Fuchur

Hi Jason, since you are going for rendertime, I would recommend you to get the 8-core. I would go for the 8150 and at least 16 GB of RAM so. (2 GB of RAM per core should at least be) In general I tend to buy RAM at 1333 MHz, because for most operations you dont notice 1600 MHz or more... I dont have a 8-core AMD-CPU so, but it sounds promising for A:M netrenderer and you get a nice SSD-drive for the price-difference. For not singlecore-operations (if your software can't use several cores) I would get an AMD x6 because it is less expensive or if money isnt the problem an i7 2600. The biggest question for me is, when to get it. Maybe if you wait a month you get some pricesavings on the new CPUs, so I am not sure about that... just a guess. See you *Fuchur*

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T at 3,4 GHz, using 1 of 6 cores, 8 GB DDR3-1333MHz RAM, ATI HD 4870 1GB (so I dont think that that contributes to the rendering till now. > 3:35 min while importing an obj with Troer and surfing... (so I dont think that that really took some time from my rendering). Compared to that: > 2:32 with 1/4-core-system. 3:35 => 215 seconds. 2:32 => 152 seconds. > calculated times per frame with 6 cores / 4 cores rendering: 215 / 6 = 35,83 seconds per frame 152 / 4 = 38 seconds per frame It all depends on what you want to do... on 1-core-operations, Intel i7s (4 cores but the 980x) are faster. But they are although more expensive. On a per frame rate, AMD x6 are (really slightly) faster. (not to talk about Bulldozer-Systems with 8 cores... these, even so they are even less fast on 1-core-base would be even faster on multi-core-base) So for rendering-purposes with A:M, AMDs Flagships are the better choice... for working in A:M, i7 960 (for instance) are the better choice. But both choices should work very well with A:M and none of them is a bad choice neigther. See you *Fuchur*

I made tests with Steffen concerning that compiler... Intels compiler is just better than the one from Microsoft... both platforms gain from that, while Intel-CPUs gain a little more it is not really mentionable (9% to 8% or something like that). See you *Fuchur*

Thanks Gerald for your input, yes the dell ram sounded expensive. I looked up 16GB DDR3 1333 at Frys - $89.99! I'm assuming this would work on the Dell system. Does one have to be careful with respect to manufacturers? or any other form factors to consider for compatibility? I noticed that there is now 1600mhz available, but I assume that wouldn't work with the dell system? EDIT: My husband just told me he doesn't like Fry's (they don't guarantee their RAM, costs extra for them to guarantee it!), nor does he like patriot mfg, so he just told me about Crucial.com, says they are more reliable. Anyway that is a price that is totally acceptable and even the 54 Dollars at Crucial for 8 GB sound much better for me. As Robert said: Dell is using 4 slots for their RAM even with 8GB installed, so you need to buy 2 x 8GB kits. But 108 to 360 Dollars still sounds like a great deal to me. I don't see what should not work with that RAM-chip there, especially since they are claiming that they are working with the Dell system. I'd say, buy it there. Now it is a good deal for the pc . See you *Fuchur*

Thanks - that's good to know about the OS. Not sure what else my Ram options would be, or if dual channel DDR3, 1333 is anything special. Sounds fast to me, but I am a know nuthin about what's out there currently. DualChannel means, that two RAM-chips CAN run in "ganged-mode". That is better than single-channel (there is no ganged-mode here) but not as good as tripple-channel (which is available for some intel-cpus / motherboards). DualChannel is the most common RAM-type today and should be supported by any RAM you buy. In general it is not that much faster so... you gain a little performance for some RAM-related operations. More specific: When the computer wants to write data from one part of the RAM to another part of the RAM. It is better, but it is not worth anything like 360 Dollars. You may gain about 2-5% for THOSE situations where the computer wants to write from one part of the RAM to another part, which is not the most common situation AND it is only for accessing the new data, not the real writing-part of the process... in short: If you are not a really dedicated gamer who notices micro-lags and such things and needs at least 90 fps to be happy, you will never notice the performance-gain. See you *Fuchur*

