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This is an open forum for discussing Animation:Master and discussions should relate to A:M in some capacity.
Ask questions. Share experiences. Outline goals and aspirations.
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942 topics in this forum
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From the "If You Want It Done Right, Do It Yourself Dept." The program from a recital I attended last night:
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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Hi yall. I want to show gas molecules bouncing around in a bottle. I've got Collisions turned on to contain the molecules, and for the most part it works, but about 5% of them zip right through the glass. Judging from the angles, many of these are escaping on 2nd or 3rd bounce. (Drag set to 0.) Still using V13 (blush). Any ideas?
Last reply by phatso, -
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Just wondering since earlier posting mentioned trouble viewing my animations what codec people are using when they render I am working on a 64 bit windows 10 computer and have no issues watching anyone's posts John
Last reply by Bobby, -
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OK, So I want to export a model from A:M and import to Unreal Engine 4. However I have just tried exporting as an OBJ file and importing the model into UE4 and the mesh that is displayed in unreal has lots of holes in it. I am a big noob when it comes to this sort of thing so does anyone have any ideas on what I'm doing wrong here? two pics are attached. Thanks C
Last reply by Fuchur, -
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Long time no see my friends here！ I make a Short as my Graduate student work。I could find A：M in IOS app store，but there is still nobody use A：M except me in China，how I whish I could find another one just like me。 If A：M could export model and action to MAYA and control .mdl or .act in MAYA，it would be more suitable for animation enthusiasts in China。 Ok，this is my work： http://v.qq.com/page/x/g/5/x0303owsng5.html I‘m sorry for the long advertisement。^^
Last reply by jebeck, -
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I saw this software mentioned recently and haven't investigated it very deeply but sense that it may be well worth considering... Edit: For a number of reasons, Shotcut is getting my recommendation. So, go get it! And yes, it can convert to .MOV format (as well as just about any other format including animated GIF) Shotcut is a free, open source, cross-platform video editor for Windows, Mac and Linux. Major features include support for a wide range of formats; no import required meaning native timeline editing; Blackmagic Design support for input and preview monitoring; and resolution support to 4k. Basic Features Support for the latest audio and video formats th…
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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The 2D animaiton software used by Studio Ghibli (of japanese anime fame) is going open source according to a recent press release. Other than that I don't know much about it. From their site: So... six days away. Here's the press release: http://www.toonzpremium.com/#!news/aawrs Here's a video of Toonz Harlequin 7.1 in action. I'm not sure what is different from that release and the one going open source. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jjeh1USIlY
Last reply by Rodney, -
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I don't have any references to site or links to post but I'm hearing rumors that Apple Adobe is planning to release Pro Res resources to counter the issue arising from abandoning older Quicktime support on Windows. Of note: Several of the ProRes codecs support alpha channes although other do not. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202410 If anyone has info related to this please feel free to post and point us to more official info. Edit: Some of my info was incorrect. It is Adobe that is planning to bring Apple's Pro Res formats forward for use in Windows to address the issues caused by Apple no longer supporting Quicktime. I've edited this topic's titl…
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
Hello Admired, Inspiring and Appreciated People of this A:M Forum, my best wishes for you all!!! ******** I was writing this topic, because is kind of interesting to me know a little bit about the current lives of this "Great Heroes" of the History of the Great "Animation Master". ******** Especially when I see that Jeff Lew in his website "killerbeanforever dot com" says that is "OUT OF BUSINESS". It is for me a little sad to think that a Great Talent and Ability like his, can't find a place and a long and profitable career to make a happy living in the CGI World. Also I would like to know about Stephen Millingen (and his currents animations, if any), J…
Last reply by zandoriastudios, -
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Intel invents the concept of mega-tasking to sell new 10-core CPUs Of course with A:M NetRender you'll get way better than just 35% more throughput when rendering frames.
