Vue 5 Demo reel

[JavaJones]

For high quality/resolution 24 hours is quite fast and frankly unrealistic, at least for any reasonable length of animation. For fast render times you're best off going with multiple cheaper "render box" solutions with minimal graphics card, hard drive, etc. since none of those things really matter much for rendering. Get Athlon 64 X2 dual core CPU's, 2+GB of RAM in each machine, 80GB HD's, a basic 52x CD-ROM and a cheap $50 graphics card - you could build literally 6 or 7 render box machines of that level for the price of the single machine you're buying, and for rendering animations those 6+ machines would outpace your system by 3-4 times.

I presume with the system you're buying that you're gamer since SLI (dual) graphics card setups don't really work for 3D apps and they will provide you no real benefit for working with Vue, etc. Furthermore any graphics card can only help with the realtime viewport acceleration, it will not affect render time one bit, and that is true for Vue, Maya, LW, etc. So if all you're concerned with is 3D rendering speed, go for a single one of those graphics cards; you'll get great speed in your 3D viewports in all apps, and the other card would be largely wasted otherwise. If you're a gamer you'll see the difference as long as you run at high resolution and with high AA/AF, but unless you're a serious gamer it's probably not worth it. A single 7800GTX will give you more than enough performance in most cases.

Also if you're getting dual single core Opterons (or Xeon's for that matter) consider a dual core Athlon 64 X2 instead. Much cheaper and a much higher price/performance ratio. Performance at equivalent clock speed will be similar for most multithreaded applications except those that are largely memory bound, where the separate memory banks of the Opteron will shine (these types of applications are not particularly common though). Vue does perform better on the Athlon platform btw, although your other apps (LW, for example) would probably do a bit better on a P4/Xeon. But price/performance wise you're probably better off with the Athlon.

- Oshyan

[Kevin Sanderson]

(Phoul) Philippe Bouyer http://www.belino.net (http://www.belino.net/) is the man who did the demo and he never has said how long it took to my knowledge. It will knock you on your behind to know that he says he only used 3 PCs, one an old PIII 1ghz machine with 512MB of RAM to design and two P4 2.8ghzPCs with 1GB of RAM to render. If you do a search in this forum, Wabe posted a quote from Phoul that was originally posted on Renderosity. He also said about 75% was designed on the old PIII!

Recently it seems some people with the high end machines are experiencing whatever problems where people with lesser machines (who have also taken the time to make sure there PCs are stable...good power supplies, ventilation, quality memory, no crap running at the same time as Vue, etc.) are doing well with no drama.

Kevin

[Larzker]

JavaJones and Kevin Sanderson, thanks for your responses.

JavaJones, it's good to know the dual graphic cards are for games. Actually, I'm not a gamer but I was advised by someone who is but does not have a 3D art/animation background. My immediate consideration for a new computer is the release of ZBrush 2.5 which will handle 10 million plus polygons. I need to be able to transform/model high res models in real time and also have a couple of programs running without noticable a reduction in performance. I'll look into a single 7800GTX as well as a dual core Athlon 64 X2. The computer is necessary now but I'm still learning exactly what to get and your information will help.
I hadn't considered render boxes. That's a relief. After doing several test animations it has hit me like a ton of bricks how much render time is involved. Hopefully in the near future, with processor advances,a single computer will be able to do what 100 current ones can in the same way a current 4GHz triumphs a 1995 66MHz.

Kevin, that is amazing and encouraging that Philippe Bouyer was able to accomplish so much with 3 PCs. His site is new to me. Those short animations are fantastic.

Since switching from 2D illustrations to 3D illustrations in the last month the convulated ways I'm having to work around having a slow computer have cost me enough time that the investment in a new computer will actually save me money.

[Phoul]

Hello,

Thanks for the nice words about my works...



(Phoul) Philippe Bouyer http://www.belino.net (http://www.belino.net/) is the man who did the demo and he never has said how long it took to my knowledge.How long? Average... between 1 and 4 days for 1 clip (768 x 432 pixels, Broadcast or Ultra quality), on 1 PC.
I don't like to wait for more than 5 days.

Regards.

[Kevin Sanderson]

Simply amazing Philippe! Shows what you can do when you know what you're doing!

Larry, I can understand the time savings issue having been through that myself. Make sure you do a little more research so you don't get stuck with less of a machine than you paid for.

Kevin

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