Did I just discover the cheapest Blender render farm ever?
It’s no secret. I’m not a huge fan of our current AI hype cycle. It’s not that I hate technology, I mainly have qualms about consent and compensation of training data. And all the pseudo-religious language around AI feels disingenuous.
But one potential bright spot in this AI gold rush for 3D artists is the availability of render GPUs on the cloud. I’ve been experimenting with Vast.ai this week (they did not pay me to say any of this). It’s a service developed for AI enthusiasts, but can just as easily be used for Blender rendering. It’s basically a bunch of virtual Linux computers with GPUs in Alberta, Canada.
You can spin up an instance, install Blender on it in minutes, upload your files, and let your project cook on an NVIDIA 5090 for $.075 an hour. According to my calculations that’s about 1/7th to 1/10th the cost of a conventional render farm. Yes it takes more admin time, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not too bad.
Here’s a real quick walk-through:
How to do a Blender render on vast.ai
Have you tried something like this before?