How Blender animation render time actually adds up
A still can hide a bad per-frame cost. An animation multiplies it. Ten seconds at 24 fps is 240 frames. If one frame is an hour, that shot is ten days on one machine, before retries.
Do the frame-count arithmetic first
Write down start frame, end frame, and step. Frame count is not “the timeline length in seconds.” It is the number of frames Cycles will actually write. A 1–1000 range at step 1 is 1,000 frames. The same range at step 2 is 500.
Then time one representative frame at final settings. Multiply. That product is the local queue, not a marketing estimate. It already tells you whether the shot belongs on this PC tonight.
100, 500, and 1,000 frames are planning numbers, not special products
People search those counts because that is how shots get scoped. On FARPY they are the same public rate, not a bundle discount and not a different farm.
Rendering is from 1¢ per completed frame. If every requested frame completes: 100 frames is $1.00, 500 frames is $5.00, 1,000 frames is $10.00. Failed frames are not billed as completed output. You still see the exact fixed quote for the range you selected before work starts.
The accepted range is 1–10,000 frames per request. A 1,000-frame shot fits. A 12,000-frame sequence does not fit in one request; split it.
What changes animation time that stills hide
Motion blur, character caches, and simulated hair or cloth can make frame 80 much slower than frame 1. Time more than one frame if the shot actually changes. Persistent Data can help a local animation; it does not change FARPY’s public per-frame price.
Do not assume the farm “makes animation cheap” by compressing time. The quote is for completed frames. The reason to send an animation is that this PC should not sit in a 500-frame queue.
Send the range you already decided
Pack the .blend, keep it at or under 100 MiB, Blender 4.1.1, Cycles GPU. Upload, inspect the detected frames, set the range, read the quote, then start. Docs cover the browser and API path. Pricing states the same 1¢-from rate without a second formula. A scaled time estimate from the published BenchMork RTX 3090 baseline lives on /calculator/; that model is not your job's runtime.
What FARPY accepts
- Blender 4.1.1
- Cycles GPU
- .blend files, 100 MiB maximum
- 1–10,000 frames
- Rendering from 1¢ per completed frame
- Exact fixed quote before work starts
Upload a .blend
See the exact fixed quote for your frame range before anything is reserved. Rendering from 1¢ per completed frame.
Questions for this problem
Is a 1,000-frame job ten times a 100-frame job?
At 1¢ per completed frame, yes, if every frame in both ranges completes: $10.00 versus $1.00. The quote follows the range you select. Complexity does not change that per-frame rate.
Can I render 10,000 frames in one go?
1–10,000 frames is the public limit per request. 10,000 is allowed. Above that, split the range.