Sheep It? Sheep It.

The render farm that we always wanted, but never had ... until now.

It gives you a preview of the render of whoever you are helping out on the other side as well as other important info.

Usually, render farms are maintained by big tech companies. They rent out their computer power for a price. SheepIt is different. It is 100% free and collaborative, meaning that you are able to render projects on personal computers all around the world.

Another thing to mention is to SheepIt is a point based system. The more points you accumulate by helping other users render, the more projects and frames you will be able to render using those points.

Initial Concerns:

My computer isn't strong enough to render a large amount of other peoples frames. I'll never rack up enough points to render my own stuff in a timely manner. What's the point?

That's what I thought at first too. But, they created an equation that makes it possible to rack up points even for those of us that don't own monster graphics cards.

Not to say that the people who are lending their powerful machines aren't rewarded for their charity.

SheepIt offers points and awards for momentous achievements. You can see your rewards on your account page:

(I've still got a ways to go as you can see)

The thought of lending your CPU/GPU can raise red flags, but fear not. There is more to it than that.

I feel kind of weird about letting random internet pedestrians using my CPU/GPU. What If I get a virus?

Originally, I was concerned about that too. However, extra precautions are taken to ensure this doesn’t happen. For example, plugins are disabled due to security reasons.

I've always been inclined to harp on about how the blender community is the "least toxic community" on the internet. The blender community has birthed several fantastic sub-groups that are dedicated to educating users on the uses of blender as well as spreading the good word. Blender StackExchange, is an active forum of blender users ranging from low to high experience levels. that I attribute SheepIt's success is a result of this good thing.

Here's the rundown:

Most of my experience so far on the site has been lending my CPU power to help others with their projects. I plan to try out the service for myself and I will send a screenshot of what the sheeple return to me in the next blog post.

Want to try out this revolutionary render farm? Here's how to download:

I have a mac OS and I had to download java to run it. Not sure what steps are needed for it to operate on other systems, but I know there are options for you to download it on Windows and Linux. All you really have to do is visit SheepIt and download the client for your preferred OS. Perhaps you'll be lucky enough to see me "Sheeping It" under my username: #marmariyis.

Want to contribute to SheepIt? Here's how to help:

SheepIt is a free service, but they still need help to keep the platform up and running. every little bit helps. If thats not enough incentive, there are special rewards for helping out:

Click here for a link to SheepIt's Patreon if you want to help out.