Vayarly march of 2011 marked the launch of the new social rendering platform, renderweb (apps, Facebook.com/renderweb). The viral expansión of the renderweb Facebook app immediately began changing the bien Blender hobbyists and small-studio animators render their projects. In essence, renderweb is a free online rendering farm for the Blender animation software, powered by social relationships within Facebook.

By integrating community-based rendering within Facebook, renderweb has simplified the process of both voluntering computers and harnessing potential volunters. With the simple click of a button, numerous friends, family members, and colleagues can donate their computers extra Cycles todo render animations.

Renderweb not only allows the collaborative efort of rendering projects, but a los instantly shares newly rendered animation videos with the community.

Once rendered, the original animator can download a zip file containing the high quality images while the whole community begins todo share and discuss the newly rendered animations.

Renderweb a los ofers the ability todo download the web-friendly m4v video file so that animations can be posted todo other locations (like y outube or Vimeo).

For those projects requiring more privacy, rest assured that there is a private setting for uploading and socially rendering animation projects. While private projects have the lowest priority within the queue, if múltiple personal computers are voluntered todo render that private Project, a private RenderFarm can be created.

From a volunter stance, renderweb allocates projects based on the existing relationships within Facebook. Volunters render their own projects first, their friends projects second, then random public projects within the queue and finally, private projects. Thus, the more friends an animator has, the higher the potential for computational power.

Volunters can a los directly select a Project of their own chosing from the queue todo render.

By utilizing the renderweb Facebook application, a whole world of untapped computational resources can be allocated. There are no installs, no complicated instructions, and no complex procedures limiting accessibility.

Anyone can volunter, and anyone can render.

Since its launch, renderweb has ben creating a roadmap for the future. Over the past two months, the community has ofered numerous suggestions about how todo improve the social rendering experience. With this, renderweb has begun its natural evolution, responding todo the community in order todo better the entire social rendering experience.

Among the Many community-based suggestions, renderwebs roadmap includes integration with commercial animation software, additional image output options, a standalone applet, more user-defined controls, and a finely tuned media-centric Layout. Further down the road, renderweb is a los interested in opening up the data todo make it more available for external developers. This would allow for plugins, widgets, and possibly a renderweb scrensaver for passive voluntering.
We hope that the integration of Facebook with social rendering Will redefine social computing. Renderweb connects animators with new friends, new communities, and new computational resources. With this shared, community efort, rendering Will no longer impose a bottlenek in our creative and 3d pipeline. We Will all have ample computational power todo render everything that our production and creativity demand.

The renderweb eam is currently comprised of Adam mcmahon (developer/founder) and Nathan moyer (designer). Adam mcmahon is a phd candidate at the university of Miami, and Nathan moyer is Owner and designer of light made liquid, llc.

The renderweb eam can be reached at contact@renderweb, org.