Equipment questions:

[Glider]

Looking for some insight into speeding up my productivity and am going after the machine, and the person using it...

 

Been on a mouse so far but considering a graphic tablet. Anyone offer some advice/ suggestions/ direction?

 

Next Question:

 

I'd appreciate some input on speeding up the machine. I recently read a forum entry leading me to believe that more RAM will speed up rendering. I figured it was simply a function of processor speed but am wondering now that I stumbled across the post....

 

Thoughts, experiences?

 

Glider

[robcat2075]

Looking for some insight into speeding up my productivity and am going after the machine, and the person using it...

 

Been on a mouse so far but considering a graphic tablet. Anyone offer some advice/ suggestions/ direction?

I find a tablet not a plus because the springiness of the pen tip makes it hard to place and release something at an exact point. I can also navigate the screen with just a wrist move with a mouse, while a tablet makes me move the whole arm

 

 

 

 

I'd appreciate some input on speeding up the machine. I recently read a forum entry leading me to believe that more RAM will speed up rendering. I figured it was simply a function of processor speed but am wondering now that I stumbled across the post....

 

RAM helps in situations where your scene elements have grown so large that your computer is needing to swap data to/from the hard drive.

 

More RAM = less swapping.

 

Bitmap textures may be a big part of this. I don't know it it's the same with complex things like particles and hair.

 

 

 

A faster CPU is always useful.

 

 

Are you mac or PC? The consensus seems to be that A:M is faster on a PC.

 

 

 

I think the best plugin for A:M is a second monitor. Being able to spread out the PWS timeline on a whole screen by itself makes A:M immensely more easy to comprehend for animating. Old CRTs are cheap now. get one that does the same res as your main monitor.

 

If your graphics card doesn't have two video outs, get one that does. A $2 adapter can convert a digital monitor out to a VGA out for a CRT monitor.

[Rodney]

I recently read a forum entry leading me to believe that more RAM will speed up rendering. I figured it was simply a function of processor speed but am wondering now that I stumbled across the post....

 

RAM can help to free up processing of -real time previews- and such but it has been said (and I believe it) that nothing speeds up rendering like a faster CPU. I'm sure there is a point where better and faster CPUs generate negligible benefit in comparison to something 'almost as good'. I'll yield to the experts there. Unless something has changed... final rendering is all about CPU processing speed.

 

Your most dramatic speed increases of course will be those that take into account your production goals. Developing effective organization, workflow and such will (I think) be more valuable than any piece of equipment you can purchase.

 

 

Been on a mouse so far but considering a graphic tablet. Anyone offer some advice/ suggestions/ direction?

 

I've used both and like both but I've found a good mouse to be better equiped for use with A:M (a lot easier to surf the net with a mouse too IMO. Now if you are drawing a lot more than modeling and animating... totally different story. For drawing and painting I prefer the tablet by a very wide margin. (Probably gonna upgrade mine soon as my Wacom pen is broke)

[Glider]

Thanks for the input-

 

I'm on mac. It's amazing at so many things but A:M and it don't get a long all the time (I frequently cannot save my work unless I hide A:M and then unhide it, etc.) It's an Imac so a processor upgrade isn't in the works but I can get some more ram in there as it's not maxed out yet. A core 2 duo processor at 2.33 is not the best available these days, but it's not exactly a slow machine either so I was a little concerned at how long it took to render some of my work (8 hours for a 28 second animation for example) but recently read that this type of work is one of the more labour intensive tasks a machine (or it's operator) can face. So there will be a few more 'render to file, hit the sack' nights in the future!! That being said, results have been well worth the wait!!! Recently got actual applause for an animation clip I used in an aviation seminar I was teaching (good old fashioned smoke and mirrors to mask the ability of the instructor!!)

 

Have seen a reference to a MAC users forum, but can't find the forum yet. Maybe just not looking in the right spot, will keep at the search.

 

Will definitely look for a second monitor on boxing day.

 

Good advice on the tablet. While I'm here, any trackball users available to weigh in?

 

-glider

[robcat2075]

Recently got actual applause for an animation clip I used in an aviation seminar I was teaching (good old fashioned smoke and mirrors to mask the ability of the instructor!!)

 

Congratulations! Applause really is nice to get. Have you shown it here?

