Make sure you are also familiar with both our policies, terms of use and output licensing. For any technology related questions, you can consult the Renderfarm.fi FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and the Forum.

What is Renderfarm.fi?

Renderfarm.fi is a platform for doing distributed rendering over the Internet. It is a completely free service that enables its users to render their animations or stills by using the computing power of volunteers from around the world. By doing so, graphic artists and animators benefit from being able to use higher image quality and higher resolutions when rendering. Equally importantly, it enables its users to participate in the rendering of stills and animations, regardless of whether or not they themselves are able to or even interested in learning about 3D modeling and animation. Our aim is to make Renderfarm.fi as accessible as possible, enabling as many people as possible to both take part in and take use of the technologies behind the service. The Renderfarm.fi crew encourages you to take part in both the online community and the collaborative rendering. You can check out the cool "What is Renderfarm.fi?" video created by community member Jerico (Jani Lintunen) on our official Youtube channel:

The motivation: Why?

The advancement of digital technology has greatly reduced the cost of making, from a technological point of view, high quality movies. These advancements have also, for the first time in history, made it possible for almost anybody with sufficient artistic vision to create a movie fit for theater screening. Meanwhile, the invention of CGI (Computer-generated imagery) and it’s inclusion into films, the calculation power required to produce visuals that satisfy audiences, has always remained at the hands of a few film studios wealthy enough.

The wide spread use of high quality CGI also means that today’s movie audiences, be they at the theatre or sitting on their living room couch, are not easy to satisfy. All this means that movies being developed on a low budget are far stretched to compete with the visuals that Hollywood movies boast. In fact, to keep things in perspective, where the advancement of digital technology has bridged gaps, it has also introduced new ones.

The technology: How?

During the last ten years or so, the development of open source technologies such as GPL-licensed Blender and the LGPL-licensed BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), have made projects like BURP (Big and Ugly Rendering Project) and Renderfarm.fi possible. BURP is a system for doing publicly distributed rendering of computer generated 3D animations and stills. BURP is also a free software and distributed under GPL v3. The technologies behind it make it possible for Renderfarm.fi to reach the service's fundamental goal; giving its users access to seemingly limitless computing power which can be used to render animations that would take an impossibly long time on a single computer. By dividing the work among hundreds of computers, an animation that takes possibly months to render in CPU time could be completed in only a few days.

The community: Who?

We believe that the movement represented by community powered services such as Renderfarm.fi, best described as the democratization of media, should be thoroughly embraced. New services are bringing people together in new ways and empowering individuals to be creative and to be heard, regardless of their background. Openness is a state of mind. Renderfarm.fi and the technologies behind it make rendered animations and images public. People who feel uncomfortable with this will probably never use this service. Still, as the world keeps changing, open minded people are likely embrace the possibility to share their extra resources to needing artists who can use them to create fantastic 3D imagery for everybody.

Renderfarm.fi and the project that made it possible, Janus Kristensen's BURP, can be recognized as rare exceptions among a plethora of BOINC projects because no lengthy analysis or scientific know-how is necessary to understand the images and movie clips that are produced. They speak their own universal language.

Our sponsors

We wish express our gratitude to the sponsors that have made Renderfarm.fi a possibility through their contribution in both expertise and funding. These include Laurea UAS, the Finnish State Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation Tekes, Otaverkko Ltd, Star Wreck Studios Ltd and the Finnish Centre for Open Source Solutions COSS.

Yours sincerely,

Julius Tuomisto (alias prodigal_son)
LaureaSID Networks
Espoo, Finland