power" by making additional processing power available. Win-win.
Lot of CPU's out there are running nearly standby most of the time anyway. Especially if there are 2 or more PC-Potatoes staying around, but running 24/7 unchallenged, so...
Participation example
Someone can login, gets a floating license from the server license pool and make his hardware(s) available for the render jobs currently processing and can generate credits|bucks (depending on time and amount of CPU work his hardware has done). If he disconnects, the license returns to the pool again.
Economy between Consumer and Provider
The economic question of pricing is still to be clarified. The main Question here is: "How much work is one Credit worth (aka Value)?"
Either a dictation of the platform operator based on the numbers, or a community driven market that establishes itself between the "CPU-Providers" and the "Render-Time-Users". For example: Plex and EvE.
Personally I'm for the second, just for the fun and experiment sake.
Additional thoughts
The power of such "Construct" scales with the number of people taking part on both sides. But, if there are no jobs, then no credits. And if there are no CPU's online to take the work, then no income. Well, this system only works if Users and Participants are willing to use such platform in the same way.
A specific amount of dedicated (own) CPU's should be established by the owners to secure a minimum amount of processing power to prevent a collapse and secure the operating costs. As an example how this mechanic can work successfully, take "torrent", or for the old-schoolers "napster" as an example.
The available CPU's online should be assigned to "Render Groups" to be able to process different jobs in the same time. This should/could reduce the amount of waiting time for the Users.
How to get started?
First and foremost: Have courage!
So, because of the floating concept only a few licenses (lets say 5-10) are needed in the beginning and some initial invest and iron will. This can be handled by one or two skilled persons only (should be risen, if the amount of work exeeds the power of one or two, too).
The more users and participants take part, the more income should be generated to cover the initial invest, more licenses, fixed+variable costs, more dedicated CPU's, own and additional workforce, etc.
Personal
Feel free to use this little "thought experiment" for your own possible serious business adventure.
I'm to comfortable in my old economy business seat today to make a come back as a coding keyboard-monkey and I-tech solution maker.
But hey, if we were back in the '90 and I would be 20 again! Then... no question. Lets go!
Maybe as an Investor? Maybe... Depends on the people taking the lead, sympathy and compatibility. I've done my decades of keyboard duty already.
Good Luck!
Tech Food
Following some examples of software solutions with Net-Rendering and Task-Management including Floating-Licenses: (I would prefer Keyshot here, because of the provided features that matches perfectly for the needs of such a project.)
"Indigo"
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Network render info:
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or
"Keyshot"
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Network render info:
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