RenderGarden FAQ

Get the RenderGarden user manual (PDF).

RenderGarden officially supports back to CC2014, but it works back to CS5.

The version numbers reflect the current version when this was added to the FAQ. There may be something newer available.

• FFMPEG
• Python

Correct. Then install the Gardener on each render node. Make sure all render nodes can see the server where the seed bank is, the .aep, and the render directory, and make sure all plug-ins and fonts are installed on every computer.

Yes. In the same directory. Do I need to install Python on Mac? No. Python comes pre-installed on every Macintosh, so you only need to install FFMPEG.

RenderGarden is using Python 2.7 because it’s still the standard in most studios, and it’s what ships with all Macs, even with the latest Mac OS. Python 3 is incompatible with Python 2, so we had to choose one. But on Windows, you should have no problem using Python 2.7 alongside Python 3.6. You don’t need to switch your PATH environment variable to 2.7, just browse to your Python 2.7 in RenderGarden’s preferences. In fact, if you have it installed in the standard place, C:Python27, RenderGarden should see it by default.

Each RenderGarden license entitles you to one submit and an unlimited number of render nodes. To move a submit script’s license to a new machine, simply run the RenderGarden installer on the old submit workstation and choose Uninstall. Then run the installer on the new machine.

1. Go to your applications folder.
2. Inside this folder, there is a file called Uninstall Rendergarden.pkg. (Note: The name is slightly different on Windows but will be similar enough that you can find it).
3. Click the Uninstall app and follow the instructions. It will remove RenderGarden from your computer.

No. We do not support Teams projects. The current workaround is to save your Teams project as a stand-alone After Effects project and then renders from there. Does RenderGarden work with other Adobe applications like Premiere or Media Encoder? No. RenderGarden requires a command-line tool that is only offered in Adobe After Effects (aerender). We’d love Adobe to add more command-line tools for other applications, so please reach out to Adobe with this feature request if you are interested in seeing RenderGarden support other tools.

No. We do not officially support cloud drives with RenderGarden. Though we have had some users report success, we recommend you try it at your own risk and let us know what you find.

Yes and no. RenderGarden helps speed up CPU-intensive operations by running multiple instances of aerender concurrently. Plug-ins that heavily rely on the GPU can not run multiple instances (Gardeners) at the same time concurrently. Plug-ins that heavily rely on the GPU can not run multiple instances (Gardeners) at the same time due to the GPU over-saturating. These projects can render with a single Gardener, but this prevents RenderGarden speed-ups on a single computer. Note that these GPU-heavy projects can still see a RenderGarden benefit when used in a multi-machine render farm setup, assuming each render node has a single Gardener and compatible GPU. And on a single workstation, they can be used with one Gardener which still gives you add functionality over AE including background rendering and post-render actions. The following GPU plug-ins have been reported as problematic and are officially not supported (i.e. use at your own risk):

• Neat Video
• Video Copilot

RenderGarden works in the background so you can continue working.

RenderGarden uses After Effects to render the format set in the After Effects OutPut Module. In the case of QT it uses the same Adobe Media Core as if you rendered from the AE queue. When it finishes rendering the segments, FFmpeg combines the script using “concatenation”. This simply copies and pastes the segments together into a joined movie. There is no re-encode/re-compression performed by FFmpeg, so it matches pixel-perfect to the segments or a rendered movie right out of the AE render queue. If you choose to use our Post-Render Actions feature, when your initial ProRes is complete, FFmpeg will open the combined movie and re-encode/re-compress to the formats specified. So if you chose ProRes again the second movie will have a generation loss. In general Post-Render Actions are there for viewing copies, not master (i.e. you render a big uncompressed image sequence and want an mp4 to preview).

Yes. The primary render is set in the AE Render Queue and can use QT, AVI or Image Sequences. For movie containers, we recommend rendering any of the QT ProRes formats. The Post-Render Actions set in the RenderGarden script can be used to then transcode the master QT, AVI, or Image Sequence into an mp4 or QT for a viewing copy.

Hyper-threaded Rendering with RenderGarden requires us to render the AE comp in segments concurrently which get quickly re-combined in FFMPEG without a generation loss (concatenate function). LONG GOP compression such as h.264 relies on adjacent frames for encoding and can not seamlessly combine the segments, especially if there is audio. The way to handle these compressed formats is to set your AE Render Queue to render a master QT, AVI, or Image sequence, and use the RenderGarden Post-Render Actions to automatically transcode an mp4 from the master render. The Hyper-threaded Rendering of the master movie should massively negate any speed hit caused by the extra transcode step. In general, this is best practice for creating compressed movies from After Effects whether rendering straight from the AE Render Queue or through RenderGarden.

No. After Effects does not seem to have a way to tell aerender which card to use and seems to default to the card driving the monitor.

er is a background After Effects “aerendercore” process. RenderGarden splits the comp up into multiple segments (Seeds) which can concurrently run in multiple Gardeners to maximize your CPUs. The number of Gardeners open per machine should be dictated by the physical CPU cores in your computer. Modern computers use a technique called Hyper-threading which adds a virtual core (vCore) to each physical core, so a 12-Core MacPro will be seen by the OS as a 24-Core Mac.

