John Bigboote

SO--- If i was to buy the V16 CDRom and install NetRender on a bunch of those Render Farm CPU's and had one of our whizz-kid IT guys hook-up all the network gozindas and gozoudas... would I be able to start rendering on more than X processors? Or is there a limit? I wish we had clarification on this. I could SURE use more render power.

Here is my tutorial on NetRender:

Hi Shawn! Here's my experience, I'm sure any misinfo will be corrected. Your new Version 16 comes WITH a new utility called NetRender. I have been playing with it at work on my Win XP system, but last night at home on my Win7 machine I saw it on the desktop where the installer had left it and decided to give it a whirl. I was quite happy to see that there was a WONDERFUL installation process (with nice illustrations, by the way) that quickly and easily did all the 'footwork' of finding the IP address of my machine and the numbers for both processors... I don't know if it was a Win7 thing or what- but that installation was brain-dead easy... the way I like it. I went into HashV16 and setup a test project to render, saved and quit. Then, went to NetRender to render it out. When you 1st open the app you need to wait while it locates and connects with both your processors. You will see them appear in the bottom window, hopefully with an 'on-line' status. Then you start a 'pool'(pooling allows for more versatile/multiple project setups) and place your project into it to render... double-check all the render settings- and drag and drop your processors to the middle window to activate the render process. The statistics and feedback it gives you is way more than the Hash renderer gives you... I did have my render 'stall-out' at the start, and found the detective work was easy to figure out why. I found a menu at top that says 'show errors' and saw in the error readout that my path to save my finished files was incomplete. I reset it to a proper folder, and right-clicked on the pool to remove the errors and re-enable the processors- and tried again... it worked! NOW--- the question on everyones mind is... CAN I GET IT TO WORK WITH MORE THAN 2 PROCESSORS??? As far as I see, currently...no. UNLESS you have multiple machines on a network and a legal license(subscription or disc) for each machine. Holmes documented success with that in the NetRender forum... maybe this is the way it is meant to work... I have heard talk of an 'unlimited processor' subscription at an increased cost- but nothing has materialized at this early date in V16's life. Maybe it is as simple as buying the V16 disc for $300 and you (and your IT guy) are good to go on a huge render farm... no? On the other hand... you can still get up to 3 instances of A:M running on a typical quad-core machine (leaving the 4th for the OS) Also of note... there is talk of a 'futuristic' plan (already being utilized in Blender-Land) to use a simple browser window (FF, IE) to 'lend' your idle processors to people you trust... allowing a much larger pool of processing power culled and delivered from around the world by peoples idle processors... here is a link to that discussion with some great input by the guy who wrote the Blender app (and is a former A:M guy 'Adam Spline'... we should be bribing him to code one for us!) http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39743 ALL OF THIS is more and more pertinent every day... I was just awarded a nice job that is a 'render-dogger' and needs to be done by mid week NEXT week... I havent even started it yet and I am sweating the render-time details...Version 16 has made some great improvements in render times and features such as texture baking, 64bit support and FastAO are helping BIGTIME, but the world has gone HD. MEANWHILE I am sitting next to a render farm(60+CPUs) that is used by my Maya colleagues who have finally deemed me worthy of using it due to some of the KILLER stuff I am able to do with my little A:M. I will try to provide a step by step for setting up a render in NetRender...

Happy Birthday Paul! I'll have a beer for you tonight, let you know how it was tomorrow!

It looks as if it is mechanically not built to move laterally... so thus the unnatural look. You need to add some sort of rotation-ability to the legs... not only in your rigging but you need to sell it visually as well with some sort of gear or swivel in each lower leg...

Didn't say I dint like it... just could throw one of my treatments at her for an option,,, I set hairstyles to a pose slider, so they can alternate. I like her hair, kind of a Debra Harry thing!

Awesome! Have you guys seen how DAZ Studio is marketing their software? Basically, they give away some poseable models and then sell clothes, accessories and actions for them. If WE were to make a model like this available to the general public, complete with multiple characteristics (hairdoos, clothes, accessories, settings etc) there would be A) increased sales of A:M revenue-generating opportunities for established users as content providers. Mark- great work... a true labor of love. Her hand may be a little long compared to the fingers as Rob noticed. Her hair... I'd like to volunteer to work on some hair-do's for you. Have you animated anything yet? Link to DAZ's girl4 video:

AHA! I stumbled upon it! The problem (I am having) is when a 2nd instance of an object that uses SSS is brought to the stage, it renders as black. (See image) This would have many potential effects when using multiple objects, like a crowd scene with multiple instances of the same character with SSS... or even a holiday Advent wreath or Jewish 'menorah' with several candles (oy-vey! a perfect usage of SSS) which are all the same model duplicated in the choreography. BEFORE I submit this, can I get someone to test my project to see if it happens to them as well? SSS_trubbs.prj

I think you would want to make the grass-grid very very dense so there are a lot more 'feelers' to react.

Nevermind... did it myself and it worked perfectly. Not a prollum.

I seem to remember having trouble with multiple models that used SSS. When I dragged a 2nd model with unique SubSurfaceScattering Settings (or SSSS) I remember one of the models would not render properly (black or something) I am quite busy at the moment so if someone could try this... 1)start V16 and make 2 new models... one a red sphere and one a blue cube. 2) make a group for the CPs of the model(s) and activate SSS with unique settings for each. 3)Drag both models into the choreography and render a test frame, remember to turn ON SSS in the render cue. If it renders fine- try adding a 2nd instance of each into the choreography. If it still renders fine, it's off to rehab with me...

Yeah! Digging her... can't wait to see her MOVE!

Yeah...very detailled! looking good! You should name the coffee maker ... brew:master (an 'in joke' for us Hashers!)

It looks like a beautiful illustration, something you would see on the wall in some high-power executives office. Nice, really nice.

Sounds like a perfect place to use PFhoe, like in Xtaz's test!

HB!

VERY COOL! Yes, your scene would benefit from a 'kukolora'... or a hot bright light that is shaded by something out of frame... like some tree branches.

Paul- Make sure you have the folder in your HXT that contains all the scripts that TSM2 needs to run.

Paul- TSM2 is working just fine in V16.0 (non-beta new release) for me.

Nice Jayco!

THAT is a crazy material!

Weirdness may be (as Rob noted) in that you use the same material twice, if you need 2X particles, can't you just double the amount? If you really-really need the 2nd emitter- I'd recommend making a new model with a simple patches for the 2nd emitter which can be hidden inside the volcano and controlled as a separate model... separately.

GLAD to help!

There is a model in the Contributors Cue called 'Benslens' or rather FISHEYE LENS... which in essence is simply a magnifying glass which you place directly in front of the camera and it acts as a lens which adds barrel-roll distortion (fisheye effect) to your scene. I'll find the link: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=36755

OR- make another copy-paste of the window pane with 0% transparency... offset it ever-so-slightly in front (or maybe behind) your existing glass, and use the cookie-cut. I find that when I use the cookie cut on a surface that is mostly transparent (like your glass) that the cookie-cut decal is only as visible as the glass is... which is 'not very'. This is a work-around I have used many times.