ABSTRACT
“Network” or “distributed” rendering can be as simple as setting up a second computer to render a project while the user continue to work, or as advanced as having a render farm of multiple machines all pitch in. Network rendering is most efficient when the user render to a file sequence with Skip Existing enabled. However, most editing systems prefer to import movies instead of sequences, with a codec matching their timeline and perhaps with any audio already embedded. This chapter begins with general file management issues, and proceeds to the ability to distribute a render across processors as well as a network of machines. It discusses a use for collect files to set up a multimachine network render. After Effects will launched clones of itself in the background to speed up RAM previews as well as renders, in essence executing a network render on one computer without any additional work on the user part.
