Render Token is the second project of successful blockchain entrepreneur Jules Urbach as an expansion of OTOY and the OctaneRender Cloud (ORC) Network. Render Token is a blockchain project incorporating the Render Network, OctaneRender technology via OTOY, and the native asset RNDR token. Collectively, these aspects form the Render Token project providing a network of distributed GPU owners offering rendering services. As such, Render Network presents a profitable alternative to idle GPUs, offering a passive income for providing services to the network. Moreover, users, known as “Creators” on the Render Network, experience a world-leading service with ultra-high-quality rendering services in a fraction of the time compared to at-home accessibility.
In this article, we are going to dive deep into the Render Token project. We’ll explore the Render Network and the native RNDR token. Also, we’ll look into the innovative OctaneRender operating on the OctaneRender Cloud (ORC) Network. Lastly, we’ll discuss some of the ways that distributed GPU rendering services can influence various industries.
For a primer on how blockchain technology operates, see our Blockchain & Bitcoin 101 course. Moralis Academy is the perfect place to kickstart your blockchain education! Join our welcoming student community with over 30,000 active members. Start your journey today!
What is Render Token?
Render Token is a blockchain project specializing in the distribution of GPU rendering for individual artists and developers. Founded in 2016, the project is the second successful start-up by Jules Urbach. The Render Token project operates in conjunction with Urbach’s original design, OTOY. OTOY provides the world-leading unbiased renderer, OctaneRender, operating on the OctaneRender Cloud (ORC) Network.
With OTOY accessibility and Render Token’s native asset, RNDR, the project hopes to democratize access to GPU cloud rendering. As such, the Render Network® offers its users a powerful, scalable, and cost-efficient peer-to-peer solution. The Render Network lowers the entry barriers for designers, students, artists, and developers by “revolutionizing the digital creation process”.
The surge in adoption of the largest smart contract-enabled blockchain, Ethereum, helped Urbach realize the potential for the Render Network. The project uses GPUs that were otherwise in use for mining, to render and store information immutably on the blockchain. This being said, it was before the concept of Ethereum even existed that Urbach filed his patent idea for a “token-based billing model for server-side rendering”, in 2009. This was just months after the launch of Bitcoin, prior to any application of blockchain beyond the pioneering revolutionary cryptocurrency.
During the time around the launch of OTOY’s OctaneRender in 2010, rendering jobs for large complex projects (i.e., feature films such as Avatar or Transformers) required access to expensive visual effects studios. Moreover, the rendering process itself could cost tremendous amounts of time and money, in addition to storage. Urback is introducing Render Token and Render Network as a solution. Urbach’s mission is to “provide the world’s highest quality rendering software to everyone with a creative vision”.
How Does Render Network Operate?
The Render Token project uses the Render Network in tandem with OTOY’s OctaneRender technology to decentralize GPU rendering. The RNDR token is crucial to operations. All parties involved (Creators and Node Operators) must hold the native asset to use the Render Network.
The Render Network uses cryptography and computer science to automate a global network of GPU providers. Using smart contracts, Render Network connects users requiring rendering jobs with owners of idle GPUs. GPU owners will select preferable rendering jobs available and complete these using OctaneRender. Upon completion of the job and verification of the quality, the GPU owner closes the job. Then, the smart contracts automatically pay GPU owners for their services using the RNDR token. Users who submit job requests, or “Creators”, receive a super-fast and efficient rendering experience compared to at-home capabilities. Further, the Render Token platform offers a far more cost-efficient service than alternative video design studios.
Also, the project offers full assurance to potential Creators using the network. If, for whatever reason, a GPU owner should go offline mid-way through a job, the full amount of RNDR tokens will be returned to Creators’ wallets. Plus, the Render Token platform uses a point system incentivizing honest and efficient participation. Additionally, because (Creators) and GPU owners (Node Operators) have a public score, both parties in the transaction can gauge the expected reputation for each job within the network.
