Overview:

Get started with GridMarkets in 6 easy steps.  See "Details" buttons to learn more about each step.

1. Acquire an Account

Use THIS form to signup for a free GridMarkets account.  To trial and to get familiar with our service, 20 free rendering credits will be added to your new account.  The free credits are sufficient to produce roughly 100 frames (assuming 10 minutes/frame).  Note that the free credits expire if unused +14 days from account creation.

STUDENTS - signup and receive a 25% discount (i.e. buy 3 and get 1 free).

2. Download our Plugins

For ALL users . . . The first of our downloads is for Envoy - GridMarkets' tool to manage the upload of project files & download of results.  Below are links to Envoy by operating system:

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• Note: for Mac, uncompress the file and move it to your Applications folder, replacing any previous version; go to System Preferences to allow the app to run).

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For HOUDINI users . . . download THIS HDA and (re)start Houdini after extracting the files into the relevant Houdini "OTLS" directory, for:

• Windows . . . C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini XX.X\houdini\otls

• Linux . . . . . .  /opt/hfsXX.X/houdini/otls

• Mac . . . . . . .  /Users/Shared/houdini/XX.X/otls

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For CINEMA 4D users . . . choose from the download links that follow:

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• Note: for Mac, uncompress and move to the plugins directory

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For BLENDER users . . . THIS links to a zip file that contains our add-in for v2.79 and 2.8.

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For MAYA and 3DSMAX users . . . See HERE for Maya and HERE for 3DSMax.

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You are nearly there . . .

3. Select 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 which has the lowest rate.  Your setting choice can be changed at any time via the GridMarkets user portal (for which a GridMarkets account is required to access).

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(Need more than 60 machines?  See our Subscription model.)

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The chart below shows when Economy, Standard and Rush pricing apply see HERE for the pricing details).  For example, if your profile setting is set to Standard or Rush, but you are using 5 or less machines concurrently, the Economy rate applies (the green areas in the chart below).  Likewise, for between 6 to 30 concurrent machines, the Standard rate applies (the purple area in the chart below) and etc. 

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Your submission may require CPU or GPU resources - depending on your choice of renderer.  The Power Level options for CPU and GPU resources are shown below.  These choices can be changed at anytime.

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4. Pick Power & Pricing Preference

* 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 a faster than selected machine (but not on a slower than selected machine).  Your project costs will not be impacted in such cases.

5. Acquire Rendering Credits

Credits, which do not expire and are not refundable, can be purchased by the On Demand or Subscription Plan (discounted credits for large jobs or sustained work) via the GridMarkets user portal or via this web site:

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Other rendering credit related bits and bobs . . . .

• HERE if you need a receipt for GridMarkets credits purchased.

• HERE if you need to purchase and allocate credits to a project artist.

• HERE if you need an estimate of the likely number of credits needed.

• To ensure your job runs to completion, maintain sufficient credits.

• As your jobs run, you will receive emails warning of low credits.

• 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.

• Suspended submissions can be resumed once a positive credit balance is restored.

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6. Accelerate Your Creativity

We have created a number of "getting started" tutorials to help with your first submissions.  They can be found under the "Services" menu of this site.  See HERE for the versions of 3D software that we support.  Log into our User Portal to access a knowledge base and FAQ.  If all else fails, we are responsive to emails sent to Support@GridMarkets.com.