Is cloud rendering against the DAZ 3D license?
linvanchene
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Seems like the type of question that keeps lawyers needlessly employed. Some times common sense needs to be applied and it becomes time to just follow the intent and spirit of the terms rather than request for specification on minutiae. What do you think the point and spirit of the license represents? While render farms outsource and distribute render thread prrocessing, you are not providing content for anothers purpose. The farm is a contractor agent for the consumers purpose. The output in 2d remains with the content license holder, as does the obligation to ensure adherance to the lic terms. The content consumer never deligates license authority.
Very curious to get a official clarification on this as Bryce does allow for rendering via a network via Bryce Lightening and Carrara has the ability to render with the use of render nodes and the Grid plugin DAZ sells allows even more render nodes for Carrara.
Bryce & Carrara have their own render engines and don't use a 3rd party ones.
One of the Lux rendering tutorials even has a breakdown showing the advantages in terms of cost and time to doing a render this way.
DAZ studio includes the 3Delight (http://www.3delight.com/) render software as part of the free DAZ Studio package. 3Delight is a professional quality render engine which has been used in many Hollywood Movie productions. You can get one free license for 3Delight directly from 3Delight, but it is a restricted license that will only use 2 cores on one processor. The free license for the version that comes with DAZ has no limit on the number of cores, but it cannot be used for cloud rendering or batch rendering. If you want to do cloud or background rendering with 3Delight, you need to get a licenses for that from 3Delight.
You can do cloud rendering with LuxRender because it is open source, and has no licensing restrictions.
You can get your one free standalone license from 3Delight and use it for batch rendering. You can use the "Render to RIB" option in DAZ studio to produce a RIB file that can be rendered in batch using the standalone 3Delight, but it will be restricted to using 2 cores.
3Delight is a separate corporation from DAZ and the restriction on cloud rendering are part of what allows 3Delight to be free with DAZ Studio.
The presumption is if you are a professional artist, then you can afford to pay something for a more flexible rendering engine. Carrara includes network rendering capabilities, but it is not free.
...well for 3Delight renders in 4.6, I have no interest in cloud rendering as the time involved really is not that bad. With an unbiased render engine like LuxRender that is a different story as I wouldn't like to have my workstation "occupied" for a day or more with cooking a render to the point where I don't have to worry about 'fireflies" or graininess. Same for Bryce which is glacially slow (partly because it is still 32 bit).
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The question is twofold:
-If the content is not exported, then you can cloud-render.
-If the render-process does not equal export of render-software (3Delight), then theoretically you can cloud-render.
It seems you can cloud-render, if you don't export neither digital content (props, scenes etc.) OR the rendering software. I suspect that cloud-rendering needs to know what software is used, and apply the render-service on their own machines using either their own licenses, or import the render-software from the consumer, and use it on their machines. The best solution would be to hold back cloud-rendering, while DNA Research comes to terms with cloud-rendering and makes a deal with Amazon, so 3Delight-users can use cloud-computing.
Caveat: I Am Not A Lawyer
The EULA allows the content to be copied onto an unlimited number of computers so long as no other individual or entity can use it. So my GUESS would be that so long as (1) only you are uploading the content onto the computers, rather than you handing it to someone else to do so, (2) you are guaranteeing that it is removed after your use of the computers for rendering, and (3) no one else can access it while you are doing so, it should be okay. Of course, I would think that you would be liable if the operators of the render farm deliberately or unintentionally allow the content to be used by others.
Since Cloud and Network rendering are two very different 'animals' it may be that the issue of Cloud Rendering is still being addressed.
If you want a clarification regarding whether you can or cannot use Cloud rendering, you might want to submit a ticket through Zen Desk.
In the end, only the DAZ PTB can answer the question.
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Can you provide more information on this? I tried to google DNA Research but cannot find the connection to 3Delight.
http://www.3delight.com/
The company is named DNA Reseach, but their software and online site is named 3Delight. Check the bottom of the page at their site.
I would also find it most important to keep the issues with cloud rendering with 3Delight and the possible issues about cloud rendering in general with DAZ content apart.
Thank you all for your inputs and thoughts so far!
I'm happy to give what help I can. :)
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How would this all work in this situation:
1.) You make your scene in Carrara and save it.
2.) You set up Carrara on a cloud computer and install what you need so your scene will work on the version you installed o a cloud computer. (This would be installing any plugins and stuff you would need for your scene, etc.)
3.) You set up Carrara render on several cloud computers to help with rendering.
4.) You use all this to render your scene.
(A similar thing could be down with Bryce.)
So you are using a cloud computer and a cloud render node network is hooked to it for your render your scene.
All the cloud files, programs, etc. won't be keep on a cloud computer when your finished with the cloud computers.
Greetings,
Just to note, if you're expecting an 'official' answer, you should be aware that you are very unlikely to get one here. The PTB(s) that would be able to clarify this spend very little, if any, time on the forums from what I can tell. If you have a specific need in mind, file a ticket to clarify if your use case is supported. Outside of that, everything's just hypothesis, and forum users talking to other forum users.
-- Morgan
Will flag this up to DAZ 3D and see if we can get an official answer. However as it is the weekend I doubt we will get anything till Monday at the earliest.
I passed on a similar question about Mixamo, which is allowed because the asset is not passed to the control of a third-party but is still being used by the original licensee. I believe on that basis and on the section of the EULA that Mike posted that using a render farm that you access directly would be covered by the EULA. A service where you were required to supply files for an employee to process might well be different, however.
Are you running your own cloud or renting time on someone else's cloud? (One can network together a couple of old $200 PCs to create a private cloud. It won't be particularly fast, but it will take the processing load off the main render-setup computer.)
Do you have to supply the content for the render to take place? If yes, who else has access to that content?
If you're running your own cloud, do you rent time on it to anyone else? If yes, can they access your content?
All of these questions have to be answered before you question can be answered...
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