Flamenco render farm

A render farm is a group of computers that share the rendering of an animation: each computer renders different frames. Flamenco is Blender's official, free render farm software.

1. Shared storage#

Every computer must reach the project at the same place, for example /mnt/farm. The simplest way on an all-Animux farm is NFS from the Manager computer.

On the Manager, first create the folder:

sudo mkdir -p /srv/farm

Only if the Manager runs from the USB stick (live session): the live system disk lives in memory, and NFS cannot share folders on it. Put the folder on a real disk or USB drive (mount it on /srv/farm), or, for a test, on a RAM disk of 8 GB:

sudo mount -t tmpfs -o size=8G tmpfs /srv/farm

(A RAM disk uses memory and is emptied when the Manager switches off, so copy the finished frames away.)

Then share it (change 192.168.1.0/24 to your own network):

sudo chown $USER /srv/farm
echo '/srv/farm 192.168.1.0/24(rw,sync,no_subtree_check,fsid=0)' | sudo tee -a /etc/exports
sudo systemctl unmask nfs-kernel-server && sudo systemctl enable --now nfs-kernel-server
sudo exportfs -ra && sudo exportfs -v
sudo ln -s /srv/farm /mnt/farm

sudo exportfs -v must list /srv/farm. fsid=0 makes /srv/farm the top of the share, so the Workers mount manager-pc:/ (this also works in a live session, where the plain path does not).

On each Worker (replace manager-pc with the Manager's name or IP address):

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/farm
sudo mount -t nfs manager-pc:/ /mnt/farm

A Windows share or NAS works too, as long as every computer uses the same path.

2. Start the Manager#

On the Manager computer: 3D Animation → Render Queue Managers → Flamenco Manager. A terminal window opens (keep it open; closing it stops the Manager) and the browser shows the setup page at http://localhost:8080/:

The setup asks for:

1. Shared storage: /mnt/farm.
2. Blender: choose Blender found on $PATH (/usr/bin/blender, Blender 5.2.3).

Settings and the job database are kept in ~/flamenco. Without a desktop (text login), start the Manager with the same command the menu uses: animux-flamenco-manager, and open http://manager-pc:8080/ from another computer.

3. Start the Workers#

On every render computer (including the Manager, if it should render too), open a terminal:

flamenco-worker

Workers find the Manager on the local network by themselves. If not, tell them where it is:

flamenco-worker -manager http://manager-pc:8080/

The Manager's web page lists them under Workers.

4. Send a job from Blender#

1. On the artist's computer open http://manager-pc:8080/ in Firefox and download the Blender add-on from the Manager's web page (the link on the start page).
2. In Blender: Edit → Preferences → Add-ons → Install from Disk (in the menu at the top right of the add-ons list) → choose the downloaded flamenco-addon.zip, and tick it. Enter the Manager URL and click Check.
3. Save your .blend file inside the shared storage (/mnt/farm/my-short/sh010.blend).
4. In Properties → Output → Flamenco, choose the job type Simple Blender Render, then Submit to Flamenco.

The frames appear in the shared storage as they are finished; watch progress on the web page.

Animux render farm roles#

The boot menu has two farm entries for computers started from the ISO:

The DHCP server needs your own /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf before it is useful, and must not run on a network that already has a router handing out addresses.

Farmerjoe#

Farmerjoe is the small render farm from the original Animux, kept for old projects (/opt/farmerjoe, its README opens from the menu). Use Flamenco for new work.

Tips#

• All computers should run the same Blender version (all Animux r16 computers do).
• Use relative paths and File → External Data → Pack Resources or keep textures in the shared storage.
• Render to image sequences (PNG or EXR), never directly to a video file: a crashed frame can be re-rendered, and every Worker writes its own frames.
• Wired network (1 Gbit/s or faster) is much better than Wi-Fi.
• Documentation: https://flamenco.blender.org/usage/.

Coming: OpenCue#