Last reply by Rodney, -
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My computer is really trying hard to upgrade it self to windows 10 I am Running Windows 7. I would allows this But I am worried about my A.M Subscription and A.M Paint will I lose Them. was working with A.M and all program shut down lost my unsaved work and computer was trying to install windows 10. So I shut down Computer to stop windows 10 from self install, very strange
Last reply by Phil, -
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Continuing a trend in software where companies are trying to introduce their products to the lower teir... Also, if some reports are to be believed, an increasing shortage of experienced fx artists suggests when folks are hired they need to already know the basics of software used in production. There also continuing competition at all levels in fx as well as innovations that tend to make older software obsolete.at a faster pace. https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/non-commercial/mari-non-commercial/ Features: https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/features/ Some data related to differences between commercial and noncommercial releases:: The commerci…
Last reply by nemyax, -
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I was watching the slowest LA freeway chase ever, the transport of a SpaceShuttle fuel tank through the city to a museum. In the long shots it looks like part of the tank has wrong-facing patches and we are seeing through to the far side of the tank. But later there are some close-ups and it turns out that a corrugated surface is what caused that strange inverse shading effect...
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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Hi folks, I bet there is a completely obvious solution to this but I can't seem to figure it out. I wanted to swing the camera around a model character and in a process of manipulating the camera at several second intervals, I start getting a 'brick wall' in the camera flow. What did I do to start getting this issue that ultimately causes the camera to jerk and interrupts it's smooth flow? thanks ! -Adam
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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This is a growing trend and one we are likely to see a lot more of in the future. Of interest are two primary things: Raw production material for inspiration and study (and as starting point for other production) Looking behind the screen into how a production is planned and produced, studying the assets used and gaining insight into approaches used. A means of increasing value and return of revenue* Many of the assets used in a production will never been seen again and (rather sadly) will often be lost forever (especially in a digital world). Sharing of these assets can be a means to keep the originals intact as well as to maintain interest (current and historical) as…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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http://www.thewrap.com/disney-interactive-closes-disney-infinity/ Surprises me.
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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I saw a mention of this JPEG standard and thought it of interest because it proposes to address some issues with the current standard. Specifically, the XT flavor seeks to address issues of higher bit compression, HDRI imaging and... the alpha channel. JPEG with Alpha... that's been needed for a very long time now... and using alpha channel with both lossy and lossless processing would be a welcome addition to the format. For more info: https://jpeg.org/jpegxt/ For some open source software that reads and writes the format: https://jpeg.org/jpegxt/software.html On the downside: The JPEG standard itself has some limitations of usage due to patents.
Last reply by Rodney, -
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I'm having issues with a rig i put on a character.... specifically (believe i mirrored bone plugin after using the 2001 rig as a base) my right forearm can rotate in all three axies... however my left forearm can only rotate in the y-axis (or the green circle). I can not figure out how to fix this and really don't want to have to start from scratch. Can anyone give me a hint or clue??? Thanks for your time
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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All are welcome and encouraged to contribute their approaches, best practices... recipes for success... to this topic. May the best days of productivity be ahead of you. I recently moved a bunch of files from my main harddrive to an external drive and it has me thinking about why I had set up that directory in the first place. I want to share my thoughts related to this because I'm trying to learn (mostly from my mistakes) and to move forward to the next stage (whatever that may be). Some time ago I made a change in the way I organized files on my harddrive (as I tend to be a very disorganized person and need structure). A critical change for me was to cre…
Last reply by largento, -
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I recently saw the rumor but it apparently is a done deal... http://deadline.com/2016/04/jeffrey-katzenberg-reaction-dreamworks-animation-sale-comcast-1201746411/
Last reply by Rodney, -
