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Hello !
Since this year's software will probably even more demanding then last year, we face a problem of getting a system to run it.
What kind of computer(s) did you use for animation last year, and how did you get it? Did you get your computer from school, or used your personal computer? Did anyone manage to get a computer from a sponsor?
These are specs of computer our team was using:
1.4 ghz Athlon
768MB pc133 ram
geforce2mx video
This proved to be not enough last year, since the program was trying to allocate ~1.0 GB, and had to use virtual memory, doubling the rendering times. This year it will probably be even worse, because we plan on making more complex scenes...
i used max on a 800mhz w/ 384mb ram. sort of slow, but it works. also, unless something happens we will get max 4.3 for the 2003 season
NOT ENOUGH?? I'm pretty sure our rendering computer didn't have near that specs. Even on my computer which has about a third the power of that beast I don't have that much trouble. WORK WITH WHAT YOU GOT!
1.47GHz Athlon
1024MB DDR RAM
GeForce 4 TI4200 (LeadTek)
...the network render button is helpful as well :) two durons doing nothing most of the time
What i'm much more interested is not exact specs, but WHERE did you get computer(s). In my case i had to bring my computer each meeting to school (since the school computer could barely run the program), which nearly destroyed it (unpugging and reattaching everything 10 times a week is not a good thing)
Did most of you just used their home computers and worked at home?
Wha? That's insane. Why didn't you just have the people come to your house and use the computer there?
last year we had a bunch of POS computers from our sponsor. this year however......
we willhave at least 3 computers possibly 4 with more than a gig of DDR ram. those same computers will all be runnning GEforce 4 graphics cards and have kick *ss proccessing power. our fourth computer is maybe going to be bought by our sponsor. in addition we will have 2 render farms. Our first will be at our school using computer that were just given to out robotics teacher from our sponsor, and some other computers that were given to the saem teacher as part of his computer lab. this means maybe 15+ operation computers all hooked together in a render farm. Our second render farm will include everyone's personal computers all hooked together at someone's house. We are expecting rendering to go much faster this year.
as for where we got them. we checked with our sponsor first, and they gave us a bunch of old machines. they aren't top of the line but the work. second we all dug into our pockets and fixed our comuters up as well. you may want to try going to a local computer shop and seeing if they have some computers that you can borrow, and if all else fails, ask for one to be put into your team's budget. A little more funraising could make your work on the animation go a little bit faster.
VERY IMPORTANT. ANY TEAM IN CALIFORNIA OR MICHIGAN OR ANYWHERE ELSE THAT WOULD LIKE TO BE MENTORED BY OUR TEAM PLEASE EMAIL ME. the_direktor@hotmail.com
Err right... and you think I'm on crack? :)
no man
but you gotta see what we are going to get from our sponsor
if we get a dual Xeon system I would be increadibly surprised... they're quite expensive
Jack, how do you know we'll get MAX 4.3 next year? I was looking forwards to MAX 5... looks like it has more realistic lighting... And Discreet says it's shipping, too.
Also, how do you get sponsors to donate computers? What kinds of sponsors do that? We could use some more... We've just done everything at home.
Well, based on these setups, how long did it take to render the whole animation (not counting post editing, only frame rendering) ?
It was about 15 hours in our case.
Wha? That's insane. Why didn't you just have the people come to your house and use the computer there?
the problem is that we did modeling on two computers, so either way, someone had to bring his computer somewhere in order to cooperate. Plus it seemed more fun to work where the rest of the team was building robot.
Originally posted by Suneet
Jack, how do you know we'll get MAX 4.3 next year? I was looking forwards to MAX 5... looks like it has more realistic lighting... And Discreet says it's shipping, too.
I thought i read that we would get max 4.3. But if you say that discreet is allready shipping max 5, we might get it. i really don't know for sure
Chris Nowak
09-09-2002, 19:47
yeah, our sponsors have a bunch of old machines that they need to get rid of. They actually went as far to say that we can't bring them back.
for those of you looking for computers
talk to whatever company sponsors you
our team is sponsored by Haworth. they make furniture. so most of the people there are not computer oriented. but we talked to someone in charge of the computer systems and found a bunch of computers. all that anyone would have to do is find the head of technology explain your situation, and i'm sure they'll have something for you. if in doubt or you don't have any real sponsor go to a big company in your area. i'm sure they'd be willing to help.
ANY TEAM THAT WANTS TO BE MENTORED THIS UP COMING SEASON OUR TEAM WOULD BE HAPPY TO HELP. GIVE ME AND EMAIL @ the_direktor@hotmail.com
RobDeCotiis
10-09-2002, 18:48
my school just got a new cad lab.. 20 some odd xeon 2.0ghz with 512 megs of dual channel rdram each ;) i'm hoping they'll let me set up netrender.. it'd fly :) if not, we're stuck rendering on the lead animator's 1.8 ghz :( i'm working on getting my mentor to let me set up netrender.. he's the cad teacher also, so its like its his computers and he's worried i'm gonna mess up the comps.. but 20+ XEON 2GHZ!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Chris Nowak
10-09-2002, 20:43
holy jesus, thats a lot of expensive machines. Our moronic school is in the midst of a deficit, so our computers are junk.
