Renderman “First Contact” Challenge

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For the 4th year running, RANCH Computing is proud to be a partner of the Renderman challenge!
This year again you will enjoy the power of AMD EPYC processors to render your images.

Rendering period:
October 14th 2025 to November 10th 2025 at 10:00 am (Paris Time) / October 14th 2025 to November 10th 2025 at 00:00 am (Pacific Time)

:art: How to Render my project on RANCH Computing

  1. Create an account on Ranch computing or log in if you already have one.
  2. Send a “Support” request with the following details:
    • Mention: “I participate in the Renderman “First Contact” Challenge “
    • Your Pseudo and the Discord link to your project thread on Pixar’s Renderman Discord.
  3. Post a message on Discord on your project submission thread stating that you will render on AMD-Creator Cloud with RANCH Computing.
  1. Download and install the RANCH tools: RANCHecker (for your software) and RANCHSync.
  2. Create and upload an archive of your project.

You will receive an answer and the free priority “AMD-Creator-Cloud” will be available when creating a project.

:fusée: First Steps on RANCH:

  • For your first use of the farm, create a simple scene: 1 mesh, 1 texture, and 1 light. This will help you get familiar with the process and tools.
  • Consider sending render tests with an unfinished scene to get a preview.
  • Send your final scene in 960 x 540 (¼ of the resolution) to ensure the final render before the 4K render.

:marteau_et_clé_anglaise: Practical Information for Easy Rendering:

  • The progress of your project depends on the number of images to be rendered. Since there’s only one image for this challenge, the progress bar will remain at 0%, however the activity button could let you know the progression written on the log.
  • Check your render setting before creating an archive, especially with Blender where 250 frames are set by default.
  • Although denoising cannot be done on the farm, we recommend checking this option and reduce your sample. It will prepare your image for this process and once the image is rendered, launch the denoiser on your end (available in the RenderManProServer-26.3 folder).

💡 Needs help? Contact us!

You faced difficulties or you just want to chat about your scene? Feel free to contact our support team using the support ticket, we will be available to help you!
If it is about a specific project (or two), be sure to mention the project ID (7 digits).

You can also tag us on Discord with @ranchcomputing

Documentations

General
Blender
Maya
Houdini

Warning: AMD-Creator-Cloud rendering servers have powerful CPU but does not have any GPU. Some features like Nvidia Optix or Grease Pencil could prevent rendering!
Maximum amount of RAM: 300 GB.
Houdini non-commercial licenses will not work with Renderman.