Rendered At ResPower: "The Works of Allan Liddle"

Overview

Rocky: a humorous take on everybody's favorite old-time boxing legend.

Jump: this is one silly dance video. Warning - old guy in his skivvies.

Orangutan: Let's just say, it isn't every day you come across an Orangutan doing this.

We conducted an email interview with Allan Liddle, proprietor of DNA Pixels in Somerset West, South Africa (near Cape Town.)

Their first production, in 2007, was a PSA promoting the conservation of water, and was a finalist for a South African VUKA! award. Not bad for a guy trained as an electronics engineer. Some of the work he rendered on the ResPower Super/Farm garnered attention recently from BlenderNation, a web site devoted to following trends in the Blender 3D community.

How long have you been doing 3D graphics?
I actually only became full-time involved in 3D graphics and animation about 20 months ago. Before then I earned a living as electronics/software engineer and was studying Blender after hours.

That's an interesting switch, from an electronics background to something so artistic.
I am one of those "double-minded" people :-) who is both technically-minded as well as artistic. 3D CG and animation originally started as a hobby to combine my artistic skill with my analytical/computer skills. After about 18 months of self-studying Blender after hours I felt that I could "take the jump" to do it full time and make a living from it. My first professional production after only doing self-study tutorials was for the VUKA! awards.

What sources do you find for inspiration, i.e., where did you get the ideas for the shorts on your site?
Some of the work is obviously for clients, but my private work is usually to improve my overall 3D CG and animation skills as well as to advance my knowledge of Blender. I therefore then choose a topic that would push me harder in the direction I want to improve in. For example, prior to my "Rocky" animation, the only lip syncing experience I had was of a talking Humpty Dumpty egg when I was busy learning about shape keys. It did not even have arms or legs. I therefore chose Rocky to advance my rigging, texturing, animation and sound syncing skills.

How did you first hear about ResPower?
I initially read about ResPower on BlenderNation. However, when I wanted to start doing more serious renders of my own, I asked around on the Blender Artists forums. ResPower was one of the more highly rated render farms suggested.

A lot of the demo videos on your site were Rendered@ResPower. Did ResPower's Blender pricing play a part in your decision to use their service?
Yes, the Blender pricing at ResPower was definitely one of the big factors that played a role in my decision to render at ResPower more than a year ago. I am from South Africa and our currency is usually in the region of 6 to 8 times weaker than the US dollar. Taking that into account, it was still more viable for me to render remotely at ResPower than to set up my own render farm. The Blender-specific subscriptions are really in an affordability pricing category of its own. Another factor that played a role in my decision was the fact that I do not have to worry about managing and supporting my own render farm. And don't forget: rendered "boo-boos" don't cost you anything - not even Internet bandwidth.

ResPower's remote rendering also provides me with another advantage lately: South Africa's commercial growth has outpaced it's capacity to supply electricity, so we are subjected to power cuts ("load shedding") once or twice a week - until the new electrical power stations have been completed. ResPower provides me with peace of mind that my rendering can continue even if I may be sitting in the dark :-).