Hi Nancy... In general I don't suggest top-level-systems... I think that the money you have to pay for them compared to the processing-power you get is not worth it... any mid-range computer in 2 years will be faster than todays high-end-model and will cost half of the money... but I think you want to do it once and get rid of buying anything for the next view years... that is more expensive, but less troublesome, so it is your decision. But okay, lets see what you got there: About Win7 pro / home: Do you need RemoteControl? I although think that Win 7 Pro has XP-Mode but Home doesnt... so I have to look at that. You dont need Ultimate so... just not worth the money for private persons. 16 GB RAM for 360 Dollars more? That is really epensive... Currently RAM is very cheap... I can get 16 GB DDR3 at 1333 MHz (Kingston, 9-9-9-24, 4 x 4 GB-parts) for about 80 Euros at my reseller... But since you want it and you want the warranty you may consider by yourself if you think it is worth the extra-money... anyway that is really expensive... You may want to go with the 8GB and buy the other 8GB somewhere else afterwards. (or if you see that you need it even more GB ). However I would never buy speakers or a monitor from Dell... that is something you can really easily buy anywhere else for less money (and/or better quality). USB 3.0 is something, that isnt very important today but may become important in future... My mother-boards support it already, so I never used anything with it till now... It shouldnt be your primary sorrow so... if you need it in future, you can always buy a PCI-extension-card and put it into your computer (not very hard to do: clip it in a slot (it will only be suited for one sort of slot) and it should work). Today such an card costs about 25-35 dollars... Other than that, the system looks powerful... a little pricy, but quite powerful. See you *Fuchur*

Very cool stuff! I like the little dust, mud and rust parts. Makes it much more real! Keep on rocking! *Fuchur*

Not a bad system, especially for the price that is a quite good offer. You can even overclock without too much work and go to 3 - 3.2 GHz or something like that with the boxed cooler. I just had a try with my ibuypower-link above and they are already offering AMD Bulldozer 8-core-systems. With SSD + Harddrive, 16 GB of fast RAM and a few other thing I still got under the price of the simple i7-system. But it is of course only suitable if you use it for rendering, etc. with A:M Netrenderer. Otherwise the i7 will be a little bit faster. See you *Fuchur*

Damn, Robert... Too me it looks like a multiplication with 0, which gives always 0 no matter how high the other number is. Not really a bug, only a special case that isn't taken care of. See you *Fuchur*

Very cool! I liked the last episode much! You are becoming better and better. See you *Fuchur*

If not, you applied it in the chor. Than you have to add the constraint again in the next chor. Like that you can use the constraint in one chor and in another one not. Like that you have control what you are doing. A better way is to add it in a ON/OFF-pose. Like that you can easily access it without applying it again in any chor and you can turn it on and off. See you *Fuchur*

Cool! Looks nice! See you *Fuchur*

I do. That's why I prefer Coreldraw. THHHHAAANNNKKKK YYYOOOOUUUU!!!!! *hugs Rodney* Do you know how many people scoff at me when I tell them I prefer Draw over Illustrator? (rhetorical question ) It is not that hard to learn... just different. See you *Fuchur*

Yes it would... because of that I would not really add thickness but only do it for the edge... you can extrude there and dont go further with the extrusion and it should be easier to handle for both simcloth and any rigging you might want to do without loosing the illusion of sickness. See you *Fuchur* PS: By the way: very cute character!

For all of you who are working with Illustrator, have a look at the "Pathfinder"-Tool-Bar. It provides something equal to boolean operations with many different options. See you *Fuchur*

Best wishes from me too . See u *Fuchur*

Bump maps in general work with both multipass and without multipass. There had been a specific situation (ver 14) where bump maps wouldn't show up if decals & materials were on the same surface and one was rendering without multipass. I am not aware if this is still the case, nor can I remember exactly what the exact conditions were. It might also have been related to using ray traced, or z buffered kliegs. The option to Soften = ON/OFF kicks in at 5 pass rendering Here's a comparison chart that I did for myself awhile back to evaluate tradeoffs of increasing # passes, using soften feature, and rendering without multipass. My feeling is that there are render situations where 16 pass is overkill. In other situations, maybe not. (rendered in ver 16.0, original frame was 960x540 at 16pass soften=ON) My personal experience is, that for Animations you can go with less passes while still-images need higher pass-values. A fast animation with 3 passes can look good enough because people dont see still images and dont have too much time to worry about some edge-problems while on a still images they have it and will very likely have a problem with less then 9 passes (depends on the displayed motives and the size of the image of course... Thanks Nancy! Nice comparission... gives a good idea of the renderhit! See you *Fuchur*

...and if it are quite many, have a look at the "Select"-plugin which holds an option to select all the 5-pointers of a model. See you *Fuchur*

This is called clipping point. if u come to close it stops rendering. It is meant to keep A:M from rendering to infinity because the precission has to be too high... (has to do with how many digits behind the comma can be worked with and that has to do with datatypes used in A:M.. See u *Fuchur*