OctaneRender
OTOY is responsible for introducing the “world’s first and fastest GPU-accelerated, unbiased, and physically correct renderer”, OctaneRender. The complexity and computational demand for rendering are exponentially increasing with the emerging trend of content animations and virtual reality (VR) walk-throughs. Plus, the workload doubles for stereo rendering (to support both left and right viewpoints). Higher frame rates and frame resolution is fast-becoming standard, sometimes demanding days of rendering (e.g., ultra-high-definition (UHD) 8K at 240 frames per second (FPS) is 256x the work of HD 720p30). As such, OctaneRender presents a revolutionary solution to produce equally-stunning high-resolution artwork in a fraction of the time.
Using a parallel computing infrastructure, OctaneRender takes a novel approach exploiting graphics cards instead of the CPU. As a result, OctaneRender can produce high-quality photorealistic images “orders of magnitude faster than previous renderers”. It achieves this by using unique algorithms that trace the light and energy movement of a scene, accounting for an extensive list of variables. This includes “the velocity of light in exotic substances to interference patterns in sub-surface scattering in human skin”.
OctaneRender blends “blazing speed” with “supreme accuracy” for rendering high-definition (HD) images using off-the-shelf graphics cards in just a few minutes. OctaneRender operates on the OctaneRender Cloud (ORC) Network, available through OTOY. Moreover, users of ORC Network can use the Render Token platform for streaming and rendering services. All they need to do is to hold some native RNDR tokens in their Web3 wallets to send a request to the Render Token smart contract. Then, the cost of the rendering job will be calculated. Upon confirmation, this triggers an automatic transfer of funds to the relevant accounts. Should they wish to, users can exchange their RNDR token assets into fiat currency via a cryptocurrency exchange.
Processing Jobs
Idle GPU Owners are known as “Node Operators” upon registering with the Render Network. Each Operator has a public numerical ranking ranging between 0 and 60. Following registration, Operators begin their rendering services with a value of 60. An Operator’s score can either increase upon completing jobs or decrease with inactivity.
There is a points system to allow for a dynamic rewards structure depending upon the complexity of the project. The more complex and demanding a rendering job, the more rewards an Operator would receive. A further metric calculated in the rewards formula is the 30-day success percentage. This requires Operators to achieve a minimum of five jobs. However, this metric affects scores inversely. The shorter the success percentage, the more points an Operator will lose. For example, if an Operators’ 30-day success percentage is 80% or less, they would lose three points. Or, if an Operators’ success rate is between 80%-90%, they would lose two points. In contrast, a success rate between 90%-100% loses only one point.
Requesting Jobs
A similar scenario occurs for the users who bring rendering jobs to the network, called Creators. The Render Token project believes that the novel architecture and scalable advantages of the Render Network will make bottlenecks and queues unlikely to occur. This being said, the project uses a similar user ranking system as with the Operators in the unlikely case of having to calculate scores in a tie-breaker scenario.
Creators’ rankings determine their priority in the Render Token line. As such, to make sure you’re near the front, the project uses dynamic calculations of its points system, inclusive of a weighted average. There are two calculations that determine Creator score and thus queue position. This includes the number of RNDR tokens one has in their wallet alongside a 60-day average of transaction volume. Specifically, scores are determined by 25% of the amount of RNDR tokens one holds. Plus, 75% of the overall 60-day volume in RNDR token usage.
Render Token (RNDR)
The Render Token platform’s native asset is the RNDR token using the Ethereum ERC-20 token standard. As the lynchpin of the Render Network, Creators pay for services in the RNDR token. Also, the Node Operators receive rewards for their contributions in RNDR tokens.
OTOY uses a benchmarking unit to reflect the processing power of different GPUs, calculate the cost of rendering jobs, and allow users to customize their rendering parameters using OctaneBench. During the launch of the Render Token asset, one RNDR was “mapped to 256 seconds of work at 256 OctaneBench”. As such, users can adjust this to preference with one RNDR token’s worth of work. For example, either 64 seconds at 1024 OctaneBench, or 32 seconds of work at 2048 OctaneBench. Then, users will receive a quote in RNDR tokens for the cost of the rendering job.
