[posted to rush.general]

   Thanks to Brian Krusic for this info on AE render only rendering:

   I haven't tried this myself, but FYI:
   http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2012/06/codecs-and-the-render-engine-in-after-effects-cs6.html

   The gist of it being creating a file called "ae_render_only_node.txt"
   in /Users/Shared/Adobe/ to enable "non-royalty-bearing" render only mode,
   so if you're not using codecs that involve royalties, you can use this mode:

   "After Effects CS6 and After Effects CC include a significant change
   from After Effects CS5.5 regarding the ability to use network rendering
   without activation of render-only instances of the application, known as
   render engines.

   "After Effects CS5.5 had to be activated (serial number entered) on
   render-only machines due to licensing restrictions for certain codecs.
   See this post by After Effects product manager Steve Forde [links below]
   for more background about this."

   The link on that page is stale, due to the regular growth of Steve's blog,
   but these are I think the articles the above meant to point to:

   Oct 12, 2011 -- Render Engines and Joy of legal obligations [part 1 of 2]
   http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2011/10/render-engines-and-joy-of-legal-obligations.html

   Dec 07, 2011 -- Render Engines and the Joy of LEGAL obligations [Part 2 of 2]
   http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2011/12/render-engines-and-the-joy-of-legal-obligations-part-2.html

   Also:

   "Jul 09, 2013 -- Installing After Effects CC render engines with Adobe Creative Cloud"
   http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2013/07/installing-after-effects-cc-render-engines-with-adobe-creative-cloud.html