Artist Testimonials
Our Workflow
(hover over the icons to learn more)
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Supporting all Houdini versions including Apprentice & Indie
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Educational licenses without watermarks
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See HERE for versions supported
Setup your sims, caches and renders in a dependency chain for a "fire and forget" experience.
Run your fav renderer using as many concurrently running nodes as needed . . . we provide the required licenses
With our transcode node, compile frames into a video file on our servers
Use our calculator to estimate costs. Use our subscription plan to reduce the cost of large projects.
Download completed frames to a designated directory (e.g. local, S3, Dropbox, other).
Envoy securely auto downloads your frames as they complete - no waiting
Download completed frames to a designated directory (e.g. local, S3, Dropbox or other).
How it Works
1. Render Submit Quickstart
- shows how to submit a render
3. Render Submit ROP
- describes how to manage our render submit ROP
2. Simulation Submit Quickstart
- demonstrates how to submit a Houdini simulation
4. Cloud Cache
- avoid sim data uploads with our cloud cache SOP
Get Started in 3 Steps
1.
Install Our Houdini HDA
Using the download option (see next), download our HDA and sample HIP files and (re)start Houdini after extracting the files into the relevant Houdini "OTLS" directory, for:
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Windows . . . C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini XX.X\houdini\otls
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Linux . . . . . . /opt/hfsXX.X/houdini/otls
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Mac . . . . . . . /Users/Shared/houdini/XX.X/otls
2.
Install Envoy
GridMarkets' Envoy tool manages the upload of project files & download of results. Below are the download links to Envoy by operating system:
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Ubuntu 18.04+ users: please sudo apt -y install libgconf2-4 before starting the Envoy UI.
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Mac users: Requires High Sierra (OSX 10.13.6) or higher.
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Windows users: We recommend rebooting your PC after installation.
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Before launching Envoy, ensure the following firewall ports are open: HTTPS port 443, and 5000, 5001 & 8003 to api.gridmarkets.com. Note that some virus protection software, particularly Kaspersky and Windows Defender, can block Envoy so you may also need to disable them or whitelist gm-envoy.exe locally on port 8090
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Ensure you login with your Access Key and NOT your Portal password. You can find your Access Key under the Profile page of the Portal (https://portal.gridmarkets.com/init/member_plugin/profile).
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If you cannot login, then open a shell or command prompt and run telnet api.gridmarkets.com 8003 (or 5000 or 5001) to make sure you can connect.
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If you are still having issues then please send your Envoy log (under the Portal View menu) to
3.
Create an Account - Risk Free
To test our service risk-free, 10 rendering credits will be added to your new account, sufficient to produce roughly 50 frames (assuming 10 minutes/frame). Note that the free credits expire if unused +14 days from account creation.
Pricing
Our pricing is determined by the choice of A) service level and B) machine power.
A.
Service Level
The Service Level choices below decide the number of accessible concurrent machines when rendering. Pressed to get a project done fast - go for Rush. No worries - go for Economy. The choice of setting can be changed at any time via the GridMarkets user portal (for which a GridMarkets account is required to access).
B.
Machine Power
Our machine Power Level options for CPU and GPU resources are shown below. These choices can be changed at anytime.
* Costs are represented in $US/machine-hour. We charge by the machine-second. Costs are all inclusive (i.e. machine time; operating system and software licenses; data egress and 15 days of data storage are included).
"OB" refers to a machine's approximate Octane Benchmark performance used to deliver the service.
Note: To help balance its machine inventory, GridMarkets may run your submission on the performance equivalent of your machine selection. Your project costs and performance will not be impacted in such cases.
Houdini Release Notes
GridMarkets Credits
GridMarkets credits are used to pay for our service. They do not expire, are not refundable and can be purchased On Demand or by Subscription (the Subscription option discounts credits for large jobs or sustained work). Purchase credits via the GridMarkets user portal or via the buttons below.
Other credit related bits and bobs . . . .
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To ensure your job runs to completion, maintain sufficient credits.
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As your jobs run, you will receive emails warning of low credits.
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For real-time low credit warnings, see HERE.
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If all credits have been consumed, frames running at the time will continue to run until your GridMarkets Credit Overdraft Limit has been reached (see FAQ "What is the GridMarkets Credit Overdraft Limit?…), but pending frames will not be run.
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Suspended submissions can be resumed once a positive credit balance is restored.