2022 Render Network Year-in-Review
Looking back on the major milestones achieved by the Render Network, the Render Network community, and what lies on the horizon for the Render Network
This year-end Behind-the-Network (BTN) recaps highlights from the past year and explores some of the emerging developments on the horizon for the Render Network in 2023.
While the year has been a challenging period for the crypto economy, it has also been an important year for strengthening the network’s infrastructure and building foundations to enter the next scaling phase for the Render Network. Amidst a turbulent market, the Network has improved substantially across a number of fronts while maintaining consistent levels of activity at significant year-over-year growth levels. Additionally, in 2022 creators worldwide produced some of the most important cryptoart and 3D works using the Render Network — taking advantage of continual improvements to the network’s decentralized GPU computing platform. The Render Network also introduced cutting-edge NFT and AI technology, showcasing the potential for next-generation services on the platform.
The important milestones for 2022 explored in this BTN can be broadly divided into four main categories: governance, scalability, emerging technology, and community development. Read on for all that and a look to the future in this year-end special BTN.
Governance: Render Network Implements Decentralized Governance Process and Foundation
In 2022, the Render Network implemented a new community led governance framework introducing the Render Network Proposal process which decentralizes network governance into core users of artists, node operators, liquidity providers and consumers — all key stakeholders that participate in the Render Network. Through a decentralized governance model, the network is able to harness the power of peer-to-peer communities to accelerate development, align incentives, and increase transparency through community ownership — all of which are the exciting attributes of web3 organizations when compared to Web 2.0 centralized platforms.
In the summer of 2022, the Render Network introduced RNP-000, and the community voted to codify and launch the framework by which community members could propose, vote, and direct the future of the Render Network. Alongside the launch of a Community Discord Channel in the late spring, the Render Network community codified the RNP network governance submission and voting process, demonstrating the use of the system in its first vote.
After being initially proposed, the RNP system was refined based on community feedback, along with the first community proposal in RNP-001, introducing a new Burn-Mint-Equilibrium (BME) model. The BME proposal would update the tokenomics of the Render Network, providing new mechanisms for balancing supply and demand, as well as offering a more robust and accessible pricing mechanism for Render Network services. The proposal went through multiple rounds of community review — with suggestions commented on and incorporated by the RNP author — as well as a comprehensive review process by the Render Network Team.
The discussions around RNP-001 have since been archived for documentation on the Community Discord channel, and can be read in summary on the Render Network medium. Through multiple stages of review RNP-001 has currently reached “Live Pending” status after passing Render Network Team review. Commentary by the Render Network Team as well as summary of community feedback can be viewed here.
This final vote on RNP-001 will take place alongside the finalization of the Render Network Foundation, a DAO serving as the governance organization for the Render Network. As of the release of this post, the Render Network Foundation has been created, and is in the process of finalizing details around its institution. Future Behind-the-Network posts and announcements on Render Network channels in early 2023 will provide more information around the Render Network Foundation.
In Summary: One of the biggest milestones for the Render Network in 2022 was a evolution of its governance structure, creating a more decentralized model that will incentivize users and help the network scale to a wider variety of use cases and applications.
Scalability: Improvements to the Render Network Platform
Throughout 2022, the Render Network development team made the network more robust — implementing key features requested by users, increasing usability, upgrading the Render Network client, and introducing an expanded feature set.
At a high level, OctaneRender 2022 was recently added to the Render Network Client, making the network compatible with all current versions of Octane, and bringing the most powerful version of Octane ever created to the network. The Render Network Team also critically expanded its Customer Support capabilities, growing the Creator support team throughout 2022 to help manage expanded use of the network. Growing the support team has also enabled the network to offer real-time support, and over the course of 2022, the Render Network has implemented Live Chat for artists looking for rapid help — which has garnered praise by some of the top artists in the 3D industry.
Nevertheless, while support and network upgrades are important forward facing features, a lot of engineering took place behind the scenes. Below are some of the highlights:
Usability:
In order to grow the network, the Render Network team has been focusing on increasing user friendliness, enabling a much wider group of creators beyond cryptonative lead adopters to regularly use the network. These upgrades also added efficiency, providing a more optimized system for node operators and creators. Some key updates to the network include:
- Increased scene processing throughput, which decreases creator wait time when creating jobs, speeding up creator workflows.
- Reduction of overhead tasks when processing (measured at 99.993% reduction in one scene) increasing speed and efficiency across scenes.
- More efficient caching, which removes unpaid overhead from node operators, allowing greater throughput for node operators — lead to a 28% reduction in GB downloaded by nodes, despite larger file sizes.
