Many VFX artists and 3D animators shy away from cloud rendering. After all, it's difficult, unpredictable, and time-consuming, right? Not necessarily. YellowDog offers a solution that's straightforward and pain-free – as leading VFX artist Shahin Toosi discovered.
Despite several years in the VFX industry, working on prestigious projects such as Blade Runner 2049, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and X-Men: The Last Stand for top companies including ILM, Double Negative and MPC, Toosi was reluctant to use cloud rendering. He'd tried a few different vendors and his experience had always been the same: it was a pain to set up, what with referencing and linking, and managing uploads and downloads, the pricing was unpredictable, and customer support was lacking.
In his spare time Toosi was pushing his skills by trying out new techniques on personal projects – exploring the possibilities of 4K 360 VR and complex simulations, and pushing V-Ray to its limits. His personal machine couldn't keep up.
He decided to give cloud rendering one last try, and happened upon YellowDog. It was a revelation. The team took care of the minor amount of setup that was required, the platform was intuitive, and where explanation was required, a helpful video walked him through things.
What's more, YellowDog's prices were clear and fixed, with no hidden charges, and the team were on hand to help him through any issues. "I didn’t realise that cloud rendering could be this easy, it’s totally different to any previous experience I’ve had," he says. "I’ll be coming straight to YellowDog next time I need to render."
Where other cloud computing companies didn't seem to understand their audience at all, YellowDog was perfectly suited to Toosi's needs. It looked like an extension of his farm and acted like a local render – he would never have known the rendering was taking place elsewhere. ""The YellowDog team completely got the pressure I was under to deliver, and did everything I needed to help me make my client happy," he smiles.
Toosi recorded himself using the YellowDog rendering platform – take a look below. The video even doubles up as a fantastic tutorial for anyone interested in signing up.
Offering fixed costs, easy set-up, and limitless compute, YellowDog is a VFX artist’s best friend. Visit YellowDog to sign up to the rendering platform for free, and explore the cloud rendering solutions for yourself.