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The Tinkering Gnome clued us in to this site that frequently presents 100% discounts on software. (Thanks John!) On occasion some pretty useful software is shared. I've hesitated in the past to post some of these offerings for a number of reasons but I've found several of the software packages useful for myself so they might be for others as well. The way it (generally) works is that in exchange for your email address and occasionally a request to share the link to the site with others you get an activation code. Sometimes the code is one specifically used with that promotion. Other times its the same as you would receive straight from the software developer. …
Last reply by Rodney, -
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I saw Zootopia on Thursday night. I went in with mixed feelings, but really enjoyed the movie. I was amazed at the number of characters and what it would take to rig them. From a technical aspect I think Disney did a great job. Steve By the way I go to all the 3d animated films, well I did not go see Norm of the North
Last reply by Rodney, -
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For those of you that want to delve into the world of PBR materials and texturing this might aid you in getting that ideal texture onto your model in A:M. Basic workflow would be to export OBJ models from A:M which would then be used as the basis for texturing your spline based models in A:M or to import as Props. This was (apparently) the the primary program used to texture that real time animation recently featured by Unity 3D and according to the hype (and 3D world) is 'this year's best texturing application'.* I note that there is currently a 40% off banner on their site so for those with the $ to splurge it might be worth investigating. Photorealistic text…
Last reply by detbear, -
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Autodesk has gobbled up yet another company. This time the makers of the Arnold renderer, Solid Angle. Here's an interview delving into the decision to sell to Autodesk (the owner and originator of the Arnold renderer) courtesy of MIke Seymour at FXguide: https://www.fxguide.com/featured/autodesk-buys-arnold-2/ Two primary takeaways: - This will be the first time Autodesk has an in house high end renderer (other renderers have been licensed. Ex: Mental Ray/NVidia) - According to the article "Rendering is certainly one of the hottest areas in 3D right now". This no doubt ties in with Autodesk's longer term plans for render in the cloud. Recent deals l…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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I mentioned this briefly in the plugins topic but want to separate it because I think it is one of those 'features' anyone with time and patience can create. There also could be potential benefits in the realm of plausible/physical based rendering/lighting, etc. Furthering the initial questions I find myself wondering if a variant of the spinning light trick, used for global illumination might be shoehorned in such a way as as to create environmental data used for positioning, lighting and... more esoterically... heat. (This even harkens back to a very old posit on albedos... not taken seriously... which interestingly is now at the fore in physically based rendering…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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My apology if the following linked resource has been posted before. There is a lot of misinformation about copyright and fair use out in the wild and I recently read an article that attempted to shed some light on the subject. I haven't vetted the article itself nor examined it for links more appropriate for 3D animation but the article did reference some publications that can and do speak for themselves. One of those publications primarily concerns itself with the plight of the documentary filmmaker, who navigates an increasingly difficult arena of copyright laws and limitations but many aspects of fair usage they claim as self evident cross pollinates into common …
Last reply by Rodney, -
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The current forum banner (over the Latest Info forum) is a single frame from a 500 frame sequence rendered straight out of A:M with one exception; it was resized (to a lower resolution) in an image utility called Irfanview. Where I have the option I prefer to use images rendered directly out of A:M; this is something of a 'purist' view. I would relate this to what most would assume is the approach of PIXAR which is to forego any compositing, post production etc.; what comes directly out of the renderer is what will be used. This is the A game of animation. The ideal environment in which to produce. The B game is what most of us tend to use if for no other reaso…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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I don't really need one of these but I WANT ONE. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pl7xM6atCQ I don't see an anticipated price yet. Sold only through resellers a this point. 96TB of capacity on the desktop up to 2600MB/s speeds RAID 5/6 Specifically designed for use with data from 4/5/6K cameras. For those with the need you can sign up to win a free one here: http://textseagate.com/nab/signup/
Last reply by Rodney, -
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I'm not sure this is actually news as Apple hasn't supported/updated Quicktime for Windows in a long time but... some folks are even recommending an uninstall to avoid exploits that might take advantage of the static code and critical flaws. Ref: LINK The bigger question becomes one of what format to use instead of .MOV format when that is a primary format for A:M (at least the 32bit version). According to a recent Ruetuers report even the US government has an opinion: The warning does not apply to QuickTime for Apple's Mac computers.