- More intelligent node concurrency algorithm, which gives a better ratio of time spent downloading versus rendering.
- Automated checks that account for different node drivers when assigning jobs reducing render failures and overall increasing efficiency across the network.
In summary, as recapped in the first half metrics BTN, these upgrades have led to 13% decreases in processing speeds even as scene sizes have increased by 17% over the past year. Additionally, the network has seen significant decreases in data usage for downloads due to caching as well as an 8% reduction in overall failure rates due to the improved assignment algorithm and rapid automated checks for drivers. These optimizations lay the foundation for growing distributed rendering at scale — expanding the ability for the network to process increasingly complex rendering work, as well as parallelize jobs across a larger decentralized network.
Expanded Features:
A goal for the Render Network has been to become an end-to-end platform for rendering and publishing workflows — from scene creation to rendering and monetization. To that end, the development team introduced a number of new improvements increasing workflow stickiness on the Render Network, including:
- OctaneRender API integration/Differential Upload to reduce time spent uploading when iterating. This allows creators to start a scene locally, upload it to the Render Network, and sync local changes with the scene uploaded. A creator can then do test rendering on the network rather than tying up their machine, providing a frictionless bridge between local and cloud rendering workflows.
- Increased API functionality to be on parity with the UI, enabling partners to fully integrate with the Render Network in automated workflows and build custom interfaces that suit their particular needs. The API also includes features beyond what the web UI can offer, such as differential upload, which allows creators to iterate on scenes by only updating the assets that have changed.
- Creator Beta Tester Program for crowdsourcing feedback on new Octane builds not yet fully released on the network, allowing the network to better QA and test new builds and find bugs, before deploying new builds into production.
- Fully Migrated Deposits to Layer 2 enabling the network to increase the frequency and speed of Node payouts, and enabling automated payments in the future. Read our blog post here about the release. With the migration of creator deposits to L2, the payment process has become more streamlined, preventing major delays in node operator payments
- Increased VRAM Options in job configuration enables creators to request VRAM minimums when working on large scenes, reducing failure rates for complex jobs. Increasing VRAM requirements will decrease the pool of available nodes for a job, and increase costs, so having the ability to set preferences, enable creators to optimize between performance and cost.
- Improved ORBX Exporter has been updated, enabling exports through the Picture Viewer, reducing duplicated frames and stuttering. Please see details about using the new ORBX Exporter here.
The development upgrades over the course of 2022 make the network more reliable and user friendly — important for the stability of the service. While this development is sometimes overlooked, creating a more stable network has been one of the major accomplishments over the past year. Now to the exciting part, and all the work behind the scenes on building emerging next generations technologies for the network that will transform media in the coming decade.
Emerging Technologies — The Future of web3 and Next Generation Virtual Assets
New technologies were on display at events this year including NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) and Breakpoint, where Render Network founder Jules Urbach previewed a number of exciting developments in AI, next generation NFTs and the Network’s multi-render roadmap. Here’s a look back at some of the highlights from this year’s events:
GTC 2022
At GTC 2022 Jules outlined the roadmap for Render Network’s computing platform in a talk, presentation “The Future of Rendering: Real-Time Ray Tracing, Holographic Displays, and the Next Generation of Blockchain Media”. Key focuses of the talk were recapped in a May Behind-the-Network feature, which include:
- A comprehensive outline of Render Network’s work developing next generation NFTs, including fully dynamic and interactive streaming NFTs that bring the Octane Render graph on-chain.
- Render Network’s Multi-Render roadmap with support for Arnold and Redshift rendering jobs being supported on the network.
- A preview of the Roddenberry Archive and the ongoing efforts to develop a comprehensive blockchain archive capturing Gene Roddenberry’s lifetime of work. Shortly after GTC, the team showcased a full volumetric rendering of the Starship Enterprise Bridge used to recreate the Star Trek pilot episode ‘The Cage’ with novel virtual production and holographic rendering technologies.
- An Introduction to Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) and Octane’s Neural Rendering pipeline, introducing an all new AI rendering technology directly in Octane and on the Render Network. With NeRF based rendering, Render Network creators can leverage generative AI technology to essentially complete holographic lightfields, creating an entirely new way to produce fully immersive and interactive 3D artwork using generative AI models.
Breakpoint 2022
The roadmap presented at GTC was updated this fall with a keynote presentation at Breakpoint, where Jules added detail on next generation NFT development work, as well as previewed an entirely new AI rendering pipeline leveraging Stable Diffusion and other emerging generative AI algorithms directly in the Render node graph for revolutionary AI-assisted rendering workflows.