Heh. I doubt if I added up all of the megahertz in the robotics network it would come up to 2ghz :) Most of the computers can't run anything but Windows 95 (anything being Windows OS of course...).
I think we make it to some where around 5 or 6GHz... lol
Oh yeah... Xeons suck :p
Chris Nowak
11-09-2002, 19:36
huh? How do Xeons suck? With the current technology, their pretty much the best we have for animation.
Xeons are actually quite inferior to the Athlon MP in animation...
Tyler Olds
15-09-2002, 19:49
we have 50 comps networked in the school district in our tech center (sucky ping though) and there P3 1.0 with 128 mb ram, but we have two independant comps that are AMD 1800+xp's (i think thats 1.62 Mgz) with 512 ddr ram, dvd-rw (the one great thing about the comps) and a geforce 2 at 64 mb (that sucks) the funny part is that if i network render, is that it is just as quick to do it on the two that are faster and not connected. then to do it on 25 of the ones that are cause of the ping, which has to be sent to the administrations building and back.
It still sucks though, but the school district bought me a geforce 3 64 mb, I'm hoping for a Geforce 4 128mb this year (never know)
I'm building a new system for myself which I will be using on our animation team. 2x AMD Athlon MP 2000, 1024MB ECC DDR RAM, Geforce 4 TI4600, 80GB HD, Aluminum case with 3 blue windows(meh! :P), 2 12" neon lights, 40x12x48 burner, 16x DVD
[/brag]
Chris Nowak
16-09-2002, 20:56
awesome machine, matt. I just got your email and ill give that list to mr Hall tomorrow.
Specialagentjim
17-09-2002, 19:11
hehe, Ive got a Dual Athlon MP 1600 system i built just before kickoff last year. I just recently upgraded it to a gig of ddr 2100, so its fun! hehe, my next task for it is to dual boot it with another 2k OS for just max, think of the sweetness..
======================================
Select Operating System:
1.) Regular old AIM, Internet, Homework, Music, Etc.
2.) 3ds max
======================================
The benefit of that will be i wont have any services running that i dont NEED to boot and render. That'll be a trip thru admin tools>services, heh
The specs of the machine are:
(2) AMD Athlon MP 1600's (1.4 ghz but quantispeed architecture)
(1) Gig of DDR PC 2100 Crucial ram
- Radeon 7500 64 MB DDR
- Plextor 16x burner with burnproof (when ur doing those last minute credits renderings while burning the competiton disk :D )
- Tyan S2460 Mobo MP chipset
- Antec SX 1030b Case (Because everyone knows that renderings always go faster in a prettier case...hehe)
Has anyone seen the Radeon 9700? It looked pretty cool, with its new processing unit and all. I was wondering if anyone's seen it in max compared to the 7500...if its worth upgrading to... ::shurgs::.
Then of course I get to play with our new lab. Here in south florida we have magnets, and I'm at the tech magnet...SOOoooo we're building a brand new building just for the techies, and the policy our coordinator adopted was "New building, new comps" so in theory, i should get a lab of 25 brand new dells to play with, network rendering will be pretty....BUT NO WHERE NEAR AS PRETTY AS 20 XEONS, i mean SHEEESH man! If i had 20 xeons anywhere in my school, they'd been network rendering a scene WHILE i was asking the teacher if i was allowed to do it...:D hehe, talk ta yall later! Auf Wiedersehn!
GO Team 6C
(That's HEX for 108!!)
Sunny Thaper
18-09-2002, 04:35
Originally posted by Specialagentjim
Has anyone seen the Radeon 9700? It looked pretty cool, with its new processing unit and all. I was wondering if anyone's seen it in max compared to the 7500...if its worth upgrading to... ::shurgs::.
Thought they are made for an 8x AGP bus, the 9700's have reached the best 3D consumer card slot according to the benchmarks from themadonion.com If you are serious 3D Animator, you should get the demo version of 3D Mark and test out your system, compare to others that are like yours. Because of it I have tweaked mine to such a degree that I can actually out perform better graphics cards.
Specialagentjim
18-09-2002, 16:42
wow...i can't belive i forgot about MadOnion...lol, Thanks a bunch Sunny!
Only used as the standard for the best comptuter magazine ever, MaximumPC...heh
activemx
20-09-2002, 19:55
well.. This wat we are planning to get from our
2 of these and 4 laptops i think...
