SheepIt

As long as you’re okay if your Blender project is potentially shared with hundreds of other users on the internet, SheepIt is a great way to get your Blender renders completed quickly and for free.

I used it recently for a rush animation job.  The animation was for the debut of a live streaming broadcast.  Unfortunately I had to make some last-minute changes and I was running out of time fast!

My Blender render was taking a lot longer than I was hoping.  It was a 30 second show intro in HD 1920×1080 at 24 FPS.  That’s 720 frames, which usually wouldn’t be so bad. The scene had a lot of reflections and motion blur and I tried every trick that came to mind to lower the render time.  I lowered my render passes from 256 to 16 without much noticeable artifacting but still could not get the average frame render time below 5 minutes.

With the clock ticking I started my animation render, even using Flamenco with 3 machines on my local render farm, I was averaging about two minutes per frame.  720 frames at 2 minutes would take… A full 24 hours!

Yikes!  I had less than 3 hours before I had to deliver the animation and in that time I had to lay music and a transition over it.  Luckily, I had run up millions of credits on SheepIt so instead of lending my machine to render other peoples’ Blender projects, it was my turn!

I logged into SheepIt! and followed the simple instructions to submit a project and was happy to see within 15 minutes some monster processing power was being dedicated to render my project!  Within less than an hour, I got my PNG sequence fully rendered and ready for download.  SheepIt gave me so much time back I was no longer in “rush mode” at all.

If you expect you might need to leverage a render farm and you’re okay with the public openness about it, I suggest starting a free SheepIt account and lend your computer to build up some points that you can later redeem for your own projects later.  I’m certainly glad I was curious about SheepIt and was pleasantly surprised how things turned out.

If you’re not ready to render anything you can start banking credits on SheepIt by joining.  You will then download their client and it will take take of the rest. 

Though Blender rendering can be resource intensive, you can even restrict the use of your computer’s CPUs and memory in case you still want to be able to use your computer.  It’s also easy to pause or exit out of.


Sales graph increase sales

It is possible to get video production, video editing and 3D animation services with little out of pocket or up front expense to a business.  The solution is collaborating on trade so if you have a business that provides products or services that I find valuable we can leverage each other’s value propositions and exchange them.  So if you need video work done, I may need a new roof (which unfortunately we will need soon) — you get the point. 

One of my goals for this website is to find more freelance video production, video editing and 3D animation projects.  In the past I have enjoyed providing video services for smaller companies and nonprofits and have even provided these services on trade.  Bartering in this way has proven to be a creative win-win relationship!

Startups have limited resources at first

Perhaps you are a startup looking for quality and high value and want to keep your costs down.  Maybe your organization was looking to get videos made but due to the prohibitive cost and high quotes you were getting you decided to delay such investments to divert your limited resources to grow your business elsewhere.  Trading what you provide as value with other businesses that can help you is a creative win-win. 

Maybe you tried making videos yourself and you’re just not happy with the results. I have a lot of experience taking existing video projects and re-editing and repurposing them so organizations can get more value out of them.  You can save money and I have always found it challenging and fun to revitalize a business’s branding and messaging in this way.

How bartering for video production works

In exchange for your services and products I can provide video and general media services.  Perhaps you have a lobby video running on a loop you would like to freshen up or you do not have one at all but want one? Perhaps you are looking for a new series of television commercials or web explainer videos?  Maybe you want to put new testimonials on your website from some of your happiest customers, clients or patients?

We can both benefit from this type of collaboration.  In this sense it is not a matter of “you get what you pay for”.  This arrangement allows us to trade on the premium value we each assess for each other.  Depending on the scope of the projects, sometimes the trade doesn’t have to go dollar for dollar, we can even arrange for a percentage of trade at least to keep the project or hourly costs down.

We are currently open to trading our video production and editing services with a few of these businesses:

  • Restaurants & Cafes
  • Roofers
  • Computer/Workstations
  • Cloud hosting
  • Pest Control Company
  • Auto Sales & Repair
  • RV Sales and Rentals
  • Home Insulation
  • A/C Repairs
  • A/C Vent Cleaning
  • Home Construction and Subcontractors
  • New Driveway
  • Landscaping Companies
  • Plant Nurseries

This list is subject to change, so if you are a company looking to find creative ways to get Video Production Services without breaking the bank, reach out to me!

Bartering isn’t for everyone

In summary, in the past I have found it very rewarding to work with smaller companies on trade.  Startups without the capital at first to afford the level of video production they could afford at the beginning have limited options. Some companies may find that this is too low brow and are too proud to barter so they will work around not using videos. Rest assured if these companies wait too long their competitors inevitably will not.

I’ve developed some great relationships with some very successful business owners and I’m proud to have seen many of these companies really take off.  Here are some examples of some of the partial trades I have provided video production services in exchange for:  A restaurant with a tab, a week with an RV, a credit for plants at a nursery, pallets of mulch and paver bricks, new computers and monitors, etc.

Please contact me by filling out the contact form or giving me a call. We can talk about your business goals and how videos can help you achieve your goals in advertising, providing information and helping you communicate effectively to your target market.


Blender Flamenco - Setup Your Own Blender Render Farm for Free, Aaron Belchamber Video Production Jacksonville FL

I was recently invited by nextdayvideos.com to create a Blender tutorial walkthrough video for Blender Flamenco and explain how to set up a render farm.

If you’re interested in creating your own render pipelines or just making your 3D production workflow more efficient by saving time and getting your renders done faster, check out the video above and please click the like button!

Aaron Belchamber photo

Reach me for a free quote

Contact Me!

 

If you are looking for freelance video production, video editing or 3D animation services I offer creative and quick turnaround!  My name is Aaron Belchamber and I started in media production as a graphic designer in 1995.  Since then, I’ve produced hundreds of videos, animations and other digital marketing materials for broadcast, events and the web.  For companies from Fortune 300 to small, local Mom & Pops. 

I have over 25 years experience with the Adobe Creative Suite, Final Cut, Autodesk 3Ds Max, Blender, among other tools.  I am a proud member of the Blender Studios community.  I leverage my senior cloud software engineering experience and set up my own render farms including Backburner and Blender’s Flamenco.