I like the lensflare, composition! Would prefer the satelite to be more shiny metalically. If going for realism, then I would prefer the earth to look more "blue marbley" I found the larger glow (atmospheric ring) interesting, eye catching, but a bit too large (too deep) relative to the earth size. I found the tighter smaller "atmospheric ring" strange, felt too solid. I will guess that you might have either composited, or used a separate transparent model positioned in front of earth? or used "planet glow" shader (or something like that). Hi Nancy... nothing about composition or glow or the planet glow-shader (nice, but doesnt create exactly that look but is always a little more toony). But the model was a good guess... I created a flat ring out of patches, painted a transparency-map (a simple gradient from black to white). Then I attached it using a patch-image to the patch-ring. I had to rotate the patch-image of some of the patches, but finally it worked out quite good. After that I created a bone for it facing away from the earth. It had to be place at the exact 0/0/0-point so it could easily rotate around the earth without hiting it.. In the chor, I used an AimAt-Constraint to always aim the ring at the camera and like that I got a quite nice, controlable glow around the planet. Using the color-value of the ring-group, scale one of the ring-splines and changing the percentage-value of the transparency-map it is now possible to increase / decrease the glow, adjust its color and adjust its strength. The cool thing about it: It doesnt effect the rest of the planet. Glow itself would always make the surface too bright for me, so this was an easy but quite effective way to do it. The hard edge around the surface of the earth is something I could not get rid of... I tried to fade the transparency-map-value from black to white to black, but somehow I could not get it to work exactly as I wanted... anyway it looks much better than glow itself and is easier to control... so this solution only is useable with spheres, not with anything else as long as the camera gets animated. See you *Fuchur*

Nobody ?

Jep, Avid is really getting on my nervs with some of the restrictions, especially the hardware-restrictions are killing me... if you don't use a certificated Avid-System you dont get support... and I am talking about hardware-restrictions like a special kind of RAM (I mean really one kind of, not only a brand or something..., etc.) Jep, FCP is great... used it too... so it is not available for Windows and that is the biggest draw back... Vegas is for me the best editing-software for the PC-world and FCP for the Mac... which is better? I can't really say, since I don't really like the userinterface of apple (I am too used to Windows and find it not at all that intuitive and logical as it is alwas promoted... so that is more of a user-error from my side). See you *Fuchur*

I hear ya. Normally I would but I don't think I've actually used Sony Vegas. If I have used it, I would have to conclude that it didn't measure up to FCP and Premiere in my experience. Since it is so well considered I don't think I've yet tried it, therefore I cannot recommend it personally. FCP and Premiere I have used and can wholeheartedly recommend either. If/When I get a chance to try it out I will! It is even better than Premiere... I am using it for all my editing-work at work and at home. Very easy to use, many fileformats to in-/output (much more than the other editing programms... it is like a inbuilt convertertool in it) and very effective because it includes DVD-/BluRay-Authoring and so on... I highly recommend Sony Vegas especially because you nearly never have to think about what your input-source-codec is. Premiere or others (especially Avid Xpress) are very likely to not read what you put in, if it is something not totally standard to it. I had a look at Lightworks recently too. It has the same approach as Avid Xpress if you ask me... very powerful (and somehow fun to use), but hard to work with, because you need at least a good converter to load and export to different video-formats so it is very well suited to do feature length videos, etc. It is focused on the very professional market where people have to work years with one workflow... it gives you one that is highly effective, if you can keep in its very tight ranges... for us individuel artists and small studio workers that is not very well suited. See you *Fuchur*

Thank you guys and... of course there are... but it would be quite a dark scene, if we had only one sun in there behind the earth (because I liked the look of it) with not too much too show... actually, the sunlight is facing from next to the camera (a little on the left towards the earth... (sunlights doesn't care about their position but only the orientation)) . Actually there are even more lights in the scene... we got 5 or 6 if I am not wrong (don't have it open currently). A few stars, a specularity light, a light inside the earth to highlight the clouds above the ground, the "sun" you all see and in addition to that, a small amount of global ambiance (without AO, since that made not too much sense too me... so the sunlight got 5 rays, not 1). But the most interesting part is the glow around the earth... how do you think I got it to look that strong and nice (i liked it quite much) without overpronouncing/overbrighten the actual earth? See you *Fuchur*

Hi guys, I am working on a small project I dont spoil too much about, but I liked the last rendering and wanted to show it to you. Let me know what you think . See you *Fuchur*