P4 2.53
512 ddr
Geforce 4 4600 or ATI 9700 pro
19" monitor
Thats it and decent p4 laptops
AMX
our school just bought a bunch (like 30) new dells which we use in the cad lab. But... because our school is all dumb, i wouldn't be able to net render on them.
(It's time for... everyone bring in their computer to the auto shop and lets network them together for a day. :) )-Wires running EVERYWHERE!!!
If you can't get your sponsor to fork out the do-ray-me's for a FEW new systems, you need to do some legwork your selves. This will be my 3rd year as a Animation/Web Mentor for our team- Though I go by the title of Engineer - Because FIRST doesn't see us and we need to be classified as something- but thats a subject from last season so I'm off it!
TRY TO RAISE MONEY AND BUY NEW- most computer giveaways are junk, but better than nothing and can be used in a render farm. But working on updated computers is key.
I've been in this industry since 94 and have seen some incredable technology changes in software and hardware, new has always beat old. (see System Notes below- if you want a profesional look)
Computer Power Progress on our team
My first year, our Robotics Computer lab could barely load the Max software, letalone any models and textures- Forget rendering. So I went to a few local companies and asked for a donation towards 2-computers. What I raised was enough to purchase one upper level computer at the time- Intel 866. So that became the main modeler and we used the other one for individual modeling jobs that were imported into other scenes on the other computer. (Note: that was my first year, but our teams second year as an animation entry- so we only had 2-seats of MAX and couldnt afford to buy others)
Last year (my second year) The School put in a new "Cisco Lab" where they taught networking and actually qualified students to be certified Cisco Networkers. This lab had about 20 900Mhz computers. Now we had three seats of software. So we had the software loaded on the comps and got to work. SIDE NOTE: Last years version change ment that all the final scenes were done on one computer and models were made and imported on the on the two older versions of MAX. So a version change again this year will put a damper on the work flow- Gotta see what upgrades cost and raise the money!
We did network render our finals over 4-5 computers. This ment that all the renders were completed by the next morning and we burned them onto CD and edited on another system.
System Notes:
A dual-system is great and I prefer it to a single processor system any day, It will only effect programs that are "multi-threaded" to use the dual technology. I am running Video compressions and my 1.8Ghz runs at more than twice the speed as a dual 1Ghz. Probably because of the Buss Speed. The bus increases again in the 2Ghz range and above. (the compression software is multi-threaded.) The dual system allows you to run multiple single-threaded programs with out effecting performance (atleast up to 2-fully maxed processors worth (you gan load multiple Max Scenes up to ram limits w/o slowing you down too much). This is similar to running two computers at one desk. However, to need to compute workflow. Back in the late 90's SoftImage and what eventually became Maya were selling for 50-80k depending on the hardware and software configs. Even at these prices most major production houses had there own programers writing code to enhance and customize the render engines. Today those programs can be had for much less and doo much more. But what we found- not working in the arena with these other guys, if we had 5 or 10 seats of Lightwave or 3D-Studio it was cheaper and more productive than if we sank all our money into on big "box" (as we call them) As a team, if you have 3 or 4 or 10 people able and willing to work on the anim, it will be a waist you only have one good computer. Sp spread the wealth and build up the quality of 2 or 3 computers at a time. Dont forget about the posiblity of upgrading. If you have an ATX computer case already, you can fit current motherboard into it. So look for a good price on a Motherboard, Processor, and Ram Combo- You will mostlikly need to buy new ram. If you have alot os good ram, find out what the highest upgrade path is you can achieve and still use this ram. Hard drives are dirt cheap so you can add that to anything youve got. Look as a team at the long range potential and see what money you can spend and plan for the most productive options based on your needs. Send me a message if you get stuck, but I can't do the work for you. Most of you know a ton about computer, money is the only limit. Use those brains and figure out how to get more in your corner and your all set.
My post was a bit too short so I wanted to add to it- Yeah Right!
To clearify-
Its better to have multiple peolpe able work at the same time, so spend your money accordingly, you can also do shifts so if you have 2-3 good computers you can have 6 animators all contribute successfully. Always have a Key Student that stay ontop of progress. Not everyone needs to touch the animation to contribute. We had students collecting textures and modeling background objects while others worked on the main scenes, the texture collection (web seaches and actual photos or digital stills) could be found,scanned,prepped on any other computer in the room or at home or where ever. Also, major 3D Production houses have jobs asigned to people, One may Model, One may texture, one will animate, one will marry all those together (ie the animation could take place with a lowres model and the modelors and texturers can work with out holding up the process. In our case, we had a student that modeled the robot and stayed on top of changes faster than the actual engineers could build it in reality.) So production and workflow are major contributors to the systems that you need and want. Good luck this year. I'm loking forward to a great series of improments in all our work.
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