Wednesday, November 26th, 2014 Posted by Jim Thacker

ButterflyNetRender 5.15 ships


The trailer for Joeri Christiaen’s animated short 850 Meters, created using ButterflyNetRender. Developer Liquid Dream Solutions has just released version 5.0 of the software-agnostic network rendering controller.

Originally posted on 30 August 2013. Scroll down for updates.

Liquid Dream Solutions has released version 5.0 of its ButterflyNetRender network rendering controller, adding the option to view jobs via a web browser, and support for Lua scripting.

The software’s UI and core engine have also been rewritten, and there is now a native 64-bit version.

The controller, which is compatible with a wide range of 3D packages, including LightWave, Modo and Maya, was used on recent indie animations 850 Meters and Abiogenesis, and by several well-known VFX houses.

ButterflyNetRender 5.0 is available for Windows. The client also runs on Mac OS X and Linux.

Updated 26 November 2014: ButterflyNetRender 5.15 is out. As well as a number of UI changes, including the addition of wizards for all render types, the controller software now supports Mac OS X, not just the client.

The software costs $144 for 8 nodes, $288 for 16 nodes, or $1,400 for unlimited nodes.

PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
Liquid Dream Solutions today announces ButterflyNetRender 5, the newest version of a popular network rendering controller for LightWave, Maya, Modo, messiahStudio, 3ds Max, Softimage, Fusion, After Effects, Cinema 4D, Blender, 3delight, Vue, Houdini, mental ray, Nuke, Maxwell Render, Arnold, Terragen 2, MachStudio Pro and more. The software provides 3D graphic artists with a pain-free way to set up a render farm for managing frame creation in graphic animations. The software is incredibly easy to configure and use.

Committed to software excellence, the development team keeps ButterflyNetRender current with technology changes by adding new features to meet the needs of the computer graphics industry.

Major changes in version 5 include:

  • Modern User Interface with core features updated.
  • Support for multi-user and the ability to view jobs in a web browser.
  • Native 64bit Controller! – (includes 32bit version if installed on a 32bit OS).
  • C++ engine rewritten with updated toolset and the ability for future expansion.
  • Web based UI system with the ability for custom changes by the user (HTML5, CSS).
  • LUA script language support for scene reading, pre and post scene processing (Python support soon).

Also includes these features:

  • Run on the same machine as the BNR4 Controller – making migrate to BNR5 easier.
  • Updated Priority/Groups system.
  • Scene and Node settings saved into xml format.
  • Ability to disable groups that are not used.
  • Email SMS notification support.
  • Create Thumbnails of frame image for quick preview of output frames.
  • Support for any command console type of rendering job.

System requirements and pricing
ButterflyNetRender runs under Microsoft Windows 8 (32/64), Windows 7 (32/64), Vista (32/64), Windows 2008, Windows 2003, XP(32/64). BNR Client also runs on OSX and Linux. The detailed information about the types of licenses and prices can be found at www.liquiddreamsolutions.com. Registered customers are entitled to free updates and technical support by email. Phone support is also available. An evaluation version of ButterflyNetRender is available from the Liquid Dream Solutions website.

Read more about ButterflyNetRender 5.0 on the Liquid Dream Solutions website