Last reply by Rodney, -
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I just returned from seeing the new movie and... This is an impressive movie on many levels. What perhaps surprises me most is that I didn't think I would enjoy it as much as the original animated version that is such a classic. No spoilers here except to say the film remained faithful is significant ways to the animated film. I was surprised by that too. Two other things that was a bit wary of going in but turned out to be just fine and well executed: - The film intentionally exaggerates scale on and they work that element like it's almost a character itself. As such it enhances the experience in significant ways and enlarges our view of the jungle especi…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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As more and more collaborative teams hit the internet to bring their projects to life small and large services are popping up to address that need. In the past I've mentioned a few and several of those have since had significant upgrades. Shotgun (recently purchased by Autodesk) is one that gets the majority of press because they got a head start on their competition and have invested deeply in the features needed to bring projects through production. Frame.io is another of these services. Will it work well for your next project? Answer: It depends. On the low end (the space which most independent creators occupy) where a team of two or three work on a pro…
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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Go check out this software. It's for special effects, compositing and video editing and it's free for the PC and the Mac today only. http://hitfilm.com/express/free The pro version (which adds 3D and particle effects) is also deeply discounted. Go get it quick!
Last reply by Rodney, -
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Flash plugin users (that's almost everyone) on all platforms should update theirs immediately because of a new serious bug discovery that has been discovered. Adobe releases patch for major Flash vulnerability heres how to download it See post #7
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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TED Talks presents a talk with PIXAR's Danielle Feinberg on Lighting in PIXAR films. Well worth the watch (especially for those that had their dreams of being artists crushed as young children): LINK Note that is you see a download link that allows subtitles don't opt for the subtitles as the download appears to fail. Download without subtitles instead or simply stream the playback.
Last reply by Rodney, -
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I have this old reference Keyboard shortcuts are they all still the same in V18
Last reply by Maniac, -
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- 3 replies
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I've been testing out various aspects of A:M that I don't use much and this is one. It's interesting that Chuck Gram mentioned 'Arnold' in another topic and I was wondering if he was watching what I was rendering while he posted! Here's a random STL file downloaded from Thingverse (I had visited there due to Paul Harris's post about 3D printing an animatronic eye setup). The background image (and environment map) is also a random image from the internet. It's from an abandoned theme park (one of Disney's as I recall). Initial chrome Material is from the A:M Library. About the only things that are my own are the lighting and the red eyes which is a little lathed s…
Last reply by blixien, -
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Anyone tried out the newly released Vivaldi 1.0 browser? It has some nice features: https://vivaldi.com/features/ I've just now downloaded but not spend much time looking into it. So far so good. The webpanels and moving back and forth in time should be quite useful.
Last reply by Rodney, -
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Here's a site that let you play back youtube video frame by frame and at various speeds. I'm guessing there are some other sites that do the same or similar but this one caught my attention. I'll link with a video to one of Robert Holmen's animations because it's well worth reviewing. Note that linking into the video with frame and timing set is by the parameters added at the end of the link. In this case Time (t) and Speed (s) added as &t=0&s=0.25. http://rowvid.com/?v=pDqKABYtDB0&t=0&s=0.25
Last reply by Rodney, -
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Their 'realtime' render hardware is surely more advanced than mine but... Here's the latest and greatest from Unity 3D who is demo'ing their latest beta via a short video titled 'Adam': http://unity3d.com/pages/adam
Last reply by detbear, -
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I've brought a wav audio file into choreography for lip-syncing and have synced the actions to the file, but when I play the action the sound plays faster than the wav file I've synced the actions to. The time code/frame tells me the wav file is 72 frames in length, but on playback, the sound does not sync with the frame count. It plays much faster. How can I sync the syncs?
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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Very interesting. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d59O6cfaM0 Kudos to the demo team at Microsoft research who thought of excellent ways to show off the potential while adding new 'features' all the way to the end of the video. I can think of several downsides to such technology but it's hard to deny the potential.