Utilizing the OctaneBench on the OctaneRender Cloud (ORC) Network in conjunction with the RNDR token optimizes cost and efficiency. Mapping the RNDR token with a processing power benchmark allows the project to “always allocate a render job in the most efficient way possible, ensuring that the network is working at peak capacity and that there is no wasted GPU power”. Holding the RNDR token offers opportunities for users to utilize a decentralized rendering service on a peer-to-peer network. The RNDR token acts as a “Proof-of-Render” on the network alongside being the primary medium of exchange across the ecosystem.
For readers who would like an industry-expert tutorial on how to buy and trade cryptocurrencies, see our Crypto for Beginners course at Moralis Academy!
Why Use Render Network?
The Render Token project is at the forefront of distributed peer-to-peer rendering services. Drastically lowering the barriers to entry for designers, students, artists, and producers, rendering services on the Render Network cost a fraction compared to traditional visual effects studios. Plus, the distributed GPU network offers some of the fastest rendering services in the world.
Also, storage is becoming a challenge for ultra-high-definition (UHD) 16K stereo cinematography. However, this is no issue for the Render Token project. All data is immutably stored on the second-largest blockchain in existence, Ethereum. Further, the Render Network presents a universally secure yet accessible digital rights management service for artists to store their digital work creations.
The Render Token project presents another use case for GPUs instead of mining. Alternatively, GPU processing power can contribute to rendering requirements, substantially optimizing energy usage. This is in contrast to Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining, which often “wastes the true power in GPUs”. Additionally, many GPUs are underutilized when they’re not in use. Connecting with the Render Network offers GPU owners a chance to make a passive income with crypto by earning RNDR tokens.
Traditional rendering technology is finite in terms of scalability. There is a limit to the intensity and accessibility of rendering services with centralized local or cloud networks. Conversely, rendering services with a growing global network of distributed GPU owners and cryptographic job management makes the Render Token project an attractive resource. As such, the Render Network supports a broad spectrum of artistic mediums, including gaming, media, and augmented reality (AR). Also, the Render Network provides rendering services in the medical and healthcare sector too.
Exploring Render Token and RNDR Token Summary
The Render Token project is a novel blockchain project democratizing and decentralizing access to rendering services. Artistic individuals, film producers, musicians, and students, etc., currently experience frustrating or expensive rendering service accessibilities. For example, rendering of a 4K high-definition (HD) feature film would require days of rendering in costly visual effects studios. Resultantly, the Render Token project, in combination with the OTOY OctaneRender technology, connects a network of idle distributed GPU owners (Node Operators) and users with rendering requirements (Creators). In turn, Creators receive rendering jobs completed at world-leading speed at a reasonable and accessible cost. Further, GPU owners get to earn a passive income while away from their GPUs earning rewards in the RNDR token.
The Render Token project uses rendering technology introduced by OTOY, a company founded by the same entrepreneur, Jules Urbach. OTOY presents the world’s fastest, unbiased, and physically correct renderer, OctaneRender, operating on the OctaneRender Cloud (ORC) Network. Node Operators on the Render Network complete rendering requests using OctaneRender. As a result, the Render Token project and Render Network are fast becoming the go-to solution for decentralized rendering services. Beyond cryptographic digital asset management and security, the speed and cost are more efficient than ever while maintaining stunning photorealistic quality.
For a deep dive on how businesses can incorporate blockchain technology into their current IT infrastructures, see our Blockchain Business Masterclass! Moralis Academy offers a wealth of educational materials to expand your blockchain knowledge. Also, don’t forget to check us out on Twitter @MoralisAcademy! We’d love to know your thoughts about the Render Network and RNDR token!
