Hornet supercharges render capacity with AWS

Crafting imaginative creative for major advertising agencies, global brands, and entertainment companies requires an unbounded imagination. It demands the kind of creativity that Hornet has showcased for more than 25 years across its live action, visual effects (VFX), stop motion, motion design, 3D, cel animation, and brand strategy work.

As the studio has continued to grow and evolve, they needed to up-level their infrastructure to keep up with the demand of the work. Recognizing the power of scalability on demand, Hornet mapped out a plan to leverage the cloud. Working with solutions integrator Integrated Media Technologies (IMT), the studio ultimately opted to integrate with Amazon Web Services (AWS), and quickly deployed an efficient cloud-based render farm.

“Resource capacity has always been an issue in our industry with the ebbs and flows of projects, and the cloud is the perfect solution for it. To purchase or rent all the necessary gear to accommodate production spikes or specialized machine requirements is not fun or economical, so having the ability to spin up and down on demand is a huge win for us,” said Greg Bedard, Hornet Managing Partner.

“We looked at a range of cloud options and AWS was heads and shoulders above the rest; it’s definitely the most mature technology,” added Kevin Poli, Hornet Pipeline Technical Director. “There’s a lot of great educational resources about getting trained on AWS, so it was very accessible.”

Image courtesy of Hornet.

Building for the future

As longtime users of the render management software AWS Thinkbox Deadline, Hornet’s cloud provider decision was also influenced by its native integration with AWS. The studio had initially developed a basic hybrid render solution on premises and on AWS in 2021 but wanted to build a new cloud-based AWS implementation from scratch. This strategy was the groundwork to better scale when moving to their new location in the SoHo area of New York City in 2023 rather than invest heavily in building an on-premises data center. The move to a densely populated area would make physical expansion largely unfeasible, and they wanted to avoid the logistical headache of renting or purchasing machines.

Optimizing for cloud-based rendering was the first piece of the puzzle. Enhancing security was also a priority. “We wanted to ensure we could better control our file access,” noted Gareth Porter, Hornet Head of Pipeline. “The IMT team was particularly helpful in navigating security. Additionally, they optimized the workflow for resource efficiency.”

Together with the IMT team and with AWS support, Hornet established an AWS cloud studio environment connected to its on-premises infrastructure. The deployment includes rendering with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Spot Instances, and is now expanding to include GPU-based virtual artist workstations. This will give the studio’s remote artists the high performance they need to run their digital content creation (DCC) software in the cloud as responsively as local workstations.

“We had enough knowledge on our own to make things work on AWS, but not enough to build out a complex production workflow in the cloud. IMT helped us take a functional system and transform it into a core piece of maintained infrastructure,” Poli explained.

Added Porter, “Our workflow is much more stable now. Through this process and having more experience, we’re starting to understand the most efficient ways to use the cloud and how to adjust so that we’re having a lot more success.”

Image courtesy of Hornet.

Connecting to the cloud

Hornet’s on-premises farm is a mix of artist workstations, either idle or with available compute, and dedicated render nodes. The machines vary in spec, and the team allocates rendering jobs based on availability and requirements.

“If we’re right up against the deadline and need to power through an hour’s worth of renders, we’ll just spin up as many nodes as we can and get that done,” explained Porter. “We aim to choose the machines that will be the most cost-effective for the scenario. Maybe we’ll opt for fewer nodes if we have time. But if not, we’ll act accordingly and get what we need.”

The studio manages its hybrid render farm using AWS Thinkbox Deadline 10, leveraging the Spot Event Plugin to scale render resources with Amazon EC2 Spot Fleets. Hornet’s primary DCCs include Autodesk Maya, Foundry Nuke, Maxon Cinema 4D, and SideFX Houdini. They’re also exploring Blender and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine.

“The Spot Event Plugin in Thinkbox Deadline is terrific. It automates lots of tasks that can be very stressful for our render wranglers during crunch time,” shared Poli. “Usage-based licensing is also super huge for us. Even if we have all the compute, we rely on third-party resources as well, and Thinkbox Deadline has made it easy to bring those in. AWS is the ultimate supplement.”

“Purchasing individual render licenses for industry-standard tools are a few hundred dollars each and you can only use them on one machine at a time, but with usage-based licensing, you could spin up 100 machines for an hour or 10 machines for 10 hours at the same rate. It fits the contours of a flexible solution,” explained Porter.

As the Hornet team gathers more cloud usage data through job tagging, they can more accurately estimate render budgets and predict spend on a per-project basis so they can bid more confidently.

Image courtesy of Hornet.

AWS in production

The cloud provides Hornet with a shorter path to take client feedback, create an artistic strategy, and then execute from a technical perspective. With its elastic scalability, the studio finds it can take on larger and more complex jobs, a capability that will be further enhanced when it begins using virtual workstations. From the artists’ perspective, the cloud-enhanced workflow accelerates iteration time because results come back quickly without impacting the user experience.

“We mostly work in the commercial realm, where turnaround times are typically 1-2 months, so we don’t have the luxury of time. AWS is a game changer for studios like ours because we can quickly ramp up then ramp right back down,” said Bedard. “It’s super powerful for us from a business perspective, and now that we’ve seen the cloud in action, there’s no other way to do it.”

“Outside of the cloud, it’s not realistic for artists to submit thousand-frame sequences, receive results, receive notes, and submit new versions the same day. With AWS and some technical magic, we’re able to do this,” Poli said. “Render time is less of a consideration because you can adjust the parameters based on your budget and needs. Artists can submit lots of tests, instead of working around limited resources, and feel more secure knowing that there’s enough compute power to get shots done.”

Bedard concluded, “Our AWS workflow gives us the best path forward to be able to support a range of creative verticals within one facility. The rendering piece was huge for us, especially with the usage-based licensing, and now, virtual workstations are the next step. These foundational elements will help us continue to grow and evolve our pipeline, and our relationship with IMT and AWS has gotten us to where we want to be developmentally much faster.”

Learn more about using AWS for cloud-based creative workflows, or get in touch with an AWS for Media and Entertainment representative.