 

 

Will definitely look for a second monitor on boxing day.

I have no idea if an imac has an output for a second monitor. I'll presume you've confirmed that.

[John Bigboote]

Performance? 2 things...

 

1- MAKE SURE you are running the latest version (15) of A:M... anything previous is 'who knows'...

 

2- A:M is designed, programmed and calibrated on a PC, and then 'ported' to a Mac. I have nothing against Apple, think they are GENIUS advertisers- (Those 'BETTER' ads... pure snakeoil! I love it! And they berate MS for Vistas problems after YEARS of their own OS debacles...) We recently had a longtime A:M Mac user here on the forum get his hands on a 2nd hand(recent model) PC and he was singing 'who knew' it could be so good? All I am saying... is IF you get a chance to TRY A:M on a PC...give it a try. I work on both myself.

[AMSpector]

And they berate MS for Vistas problems after YEARS of their own OS debacles...

 

Ongoing debacles apparently:

 

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardwa...cleID=212500729

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2337045,00.asp

 

I would still love to have a screamin Mac to play with someday.

[John Bigboote]

You can 'cloak' a PC to look and act like a Mac...

[Gerry]

I always recommend the tablet because as an illustrator I took to it pretty naturally years ago, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. I do all my AM work with it, but use the mouse for surfing and other stuff, just to give my "drawing hand" a break. I can also alternate one with the other, tablet with my left hand, mouse with my right, and use whichever one is best for a particular bit.

 

Robcat's comment is interesting because with the mouse I have to move my whole arm, but with the tablet it's pretty much just my wrist.

 

On a tangentially related topic, when working at the computer you should have a chair with arm rests or you're doing some long-term damage to your back. It also makes a difference in how much work a tablet is to use.

[robcat2075]

Robcat's comment is interesting because with the mouse I have to move my whole arm, but with the tablet it's pretty much just my wrist.

 

You can scale mouse movement in mouse prefs.

 

 

When I don't recommend a tablet for A:M I really just mean for A:M. I got a Cintiq for drawing. I wouldn't recommend a mouse for drawing.

[largento]

Hi Glider!

 

I use A:M on a Mac and will share what little I've learned over the last couple of years!

 

For speeding up renders, consider splitting them up. You can option-drag a copy of the Animation Master application folder and launch a second version of A:M, allowing you to have two copies going at the same time. More RAM will definitely help with this! Having 2 renders going at the same time can cut the render time in half! (I recently switched to a Mac Pro with 8 cores and have run 3 versions of A:M at a time.)

 

I would at least consider getting Parallels or running Bootcamp with a copy of XP. I don't use it very often, but it's nice to have when you need to use a 3rd party utility that's only available for Windows. With Bootcamp, Windows is running at full speed. I thought I would use it more (for things like rendering), but I so dislike having to leave behind the rest of my computer to do it that I almost never use it.

 

I focus more on making it so that my renders don't take forever and a day. I avoid most things that cause long renders and that seems to work well for me. Many of the shots in the animated Christmas card I just did were done minus multi-pass and in most cases that worked just fine and my render times for whole shots were minutes instead of hours.

 

Also, running two copies of A:M at the same time lets me work on something *while* something else is rendering.

 

When working with bones, keep the resolution at its lowest setting. To preview movement, switch to choreography mode (or muscle mode in an Action). It'll move much snappier.

 

One plus side on the Mac is that A:M loads much faster than it does on a PC. If something is going wonky, it's not a huge time investment to quit A:M and relaunch it. There have been some new things that have popped up since Leopard came out, but it sounds like you've figured out the workaround for the largest one.

 

The only warning I would give you is that intensely large rendering times may not always be friendly to your hard disk. If you're rendering for a couple of days in a row, that's near constant writing to the drive. Since swapping out a hard disk in an iMac isn't something you can do on your own, I offer the hard-learned advice to set up a Time Machine backup drive!

[Glider]

Thanks for the advice, good stuff. More RAM has helped some of the operational tasks in A:M but so far no luck on the render to file speed.

 

No luck on using two open copies of A:M to get faster rendering. I have two copies in the dashboard, get them both running, and so far it has only slowed my render to file down.

 

Am I supposed to get both copies rendering the same file somehow?

