A lightweight render farm coordinator for small VFX teams and freelancers.
- Self-healing mesh — every node can act as coordinator. If the leader drops, another takes over automatically.
- DCC agnostic — JSON templates define how to launch any renderer. Ships with Blender, Cinema 4D, and After Effects templates + submission plugins.
- Simple setup — install, point every node at a shared folder, done.
- Fast discovery — UDP multicast for LAN, falls back to a file-system phonebook for VPNs and complex networks.
- HTTP coordination — job dispatch, progress tracking, and completion reporting over an HTTP mesh.
- Local staging — opt-in render-to-local-then-copy mode to prevent file corruption from cloud sync tools (Synology Drive, Dropbox, etc.).
- Resilient — each node keeps a SQLite snapshot of the leader's state. If the leader drops, a new one picks up where it left off. Worst case: frames rendered in the last 30 seconds get re-rendered.
- Windows-first — macOS and Linux support planned.
Built with C++, Rust, and Dear ImGui.
Note
More advanced docs will come with later revisions, but here are the basics:
Download the latest .exe from releases and install on every node.
Warning
The installer opens HTTP port 8420 and UDP port 4243 in the Windows Firewall. It also installs a shortcut in your startup folder. MinRender, like all render farm coordinators, allows you to launch an executable remotely. This behavior is dangerous if not handled with care in a controlled environment. Be careful, test your flow thoroughly, and practice safe computing.
In the settings panel, browse to or paste a shared directory that every node can access. This can be an SMB share on a NAS or a shared folder in a file sync service like LucidLink, Dropbox, Synology Drive, Resilio, Syncthing, or others. This folder holds the node phonebook and all logs (MinRender logs and DCC stdout logs). Press Save.
Tags control which DCCs each node can render and influence leader election. Set them as comma-separated values in Settings (e.g. ae, blend, leader).
| Tag | Purpose |
|---|---|
ae |
Enables After Effects rendering on this node. |
blend |
Enables Blender rendering on this node. |
c4d |
Enables Cinema 4D rendering on this node. |
leader |
Forces leadership priority. The mesh prefers this node as coordinator, but falls back to others if it drops out. |
noleader |
Prevents this node from becoming leader unless it's the only one alive. |
If you render to a synced folder setup (LucidLink, Dropbox, etc.), you'll want this option checked in the settings panel. Instead of rendering directly to the synced folder, it will create a temp staging area in %localappdata%\MidRender, render there, then move files to your final render folder. By staging renders like this, you avoid classic file contention issues on synced file services.
To submit a job, click on the New Job button, then select a job template.
Fill out the form. Fields with an asterisk are mandatory; everything else will be ignored or left to DCC settings if left empty. Press Submit.
Note
It's very easy to create your own templates with only the fields you want/use. Navigate to your shared folder and duplicate the provided templates in the templates\examples folder. Delete flags you don't want and prefill in data. See here for a structural overview: Job Template Documentation
You can submit jobs directly from the MinRender app, or use the optional DCC plugins. Plugin files are in the shared farm folder under plugins/.
Install plugins/afterEffects/MinRender.jsx into your After Effects Scripts/ScriptUI Panels folder. Press Scan Render Queue to load active items, set options, and press Submit.
Note
Chunk size is honored for image sequences, but not video outputs. For video, the plugin automatically sets chunk size to the full duration so a single file is rendered.
Use Install from Disk in Blender's Add-ons settings. The MinRender submitter appears in the Render panels. It auto-collects your output and frame range settings, but you can adjust them before pressing Submit to Farm.
Copy plugins/cinema4d/MinRender.py to your %appdata%\Maxon\<C4D version>\library\scripts folder. Run it from Extensions > User Scripts > MinRender. It pulls render paths and frame ranges from your scene settings. Press Submit to Farm when ready.
Note
Cinema 4D has only been tested with a single license so far. It should work fine distributed across the farm though (famous last words).
When a job is submitted, click it in the Jobs panel to monitor its progress. Progress bars show chunk progress. The frame grid represents the current frame progress. In the logs viewer, you can select the current task to see the DCC logs--aggregated from all nodes. In the shared folder, these logs are saved in the file system if you want to inspect them in detail. They will remain until you delete the job in the monitor app.
| Color | Meaning |
|---|---|
grey |
Unassigned frames. |
blue |
Assigned frames. |
dark green |
If you have the local staging area enabled in settings, dark green signifies rendered frames, but not yet copied over to your render directory. MidRender copies them only when the entire chunk is complete. |
bright green |
Finished frames. If the local staging area is enabled, these are finished frames copied over to your render folder. |
When you close the app, it minimizes to the system tray. Running MinRender minimized on your render nodes is recommended — it disengages window drawing and releases resources to a minimal state, keeping only communication, coordination, and a lightweight Rust agent to manage render processes.
Job templates are JSON files that tell MidRender how to launch a DCC's command-line renderer. They define the executable, argument structure, stdout parsing for progress, and submission defaults.
See the full reference: Job Template Documentation