Quick and Easy Setup on SheepIt Render Farm

TL;DR: Use the script below to run SheepIt right now.

Two head starts — both are referral links, so you get the perk and give me a little support

• 1000 SheepIt points to render your first project. Sign up at sheepit-renderfarm.com/?tag=x000111
• $300 credit to run a render node when you create a new Vultr account at vultr.com/?ref=7289892

Rendering 3D animations is very time consuming, even with the most powerful computers. That’s why render farms exist. A render farm is a network of computers that work together to render 3D projects. SheepIt is a free render farm for Blender. It’s really a community of people around the world. When you render projects for other people you get points. You can spend those points to get your own projects rendered.

Rendering can be done on any physical computer at your disposal or even a VPS. One provider I like is Vultr, but there are many others out there.

Getting started

This guide will show you how to set up a Linux (or unix like) system to run the SheepIt client in the background. In the end you’ll be able to use any computer as a render node on SheepIt. If you want to just get to rendering, feel free to check out the script below.

For a Linux system, be sure to install the blender and default-jre packages, which will automatically install all additional required packages. On Debian based systems use the following command.

sudo apt install blender default-jre

Once you have the packages installed, download the SheepIt client.

wget -O sheepit-client.jar https://www.sheepit-renderfarm.com/media/applet/client-latest.php

Running the SheepIt client

You can run the client with all of the default settings. To make sure the client keeps running even after you are disconnected, run tmux. Type the tmux command into the shell and press Enter. Then run the SheepIt client using the command below.

java -jar sheepit-client.jar -ui text -login [your username] -password [your password]

Once the SheepIt client is running, you can hit Ctrl+b, then d to detach from the tmux session. It will still be running in the background. So you can now close or disconnect from the shell, and SheepIt will continue to run. You can reattach to the session any time by logging into that computer and typing tmux a.

Fine tuning with a script

In some cases it’s best to tell the SheepIt client how many resources to use and whether to use GPU or CPU only. It’s easiest to create a startup script so you don’t need to remember the command. My startup script is below. There are a couple of ways to get it.

Direct download

wget -O sheepit-start.sh https://gitlab.com/webunraveling/sheepit-quick-run-client/-/raw/main/sheepit-quickstart.sh

Copy, paste, and save

Copy the text and save it to a file named sheepit-start.sh.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Run from the script's own directory.
cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")"

#######################
# User Credentials
#
# Change these to your username and password/key.
#######################
username="x000111"
pass="Iwa4QuIYuDqsSaAsqER3ZePt5Tf9IRgpdIMq0yU0"

#######################
# System settings
#######################
blenderDeps=(blender default-jre) # Packages to install which will include required dependencies
mem='5' # Amount of RAM for SheepIt (in GB)
noGpu='' # Set to '--no-gpu' to use CPU only
computeMethod='CPU' # Options: CPU | CPU_GPU | blank
gpuId='' # The GPU ID to use (found with `java -jar sheepit-client.jar --show-gpu`)
renderTime='82' # The max minutes you are willing to render one frame

for dep in ${blenderDeps[@]}; do
    if ! dpkg -s $dep > /dev/null 2>&1; then
        echo; echo "#############################";
        printf "You are missing a required package. You must install: ${dep}";
        echo; echo "#############################"; echo;
        exit;
    else
        echo "Is '${dep}' installed? ...YES";
    fi
done

if [ ! -f "sheepit-client.jar" ]; then
    echo "SheepIt client not found. Downloading the client."
    wget -O sheepit-client.jar https://www.sheepit-renderfarm.com/media/applet/client-latest.php
    chmod +x sheepit-client.jar
fi

if [ ! -z $mem ]; then
    mem="-memory ${mem}G"
fi

if [ ! -z $computeMethod ]; then
    computeMethod="-compute-method ${computeMethod}"
fi

if [ ! -z $gpuId ]; then
    gpuId="-gpu ${gpuId}"
fi

if [ ! -z $renderTime ]; then
    renderTime="-rendertime ${renderTime}"
fi

echo;

# This will run the client with the settings above.
java -jar sheepit-client.jar $mem -ui text $noGpu $gpuId -cache-dir $HOME/sheepit-cache $computeMethod $renderTime -login $username -password $pass

Once you have the script saved, make it executable.

chmod +x sheepit-start.sh

Remember to enter your own username and render key (or password) into the script. A render key only grants permission to render on your account, which makes it far safer than putting your password into a script. To create one, log in to SheepIt, edit your user profile, and navigate to the “Render keys” tab.

After adding your own username and render key, you are ready to run the client. If you haven’t already done so, type the tmux command and start the SheepIt client using the command below.

./sheepit-start.sh

You should now see output from the SheepIt client. It should start downloading a project and begin rendering. Now you can sit back and watch the frames fly! Enjoy!