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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Hi there, every once in a while (mostly in my holidays) I return to A:M and try to make it really work for me. Still dreaming of an animators career, doh. However, one point where I still have huge problems with are Normal and Displacement maps. While mighty and powerfull I was never able to make them really work for me. When I render in A:M I only get unpredictable results, which by far not what I expect. Therefore it woud be nice, if you could tell me what to look for when using this kind of maps. Info about where you do the maps, how you export, what type of Normal adn Displacement maps you us would be also cool! Thanks in advance!
Last reply by Fuchur, -
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Well worth the watch but set aside some time as the interview runs approx. 1 hour and 45 minutes, including a fairly long intro outlining the 'Design by Hand' project headed up by Cooper Hewitt. Part 1 xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00hDSOCQy4s Part 2 xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmUzwM89Fdw John Lasseter, twice fired from Disney Studios recounts the history of animation which culminates in him leading the Disney Studio into the current age of computer animation.
Last reply by Rodney, -
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Long time forum member and A:M user Mark Largent (Largento) is prominently interviewed about his A:M production "Stalled Trek: Amutt Time" for "Fan Film Friday" on the Axanar Productions blog. Give it a read! Interview Part 1 Interview Part 2 (includes discussion of A:M!)
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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Introductory pricing for 48 hours... $39 vs $60. Aaron continues to put together some of the most direct, accessible and... reasonably priced material on drawing and animation available. This time he tackles human anatomy. https://creatureartteacher.com/product/drawing-human-anatomy/ Here's the promo video: xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOcrsSbYteA The primary reason I think Aaron's approach is superior to many available is his experience with a variety of art mediums but specifically his foundation in animation which brings it all together. Description of content from his site: In this comprehensive 9.5 Hour video course, animator, dir…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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- 889 views
Got this program free from SharewareOnSale Thought it might be on interest Called AbstractCurves
Last reply by johnl3d, -
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*Some corrections updates have been applied to this topic since first posting* This is kind of a 'yikes' for me... I've reported on the project management solution known as 'Tactic' by Southpaw Technologies and even explored it a little as I thought it was well worth looking into. In recent times Southpaw had been pushing a tailor made VFX setup of Tactic designed with filmmaking in mind. The 'yikes' of this post is that I just saw the news that Toonboom Animation Inc. has purchased Southpaw** and is rolling out their own version of Project Management named Toon Boom Manager. https://www.toonboom.com/products/manager news release: https://www.toonboo…
Last reply by Rodney, -
- 1 follower
- 1 reply
- 836 views
Nothing to do with A:M - not even CGI, but a beautifully made and inspiring stop motion short by estian artist Anu-Laura Tuttelberg. Partly done in wet clay, thus the main character had to be completely re-modeled for every frame. No lamps were used in the shooting, only the existing daylight coming through the windows in the studio. https://vimeo.com/89515712
Last reply by Simon Edmondson, -
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I don't know enough to suggest how useful this may be to those who are interested in the gaming aspect of 3D but it's newsworthy so... In short, Amazon has recently released their Lumberyard gaming engine for free. It's based on Cryengine (and will diverge further as times goes on But let's let others more knowledgeable delve into the details: https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/lumberyard-free-is-the-new-black/ I saw that the FBX plugin is expected to be updated in short order and that may provide a path for A:M Users to move assets toward Lumberyard, moreso than what is currently available. If you are into game development it should be of interest if for no other re…
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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- 5 replies
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I'm nowhere near ready to render anything for my movie, but I have been trying to figure out what makes the most sense for a renderfarm: raw performance or performance per watt? Hypothetical renderfarm 1: Xeon-based renderfarm with high GHz high-dollar Xeon cpus (say, 4 8-core Xeons on a quad socket motherboard). Total cost: Probably in the range of $3000-$4500 Hypothetical renderfarm 2: Lower performance AMD cpus with a much lower power requirement (the 25w Kabini quad core at 2ghz comes to mind) --- for an equivalent number of cores, you could do 8 motherboards each with one 25w cpu for a total of 200 watts, compared to 500 watts for the Xeon system (mini…
Last reply by John Bigboote,
