LightField London

Q.Describe what LightField London does.

LightField London is a multi-faceted creative agency providing a wide range of services including, ideation, branding, concept art, 3D visualisation, 3D animation, real-time, motion design and music. We work with clients in the architectural, property, luxury brand and technology sectors mainly, but we pride ourselves on trying to service all inquiries that come our way. We all love a challenge and our flexibility and adaptability is one of our biggest strengths as a team and a company.

Q.What types of creative or technical projects do you typically deliver?

We’re not typically constrained to a particular project or deliverable, but we initially started 8 years ago focusing mainly on 3D animated films. This was down mainly to the talent we had in house. After growing the company and hiring more and more incredibly talented artists, that was the catalyst for us being able to offer all the services we now provide to our clients. It could be anything from a marketing brochure, a film narrative, a set of architectural renders, a 3D animated product film, flythrough animation, 2D motion design explainer film, an entire playable game level or a piece of originally composed music.

Q.Which challenges were you facing before Renderboxes?

• Time-consuming rendering: Teams spending excessive time waiting for renders to complete
• High costs: Investing heavily in cloud servers or losing productivity due to rendering delays
• Limited creative freedom: Lack of tools to turn your vision into reality
• Losing Opportunities: Not having the technical capabilities to address potential work

The biggest challenge we faced was render times. Being primarily a GPU-based rendering company, we found the available solutions to be extremely costly to build render farms and servers etc… Also, it was hard to find prebuilt machines from the big manufactures that could house multiple GPUs at an affordable price. We were a team of 4 people to start with, but still had a decent demand of work from our clients, so we needed adequate hardware to meet that demand. We spent a significant amount on external render farms or hiring machines which often came with glitches or issues.

Q. What software or tools were most demanding on your previous hardware?

At the start we were primarily running Cinema 4D and Octane Render, so there was an urgent need for good GPU rendering power. We were using HP Z8s mainly, which were great to begin with, and in fact we are still using some of those same machines 8 years later, but they lack the flexibility and potential that Renderboxes were able to offer.

The Solution

We developed a great relationship with Richard Rogers, the founder of Renderboxes, and we greatly valued his expertise and knowledge to provide us with the best machines for the tasks we had. We often work with very short deadlines, meaning that we need a lot of simultaneous renders happening, so instead of investing heavily in a single render farm, we decided to individualise the process and provide our artists with powerful machines so that shots could be rendering on each of their machines. This also negates any potential fights over render power.

Q. What made you choose this configuration

We developed a great relationship with Richard Rogers, the founder of Renderboxes, and we greatly valued his expertise and knowledge to provide us with the best machines for our needs. We often work with very short deadlines, meaning that we need a lot of simultaneous renders happening, so instead of investing heavily in a single render farm, we decided to individualise the process and provide our artists with powerful machines so that shots could be rendering on each of their machines. This also negates any potential fights over render power.

Q. What has your experience been in day-to-day use?

The machines built by Renderboxes are extremely well built, organised, efficient and effective at getting the job done. They are easy enough to tinker with if we want to swap out or upgrade certain components (i.e RAM/Graphics Cards). Rich is a brilliant communicator. He is always happy to respond to any query we may have and does so very promptly. If the machine has an issue, he is quick to respond and will typically get it sorted in a matter of days.

Q.Name some of the significant benefits you’ve gained from using Renderboxes

• Faster rendering times
• Cost Savings
• Access to new opportunities
• Definite improvements in machine stability
• Speed of output

Q.What have been the biggest wins Renderboxes has unlocked?

The biggest win for us using Renderboxes machines has been our ability to further the services we provide. Coming from a solely GPU rendering company to then purchasing a set of powerful CPU rendering machines to build our 3ds Max/Corona team and subsequently high-end single GPU machines for our Unreal Engine based Real-time team, Renderboxes has allowed us to achieve this in a cost-effective way. It has allowed us to test and be more creative within projects, which ultimately ends in increased client satisfaction and artist development. When things don’t take so long to experiment with (i.e render times), artists are more willing to explore their creativity and try new things to potentially offer something much more original to our clients.

Q.How has the hardware changed your workflow or business?

It has allowed use to test and be more creative within projects, which ultimately ends in increased client satisfaction and artist development. When things don’t take so long to experiment with (i.e render times), artists are more willing to explore their creativity and try new things to potentially offer something much more original to our clients.

Q.What future projects or expansions do you see using Renderboxes hardware?

Well, other than being totally sold on using Renderboxes indefinitely for our current service offering, we are exploring the use of immersive projection experiences, which in turn require powerful and mobile machines. With that said, we know exactly who to go to!