Technical Updates announced at Breakpoint are covered in detail in a Behind-the-Network Breakpoint: Part I post following the conference, and include:
- Octane X for the iPad development work to integrate Octane directly on next generation M1 and M2 Apple devices, and link them to the Render Network— allowing artists to directly upload scenes from iPads and mobile devices and render them on the near unlimited decentralized GPUs the Render Network provides. The app promises to both revolutionize creative workflows, allowing artists to produce art from anywhere, create next generation Augmented Reality content, and it dramatically expands the user base for Render Network products and services due to the proliferation of mobile devices. Just this past week, OTOY released Octane X for M1 and M2 iPads bringing the first iteration of the app to market, creating the first advanced GPU path-tracing to mobile rendering workflows.
- Cinema 4D and Redshift Integration bringing one of the largest 3D ecosystems to the Render Network. The integration will enable artists to upload C4D files directly to the Network, bypassing cumbersome exporting and importing processes, creating a game-changing expansion to the network. Redshift support on the Render Network will allow artists to mix and match rendering workflows on the platform, providing a one-stop shop for different creative pipelines. Many Octane artists mix and match between render engines — as a result, the ability to support Redshift on the Render Network, removes friction from the creative process.
While Octane X and C4D / Redshift Integration is exciting, the second half of Jules’s Breakpoint talk was revolutionary — exploring the next generation of the metaverse and bleeding edge AI rendering technologies. These were covered in detail in our Behind-the-Network Breakpoint: Part II post, and include:
- Immersive, remixable, and streaming NFTs that enable artists to move beyond static video and images, and instead create dynamic on-chain interactive digital art. Over the course of the past year some of the most exciting blockchain art has been dynamic evolving on-chain creations — from Pak’s Merge to generative art projects like Gazers and QQL — using blockchain as a medium to create algorithmic and interactive art. What is interesting about the work Render Network is enabling is that it will allow artists to create generative and interactive artworks directly from the Render graph, expanding on creative coding tool sets like p5.js by bringing the entire Octane scene graph on-chain and making it scriptable for algorithmically created 3D generative art. An on-chain scene graph also allows users to mint NFTs directly from inside interactive streaming experiences, and the Network showcased a concept of a community created generative art project using a Beeple Everyday, allowing users to create their own unique Everyday from within a Beeple scene using an Unreal Engine authoring app.
- Stable Diffusion and Generative AI on the Render Network was discussed with plans to bring prompt based Stable Diffusion rendering jobs to the Network — both enabling the network to process AI Stable Diffusion workflows, but also more interestingly, integrate AI rendering models directly into the Render graph. What this enables is for creators to create chat or prompt based work directly within the Render Node graph, and even script out generative AI artworks from within an on-chain Render graph.
Both at GTC and at Breakpoint, Render Network provided a window into the next generation of the metaverse, where blockchain networks, AI technology, generative art, and fully immersive NFTs come together to open up new horizons for virtual experiences and virtual assets. As progress is made on these developments in 2023, we will share Behind-the-Network posts with updates.
Community Development — Highlighting the Render Network Community
In 2022, our team had a strong focus on supporting and extending Render Network’s platform and resources to creators within the community.
We launched a Twitter Space program to amplify the voices and brands of the power users of the Network. We also attended a number of major events in our industry to stay abreast and build relationships with users around the world.
Over the course of the year, we spotlighted over 25+ Render Network creators. We also supported the events, experiences, and meet ups of several of these artists in cities like New York and California.
A few of our team members (including CEO, Jules Urbach) attended the four day Camp Mograph experience in September where creators and campers were given the opportunity to mingle with fellow creators, tech enthusiasts and industry professionals in a melding pot of workshops and community geared activities. Across the Atlantic, our team also had presence at the Motion Plus Design event in Paris
Our Marketing and Community team spent an ample amount of time connecting and listening to the feedback of its users on a 1-on-1 basis to ensure we’re building a robust community beyond the offering of technical tools.
A year of creation: Spotlights and Projects on the Render Network
More than any years prior, the Render Network saw users creating in ways and at rates that have not been seen before. It was a year of individuals pushing boundaries, alongside studios discovering what the Render Network could do for their pipelines. Looking back on a year that saw other projects collapse and the blockchain world face turmoil, the fact that creators were able to utilize the Render Network to realize their visions is something worthy of praise.