 

Here's the test render I used (I'm always looking for new non-work projects and wanted to learn a little more about transparency and reflection. I was 'inspired' by a guy that walked in front of me at the mall....)

 

 

There's a lot of light bending going on in this image so I think it makes a good speed test.

 

 

 

Render time is 32 minutes.

 

Glider..

[NancyGormezano]

There's a lot of light bending going on in this image so I think it makes a good speed test.

Render time is 32 minutes.

 

Nice image.

 

If you are curious to see how long the render would take on others PC's, macs then post your project as well as the details of the options you used for rendering. - eg - how many passes, reflection levels, soft reflections, rays per light, type of shadows, etc, etc.

 

It might help you to decide to go to a PC or not - if that's still up for consideration.

[robcat2075]

32 minutes on a reflection and refraction intensive scene like that doesn't sound outrageous.

 

I have two copies in the dashboard, get them both running, and so far it has only slowed my render to file down.

 

Am I supposed to get both copies rendering the same file somehow?

 

On a PC you can set things so that each instance of A:M is on a different processor. (On the Mac... someone will have to chime in.)

 

If they are both fighting for the same processor that won't speed things up.

 

Also this multiple instance thing is for when you are rendering more than one frame. For example, instance 1 would render only odd frames and instance two would render only even frames.

 

If you're just rendering one frame, one instance is all you should run.

[largento]

No luck on using two open copies of A:M to get faster rendering. I have two copies in the dashboard, get them both running, and so far it has only slowed my render to file down.

 

This is for rendering animation. You get one copy to render the first half of frames and the other to render the other half at the same time.

 

That *is* a nice image and I think I've been behind that same guy before. :-)

[Glider]

Makes sense to divide the work into two parts. At the risk of asking an obvious question, how do I stitch them together?

 

I could use a third party editing package (iMovie would do the trick I'm sure) if it is a first half- second half work splitting idea, but is there anything in A:M that'll do the job? If I have two separate processors going on odd/even frames there must be some way to merge them.

 

Glider.

[robcat2075]

Makes sense to divide the work into two parts. At the risk of asking an obvious question, how do I stitch them together?

 

the even frames will get even numbers(000,002,004,006...) and the odd frames will get odd numbers(001,003,005,007...) (this is rendering to targas)

 

when they're all done import them as an image sequence into A:M. They will be correctly ordered. you can resave from A:M as a single QT file if you want.

 

QT Pro can also import numbered image sequences and export ot a single QT file.

[John Bigboote]

Great image!

 

Reminds me of the old SNL 'inventors' skit..."Introducing, The Lord and Lady D----bag..." (Belushi) " So, D----bag, just what IS this new invention you are sitting on? Tell me, did the Lady D----bag help you with this?"

[Glider]

Thanks for the remark.

 

Ahhh the classics!! Thankfully we were all raised by the same TV!

 

Glider.

[danf]

I have both a mouse and a tablet, and understand where both sides are coming from-

 

the wrist argument actually depends largely on the size of your tablet!!! Everyone rushes to pay the big bucks for an Intuos3 or something, while a major draw of the pen is its ergonomic method, and this huge tablet actually makes them move their wrists more!!! I have a Wacom Bamboo, the most basic one, and it's great... FOR WHAT IT DOES.

 

In most cases, I don't use it in A:M at all. A tablet is useful for creating things you'd create better by hand, on a piece of paper. That can totally have to do with texture maps, or elements that are supposed to be hand written, or character design. But if you're looking to increase your animation workflow within A:M, go with robcat's advice, get the second monitor.

 

I have an iMac Core2Duo, just like you. And it does indeed support an external monitor, although you might have to dig the adapter out of your iMac box. It absolutely does increase your human workflow more than any other ingredient.

 

I too have always had the render problems, but am excited to hear your "hide it then unhide it" workaround, and can't wait to try it out! Usually when it's time for me to render, I save, click render, and when I can't rename the file or pick where to save it, or click anything anymore, I force quit, restart the program, and then render with no problems. If you're right, you just saved me hours off my next project. A:M for mac may not be rock-solid, but it's light as a feather, and I've never minded rebooting the app when things go awry.

 

And yeah, render times are a huge chore. Do them overnight. I hear each light is a multiplier to render time, and textures and roughness can add a lot too. That's about all I know on the subject! Good luck!