In addition, it is very important to look at the number of physical CPU cores in your computer when deciding how many Gardeners to use. We recommend starting with half the number of Gardeners as physical cores. This should give you a solid boost in rendering performance while leaving headroom to continue to work in the background. If you are using a computer as a render node and want to maximize cores you can try adding more Gardeners, but you never want to launch more Gardeners than physical cores. To be safe, always leave at least one physical core available (i.e. if you have a 16-core computer, never go above 15 Gardeners). The number of Seeds will vary depending on numerous factors. If you are rendering on one workstation, the simplest way to proceed is to plant the same number of Seeds as Gardeners. If you choose 4 Seeds and 4 Gardeners, RenderGarden will split your comp into four segments and render them concurrently. While a safe option, in some situations, this is not the most optimized solution. For example, if you have a comp where the first half is a slate and the second half is a heavy render, the two Gardeners rendering the slate will finish in seconds and then sit idle while the two Gardeners rendering the back end take minutes.

In a situation like this, you may want to plant 16 Seeds and choose 4 Gardeners. This way the Gardeners used to render the slate quickly will pick up more Seeds when they finish and help contribute to the heavy part of the comp. When rendering over your network to multiple machines, the number of Seeds will depend on the number of Gardeners per machine. If you have three 12-core Macs running 6 Gardeners each, the simplest solution is to plant 18 Seeds. Or if you have the same slate situation mentioned above, you may want to plant 72 Seeds. Note that it takes time to launch an aerendercore, so you do not want your segments to be too small, or else the time it takes to close and launch new aerendercores could negate speed benefits.

For best results when network rendering, all files involved with your project, including the footage and render output destinations, should be on the same shared drive. If your Seed Bank is on one drive but your output is on another, you run the risk of a render node sending the output to a different location than you expected. This is even especially likely to happen if you set your render destination to somewhere on your local boot drive, like the Desktop.

Yes. Every render node needs licensed plug-ins, fonts, etc. A good rule of thumb is that the render node should be able to open the AE project and render it on its own. Some plug-ins give you free render nodes. Others require additional render licenses. After Effects can run in Render-Only mode which does not require you to be signed into a CC account.

The following is a method to start gardeners automatically when you log in to your Mac:

1. Get the command line that launches Gardeners. The easiest way to get this is to go to a running Gardener (start one if you have to) and scroll to the top. It’ll be something like python “/Path/To/Gardener.py” “/Path/To/SeedBank”
2. Create a new plain text file in TextEdit, and paste that Gardener command into it. Then save it somewhere, calling the file something like “Gardener.command”. A .command file will launch in Terminal and run whatever is in there.
3. Probably double-clicking that file will not work currently, because you have to make it executable. You can do this in the Terminal using the chmod command. Something like: chmod a+x /Path/To/Gardener.command (In terminal you can get it to type the path for you by dragging the file into the window.)
4. Now that your .command file is working, add it to your Login Items (under your user in the Users & Groups preference pane) If you want to have multiple Gardeners, you could just duplicate your .command file and run multiple Login Items.

Alternatively, this is a way to do it with AppleScript:

1. Get the command line that launches Gardeners, same as above.
2. Open the Script Editor, which should be included on your Mac. Your script text will be something like this:
   • Set theScript to “python “/Path/To/Gardener.py” “/Path/To/SeedBank””
   • Tell application “Terminal”
   • Set theTab to do script theScript
   • Set custom title of theTab to “Gardener”
   • Set current settings of theTab to settings set “Grass”
   • end tell
   • Note: You’ll have to edit the command to match your setup. Note the backslashes in front of the quotes in the command.
3. Go to File > Export and export as an Application.
4. Add the application you exported to Login Items. Again, you can duplicate these applets to launch more. Of you could make a loop in AppleScript if you know what you’re doing.

We do not officially support cross-platform rendering. The simple solution is to save the Mac project, open it on a Windows workstation and submit it from Windows. That being said, it is possible but takes a bit of setup to make this work which is why we do not “officially” support it and will not handle tech support requests.

RenderGarden splits your comp into a set number of segments (Seeds) that get picked to render up by waiting for Gardeners. If you have a 10-second comp that starts with the first 1/3 as black frames followed by heavy effects on the back 2/3 and split it into three Seeds, the first Seed will get done super fast, then the other two Seeds will be left to render the remaining frames while the first Gardener sits idle. To make the first Gardener pick up more frames, simply submit more Seeds. In this case, we can submit 10 Seeds so each segment is shorter. This way when the short black segment is complete the Gardener will have another segment to grab. Note that too many Seeds could theoretically produce a slowdown since aerender requires time to open each Seed, so ideally do not make each Seed less than 10 frames.

We have seen this problem happen on Windows. If you are maximizing your CPU’s on a single PC, you can open more Gardeners than planted Seeds to alleviate this. So for example, if you have a 12-core PC, you can submit 6 Seeds and instead of launching 6 Gardeners you can launch 12 Gardeners. Only six of these twelve will render, but having the extras open tend to pick up the Seed faster than if it’s only six. Note that this could cause problems if you submit more than one job, as the extra Gardeners will pick up the newly planted Seeds and can overload your system. The same holds true in a network rendering environment.

This is essentially the same problem as if your comp has heavy sections and light sections. Simply submit more Seeds than open Gardeners on both machines. This way when a Gardener on the fast machine finishes it has more Seeds to grab rather than sitting idle.

After Effects CS5.5 had to be serialized on render-only machines due to licensing issues. In After Effects CS6 and later, you can now run aerender or use Watch Folder in a non-royalty bearing mode, so serialization not required.

To ensure that After Effects is running in non-royalty bearing mode, place a blank file named ae_render_only_node.txt into the following location:

Install After Effects on the render-only machine.

Mac locations:
/Users/<username>/Documents/
/Users/Shared/Adobe/

Windows locations:
C:/Users/<username>/Documents
C:/Users/Public/Documents/Adobe