Behind the Network (BTN): August 19th, 2022

A glance behind the scenes at some of the statistical data gathered from the Render Network over the first six months of 2022

Over the past two quarters, in the backdrop of exceptional macroeconomic volatility, the Render Network has seen positive growth in key areas, providing a consistent and improving service for creators around the world. The Network has also seen important advances in the scalability of Render, positioning it well to reach a wider artist user base in the second half of 2022. Let’s take a deeper look at the backend of the Render Network over the last 6 months:

Consistent Network Usage

The last year has seen the NFT market reach a state of equilibrium that has had far ranging effects. Among them has been a steady decline in the inflated prices previously seen in the NFT markets, which have unfortunately led to a slowdown in NFT creation, which has subsequently affected the larger market as a whole. While the Render Network did see some slowdown, with frames rendered across Q1 and Q2 remaining at about the same levels compared to each other (2.6m and 2.7m frames rendered respectively), this is still over double the number of frames rendered across the first six-months of 2021, showing steady growth and user stickiness.

Similarly, the Network saw year-on-year improvement in both RNDR tokens used and new artists joining the Network over the first 6 months of 2022 v. 2021. The increase in RNDR tokens spent, 900k in 2022 vs. 500k in Q1+Q2 of 2021, indicates that despite the volatility in the space, the RNDR token and Render Network as a service have shown relative stability. This is in no small part thanks to the continued support of the community that the Render Network has cultivated since its inception. Not only has the community made the Network an essential part of their workflow, but it’s clear that the word of mouth has helped to bring in new creators as well.

While utilization of the very top nodes in Q2 accounted for 35% of work, slightly down from where it was in 2021 at 40%, the Render Network did see:

• An over 4X increase in the average number of nodes on a job.
• Close to doubling the number of nodes receiving more than 1000 frames.
• Close to double the number of nodes receiving any jobs.

Improved Efficiency

One of the core tenets of the Render Network since its inception has been to make the act of digital creation more efficient and accessible. Over the last six-months we have seen just that throughout the Network.

On average we have seen a 17% increase in the size of scenes uploaded to the Render Network. With larger scene file sizes it would be expected that the load on both Network infrastructure and the nodes rendering scenes would increase at an equal rate. However what has happened is the exact opposite:

• Processing time for scenes has decreased by 13% across the board, meaning that more work has been done in less time over the first 6 months of 2022.
• A 17% increase in scene file sizes should create a 17% increase in the GB downloaded by nodes as well, but improvements to caching and node assignment has led to a 28% reduction in GB downloaded by nodes, despite larger file sizes.
• Alongside both of these improvements has been an 8% reduction in scene processing failure rates.
• Contributing to the increased efficiency has been a 7% increase in the average OB score of the Network’s Node Operators.

Alongside the continued support from the Node Operator community, increased literacy among Creators over recent months has helped push the Render Network into even greater positions. The Render Network team, which has now onboarded four new support team members, will continue to endeavor in releasing educational materials to help users learn how to best use the Network for their needs.

As seen above, the increases to efficiency over the last few months have seen marked increases in Network usage. While the amount RNDR used has experienced peaks, the overall trend shows a clear uptick, which coincides with the upticks we’ve seen in Jobs created. Similarly, there is a clear peak across the rolling averages for the last two quarters, however the overall trend shows a meaningful increase in Jobs created throughout the last two quarters.

What does this mean going forward?

As was alluded to in the introduction, the crypto, cloud and macroeconomic environments have been through a turbulent period over the last year. Yet the Render Network has managed to remain a steadfast service throughout and improved in significant areas that impact network scalability. This has been thanks to the continued work of both the Render Network Team and its great community, who have buoyed the Network since its creation.

While increased efficiency on the front and backend of the Network has helped to keep the Network stable and growing, there is more work to be done. Over the next six-months, the network would like to create more educational materials and tutorials for our creators, alongside improving network stability and ease of use throughout the UX design. Additionally, the Render Network will be upgrading the client to the latest production versions of OctaneRender 2022, allowing all Octane 2022 users access to the Render Network without friction. Alongside these targets, over the last few weeks the network has been in the process of finalizing the RNP community input system, which will not only put more power into the hands of the Render Network Community’s members, but also open the door for initiatives to be taken that will welcome more users, more innovation and more work to come through the Network through the power of decentralized governance.

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/