[HN Gopher] SheepIt Render Farm server code goes open source
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SheepIt Render Farm server code goes open source
Author : hyperific
Score : 124 points
Date : 2025-03-15 00:42 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (gitlab.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gitlab.com)
| Havoc wrote:
| For those not familiar this is basically crowdsourcing rendering.
| You contribute compute and get credits for it that you can redeem
| against the collective render farm later
|
| CPU or GPU but obv favours gpu
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Blender has had its own render farm utilities for dormant
| workstation utilization for sometime:
|
| https://flamenco.blender.org/download/
|
| The reason is simply a weird copyright paradox could form when
| a work is rendered on someone else's computer outside a
| company. No one that does media for a living will risk their
| revenue model on some amateur cloud service.
|
| Now for those lucky few that have a dozen RTX 5090 laying
| around unused, it is a niche problem most folks wished they had
| right now. lol =3
| Tomte wrote:
| > The reason is simply a weird copyright paradox could form
| when a work is rendered on someone else's computer
|
| Why? Copyright protects creativity, not hardware ownership.
| J.K. Rowling doesn't print her books in her apartment,
| either.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| An external work done by someone else is implicitly owned
| by that creator.
|
| i.e. if Rowling wrote some description about a bigoted
| neglected single mom striking it rich, and someone else
| actually wrote the work... than ownership is not guaranteed
| without legal assignment of rights to said work (depends on
| the location in the world). Thus, a publisher may not pay
| the muse unless under legal obligation of rights transfer,
| and having similar works further complicate exactly who
| owns the copyrights.
|
| When you publish media or games, than the providence of
| assets/compositions become extremely important in a
| commercial setting.
|
| I didn't make the rules, but do hire project artists all
| the time. The paperwork involved ends up ridiculously
| complicated, and requires specialized lawyers. This is why
| we avoid "AI" content, cloud based GPU service, and any
| vendor ignorant enough to force the issue. =3
| Tomte wrote:
| > An external work done by someone else is implicitly
| owned by that creator.
|
| Rendering an image is not "creating a work" in the
| copyright sense. There may be all kinds of other legal
| quagmires, implicit contracts etc., but copyright is not
| one of them.
|
| > someone else actually wrote the work
|
| So you throw in a totally different situation? If the
| Blender scene has been modelled by someone else, then
| yes, that someone owns the copyright. But not because I
| let someone else render the completed scene.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| If they are an employee under legal agreements, than a
| firm retains copyright. Yet if the render node is another
| companies property, than it is highly advisable to talk
| with your IP lawyers to figure out the jurisdictional
| copyright rules in your country.
|
| 'Rendering an image is not "creating a work" in the
| copyright sense.'
|
| Perhaps your super awesome precedent case against BBC,
| Sony, and or Disney will end in your favor. It is not 0%
| chance, but pretty close from what the IP firms have
| advised.
|
| 'If the Blender scene has been modelled by someone else,
| then yes, that someone owns the copyright'
|
| That is just not true in most places, and including
| assets/compositions from libraries you "found" does not
| assign copyrights to use said work. Even if some con
| artist on the Unity store sold you "rights", there is no
| guarantee it was theirs to assign.
|
| Please consider talking with an IP lawyer in your
| jurisdiction, as your ludicrous notions of ownership
| could end up a liability. lol Best of luck =3
| Tomte wrote:
| > Perhaps your super awesome precedent case against BBC,
| Sony, and or Disney will end in your favor
|
| You have no clue at all. Goodbye!
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| The US system is interesting in regards to well-known
| public personalities:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhgYMH6n004
|
| You were warned this area gets complicated, there are
| some scenarios that get truly bizarre. Get some popcorn,
| and best of luck =3
| lyu07282 wrote:
| This is of course nonsense, but interestingly enough also
| a FAQ entry of Sheepit:
|
| > Who owns the copyright of the images generated?
|
| > SheepIt Render Farm does not lay any claim to generated
| images, it only acts as a tool to provide compute power
| to owners of the project. The owner of the project will
| have all rights reserved to them; As long as the claimant
| is the true rights holder of all assets used, and
| complies with governed free use laws, as well as
| potential rights holder permissions.
|
| Otherwise I guess GitHub owns the copyright on all
| software artifacts build on their CI systems. Obviously
| not how copyright works, like at all.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| "GitHub owns the copyright on all software artifacts
| build on their CI systems"
|
| Good question, someone should get the IP lawyers to go
| over the EULA of both git and the login email identity
| service providers. However, I would assume for most FOSS
| licensed projects it is likely a moot argument. Microsoft
| probably wouldn't do anything evil...
|
| Best of luck, =)
| lyu07282 wrote:
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/author
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Hard to say for sure... One would assume github
| implicitly agrees to the FOSS project license by hosting
| the source, and thus is still in compliance when
| compiling the binary in the CI pipeline.
|
| Best of luck =3
| virtualritz wrote:
| > CPU or GPU but obv favours gpu
|
| Why obviously?
| MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
| Rendering is significantly faster and more energy efficient
| on a GPU.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Are there any notable works that have been created with this
| model? Or all hobbyist projects?
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Blender is cheaper than Maya and Autodesk Nuke... and
| accessible to every artist.
|
| Thus, it is a very common tool choice behind the scenes
| (targeting OpenEXR frame sequences and post-render
| compositing layers), but the color profiles are usually still
| done with professional video editing software. The OpenEXR
| format offers a few tricks for cleaning up lighting without
| re-rendering a scene.
|
| Blenders problem is it is perpetually Beta, and plugin
| ecosystems can be unreliable in a production setting. The
| film Flow was a miracle to pull off with a tool with dozens
| of known broken features every "release".
|
| It is like any other tool, in that most of its features take
| a lot of time to master. For low-poly game assets, it is
| totally worth a donation. =3
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Hmm interesting indeed.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| Is this linked to the fun & free Electric Sheep collaboratively-
| rendered screensaver in code, personalities, or just in spirit?
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