Creator / Community Spotlights and Twitter Spaces
Featured Artists:
- Bloo Woods
- Warbb — Robbin Snijders
- Trnvir Singh
- Marterium
- Lord Statue
- Nozomagarion
- CarrotwithAk — Drake
- PhayaWorks 3D
- Ronaldo Amador
- Pi-Slices
- Machina Infinitum
- STNLY
- Will Selviz
- Julian Frener
- Daniel Teolfe
- David Smolen
- Gelato Zupply
- Josh Pierce
- SergeJ
- Isaac Udogwu
- Sam Clover
- Booger Box
- Ivan Derr
- Kenji Keneda
- Aeforia
- Efe Alpay
- Alberto Bouza
- Nicole Ruggiero
Along with Behind-the-Network (BTN) posts, Render Network has focused on creating more regular community events and showcases, hosting bi-monthly Twitter spaces and regular artist showcases. Recent Twitter Spaces have included luminaries in the 3D and cryptoart industry.
Featured recently in a Creator Spotlight, FVCKRENDER was able to utilize the Render Network throughout the last year to release LVCIDIA, debuting a live element at a gallery during NFT.NYC earlier this year. Through LVCIDIA and the shared creative universe that FVCKRENDER has built out through his pieces on Render Network, he has continued to push the boundaries of interactive art, something that his contemporaries like Zomax echoed in his work throughout the year on Twitch and in his collaboration with Pak as well as a number of other Render Network creators on Ash Chapter 2: Metamorphosis. As highlighted during his Twitter Space, Ash2 came together through Render Network’s fast throughput, which allowed for quick remixing of elements on the fly until the perfect imagery was created.
Alongside innovations in the content creation on multiple fronts, Render Network was used to push the envelope in other industries: Render Network was involved in work with Lil Nas X during 2022, one of the music world’s most exciting creatives. Expanding beyond sonics and into space, the Render Network worked extensively with the Gene Roddenberry foundation on the creation of the Roddenberry archive, including full renders of original Star Trek materials and a 1:1 recreation of the Enterprise; but in the here and now, the Render Network was excited to support NASA and V Studios on next generation visualization as well as send an NFT into orbit as part of expanding human creation beyond our planet and into the great beyond!
Best of the Metaverse
While it has been a brutal year for centralized finance akin to 2008 for the crypto-ecosystem, where shadow banking, interconnected leverage, and malfeasance have combined into a short term winter, native blockchain digital assets like cryptoart and NFTs have made some exciting progress. Render Network has progressed all throughout the uncertainty with some highlights below:
Recognition / Awards
- FastCompany’s World’s Most Innovative Companies recognized OTOY and the Render Network as a pioneer in democratizing next generation 3D content creation, providing a platform for the future of metaverse native digital assets.
- The Information Top-50 Most Promising Startups featured the Render Network as a key infrastructure provider for the metaverse and web3 ecosystem, creating a decentralized GPU computing platform and economy for virtual assets and services.
Metrics / Infrastructure Updates
Both this Spring and Fall Behind-the-Network updates were published tracking the progress of the network in granular detail, sharing more visibility into the growth of the network. The posts show consistent usage at 75–100% YoY growth levels during the so-called crypto winter, demonstrating continued use of Render Network products and services, while the platform improves in reliability, speed and efficiency.
2023 Outlook: Blockchain Infrastructure Goes Mainstream, Powering Next Generation Virtual Experiences
Amidst the year end predictions, we will hone in on Decentralized Infrastructure, which has been highlighted by Messari as one of the major trends for 2023.
Some of the most exciting DePIN developments are not just in replacing Web2 models, where blockchain peer-to-peer networking creates new efficiencies and scaling properties that centralized providers cannot replicate, but instead in creating entirely new services that are just not possible in web2 business models. The decentralization of the Render Network in the new RNP community governance process provides ownership of the network to its users, enabling anyone participating in the network to shape the future of it. This allows new products and services to emerge in a permissionless environment, conducive to disruptive innovation. For example, Render Network’s virtual asset framework bringing all render assets and data on-chain will enable developers and 3D artists to create and deploy web3 virtual experiences that are on-chain from end to end for next generation metaverse experiences, 3D generative art, and AI powered media. Future Behind the Network posts in the new year will explore some trends that Render Network is excited by for 2023 and where we see web3 and the metaverse going.
Until then, thank you for an amazing year and have a great New Year!
Best,
The Render Network Team
Join us in the Rendering Revolution at:
Website: https://render.x.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rendernetwork
Knowledge Base: https://know.rendernetwork.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/rendernetwork
Render Network Foundation: https://renderfoundation.com/
