Select Page

From Pixels to Play: Entertainment Arts Supercharges Development with Massive New Render Farm and Drops New Student Games on Steam

October 23, 2025
A close-up view of the back panels of a long row of interconnected computer towers, which form a section of the CCS render farm.

Home › News › All News › From Pixels to Play: Entertainment Arts Supercharges Development with Massive New Render Farm and Drops New Student Games on Steam

The Entertainment Arts department is launching two new initiatives this Fall – an in-house render farm and a debut on the mega video game platform, Steam. These latest efforts showcase the College’s commitment to fostering equitable and collaborative innovation, providing students with the resources they need to thrive in the creative space.

Render Farm Upgrade

Ever wonder why an animated film takes so long to make? A single 3-minute animated episode requires roughly 2,160 hours of render time – a critical, yet time-consuming part of the process that consists of a computer processing 3D and 2D data into a final image or sequence of images. For College for Creative Studies students, this can mean days spent waiting for projects to render, tying up valuable computer lab space and time that could be spent on the creative process.

Dylan VanWormer, a CCS Entertainment Arts Assistant Professor, noticed that the lengthy rendering times for students posed a problem in their creative process, in addition to tying up valuable computer space. These observations inspired Dylan to find a unique solution that would lead him to collaborate with the CCS IT department.

 

“By removing those bottlenecks, I wanted to help students expand the scope of their projects while also reducing stress during the creative process,” explained Dylan. “At the same time, I designed the system with ease of deployment and maintenance in mind, so our IT team could keep things running smoothly without adding unnecessary overhead.”

The new rendering application was created to leverage the 3D rendering capabilities of the computers already on the CCS campus. Dylan partnered closely with CCS’s IT department to ensure the system was efficient and scalable. IT’s expertise was crucial in seamlessly integrating existing hardware on campus.

The ability to render single images of 3D animation across multiple computers is integral to the 3D animation industry, and Dylan’s program allows CCS to do this across all of the PCs on campus. This is often referred to as a Render Farm. Previously, CCS was using an application that cost thousands of dollars each year. Dylan’s application has allowed IT to cancel that subscription and utilize his program.

The result is an internal render farm that distributes Maya/Arnold and Blender jobs (industry-standard 3D software) across all available campus workstations, giving students access to powerful rendering resources.

Two men, identified as Entertainment Arts Assistant Professor Dylan VanWormer and Enterprise Systems Administrator IT Services, Samuel Sizemore, stand in the new CCS render farm.

Entertainment Arts Assistant Professor Dylan VanWormer & Enterprise Systems Administrator IT Services, Samuel Sizemore, in the new CCS render farm.

CCS has a wealth of computing power across campus, with high-performance workstations that often sit idle overnight. The new CCS render farm includes:

  • 30 Dedicated Nodes at the Taubman Center. These machines are only used for rendering and are never interrupted.
  • 50+ Shared Workstations located at the Taubman Center in the Transportation Design and Product Design labs, available for rendering use during off-hours
  • 50+ Shared Workstations located on the Ford campus in the Entertainment Arts labs, also available for rendering use during off-hours.
David Gazdowicz, Chair of Entertainment, has seen the need for a working render farm for many years. Adding that they have always had the support from IT, but the original pipeline was complex and had many roadblocks for students.

“Dylan is amazing to take the initiative to work on solving a problem that we had been facing for a long time. His solution makes it an easier process for students, and it’s scalable. Our previous render farm tools would have been excessively pricey to scale to the level that we are now able to work at, for basically free (not including the hardware). Students will be able to save a ton of time in the render process. Also, this will free up workstations in computer labs so that the rendering process does not lock down computers for long periods of time. I can see this being a jumpstart for larger, more robust animated 3D films being produced here at CCS.”

Entertainment Arts Chair, David Gazdowicz, stands next to a student in a CCS Entertainment Arts classroom observing a student seated in the center who is working on a 3D modeling or animation project displayed on their monitor. Several other students are visible working at their computers in the background.

Entertainment Arts Chair, David Gazdowicz overlooks a CCS Entertainment Arts classroom.

Launching on Steam

Launching in October 2025, CCS Game Design students will showcase a curated selection of their video games on the mega gaming platform, Steam. Steam currently houses nearly 30,000 video games for game enthusiasts to enjoy.

The EA department will feature games from their Game Projects course that have been developed to the point of releasability. Game Projects is a course that operates like a game studio where ideas are pitched, developed and then produced. Students work in teams, taking on individual roles similar to a real-world experience of working at a game studio and learning what it takes to bring a game to market. All games will be released for free on the Steam platform.

“Steam is the leading sales platform on PC, and anyone who plays games on PC uses it,” said Chase Holton, Assistant Professor of Entertainment Arts. “By having a free, easily accessible and trusted source to showcase CCS game student work in a real, tangible way, it will help future employers see their work in context. It’s a fantastic opportunity for a portfolio piece that directly translates skill sets into real-world experience.”

To play Entertainment Arts student games on Steam, please visit
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4037320/Corporate_Cupid/.

To learn more about the Entertainment Arts department, please visit
https://www.ccsdetroit.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/entertainment-arts/.

You Might Also Like

Tags:

Entertainment Arts Game Design News Undergraduate

You Might Also Like

College for Creative Studies
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.