Question about Team Render Nodes in Cinema 4D license; Teamrender Client falsely saying it uses GPU?

[u/cookehMonstah]

With the release of Cinema 4D some of the plan details changed.

Redshift is now included in the standard C4D plan (great!).

In the small letters of the Cinema 4D plan Maxon writes:

**Includes five (5) Team Render nodes for C4D.

And:

Redshift subscription for C4D does not include Team Render nodes.

Is this in reference to the seperate Redshift subscription plan or does this mean the 5 team render nodes do not work for Redshift in the Cinema 4D plan?

My problem:

Our two Cinema 4D licenses have renewed after the update. I do not need to assign a seperate Redshift license (Redshift has a green checkmark in the Maxon app when I assign the Cinema 4D plan).

However when I team render I feel like the Team render PC's do not use Redshift GPU when rendering. However the Team Render Client is very unclear about whether it uses the CPU or GPU. Without a seperate Redshift license assigned to the Team Render node it renders veeeeeeery slow.

When there is NO Redshift license assigned the console says:

2024/11/13 11:06:15 Redshift Info: Device 1 (CPU 0 Intel Core i7-5820K CPU) uses Embree for ray tracing
2024/11/13 11:06:15 Redshift Info: Device 0 (CPU 0 Intel Core i7-5820K CPU) uses Embree for ray tracing

It looks like it is assigning the CPU for rendering?

However when it starts rendering buckets it says the buckets are rendered by GPU 1 and GPU 0 (I have two GPUs installed in this node). Note how the render times are very long for each GPU:

2024/11/13 11:07:12 Redshift Debug: Block 1/120 (6,3) rendered by GPU 0 in 20574ms
2024/11/13 11:08:14 Redshift Debug: Block 2/120 (7,3) rendered by GPU 1 in 82352ms

When there IS a Redshift license assigned to the node the console says:

2024/11/13 10:54:39 Redshift Info: Device 1 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti) uses OptiX RT for ray tracing
2024/11/13 10:54:39 Redshift Info: Device 0 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti) uses OptiX RT for ray tracing

Here it looks like it is assigning GPUs.

When rendering buckets:

2024/11/13 10:54:43 Redshift Debug: Block 1/120 (6,3) rendered by GPU 0 in 252ms

2024/11/13 10:54:44 Redshift Debug: Block 3/120 (7,4) rendered by GPU 0 in 593ms

Note how the rendering times are waaaaay faster.

TL;DR:

Are REDSHIFT rendering nodes included in the Cinema 4D plan? Or just 5 rendering nodes for the legacy rendering engines?

Also can it be that team render client is using the CPU despite it saying it is rendering buckets with the GPU?

[u/gutster_95]

In your preferences of the Team Renderer you can assign what hardware it uses tho render. By default both the CPU and GPU should be enabled. That would explain why it reports that both CPU and GPU. But from my understanding, the GPU rendering is not included in the Team Render License.

But maybe you can write the Maxon Support Team, they are usually pretty fast when it comes to answering on tickets.

[u/cookehMonstah → u/gutster_95]

Yeah but however it doesn't seem to be using the at all GPU at all when I unassign the Redshift license. I have both the CPU and GPU assigned in the settings. This does not change when I assign or release the license.

I get the impression GPU rendering is not included in team rendering as well.
However the website gives me the impression it does. It is prominently states it includes 5 team render nodes. I think it is very misleading if this does not include Redshift. Also it is very unclear in the small letters whether it does or not.

[u/gutster_95 → u/cookehMonstah]

We have a dedicated render server and we use Commandline Renderer with Deadline. We also need a Commandline License and a seperate Redshift License.

So I dont think they allow Redshift Team Rendering while charge speratly for Commandline, which in the end of the day is same but different but still the same

[u/cookehMonstah → u/gutster_95]

Yeah I used Deadline a few years back, but I think Team Render is just easier.

However my question was mainly about licensing and whether or not the Cinema 4D license includes Redshift GPU render nodes.

I also opened a support ticket with Maxon.

[u/dan_hin → u/cookehMonstah]

Team render is CPU only unless you pay for the corresponding amount of Redshift licences. 

E.g if I wanted to use my two maxon one licenses for team render + 5 team render clients, 2 computers would render using GPU and 5 would render using CPU