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thickly

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  1. thanks for the feedback - was just notified that they are going to spring for a 6-core workstation as the price was not prohibitive. They didn't have the full specs for me at this time, but I imagine they are similar just with the upgraded processor and hopefully graphics card. I would never want to over-spec just for the sake of it - but I do know what our consultant architects charge for renderings, and this machine will pay for itself in very short time. I also know the turn-around times on most of what we do are borderline ridiculous. I'll let you know how it performs once everything is set up. Thanks again, Sean
  2. I have been trying to spec my own workstation at my new job but I'm getting push back from my IT dept - they want to give me the same machine the other CAD people get. The other CAD team uses primarily Rhino for designing/modelling/engineering jewelry. I will be doing all of the archviz for the stores - ACAD, 3ds Max and rendering with Mental Ray and/or Maxwell. I was hoping to get a 6-core machine (actually the "High-End" workstation detailed on 3Datstech). Here are the specs of what they are proposing I use. If they are "adequate" for my work then this is what I get. If they are not sufficient I do have some room to push for an upgraded package. HP Z200 MT i7- 870 2.93 2GB/250 DVDRW WIN7 P64 PNY Quadro 2000 PCIe x16 1GB GDDR5 Graphic Card 2 - Crucial 8GB Kit (4Gbx2) 240-pin DIMM DDR3 PC3-10600 (16GB) HP 3year 4h 9x5 Onsite PROMO WS Only HWSupp StarTech PEX13943 4 Port PCI Express 1394a FireWire Adapter Card - 3 External 1 Internal 320 Series 160GB Intel SSD Looking forward to your thoughts. Thanks, Sean
  3. Until now I have being doing archviz as freelance sidework running 3ds Max/Mental Ray/Maxwell/ACAD on a single custom built workstation. I just took a full-time design position and have been asked to spec out my hardware/software requirements and was hoping for a little direction since i have never done this before. I have been approved for (2) machines - essentially one dedicated for rendering and the other for my everyday work. I have been working on one machine already and its more than fine for my everyday work (Core i7, 12gRAM, Quadro 600). For the second I was thinking of probably the mid-range workstation upgraded with a 6-core processor. My ideal set-up would be to have these two machines controlled with a KVM and all my files on the network. That way I can work on a 3d scene on either machine - and then just run it on the faster machine Q: If I do this do I need to buy separate licenses of all the software? For some reason I can't get my head around the software licensing issue and was hoping someone could provide a little direction. My budget won't be unlimited and I would rather spend the money on getting the best performing hardware rather than on licenses that will essentially not be used half the time. Thanks in advance for your help. Sean
  4. Thanks again Andrew - I had been eyeing that Asus too but there seems to be some dissatisfaction with Asus support as well as the lack of an OS disc shipping with the laptop (you must manually burn your recovery discs, 6 of them taking about 3 hours total), and apparently the thing comes loaded with bloatware. On top of that, I'm just not crazy about the way it looks. I'm sure it appeals to the 13yo gamer out there with the stealth look and all, but to me its just cheesy looking - we are all design professionals here - so it matters what it looks like. I'll continue my search, but right now I think I'm leaning towards the Dell Studio XPS16 - I know a lot of people hate Dell, but I can honestly say I have never had an issue with their machines.
  5. Thanks Andrew - yeah, its a shame about the display because an i7 machine with 8 gigs for that price was tempting. I can still configure the Dell with 6Gigs and a full HD display for about $1,400 which is doable. I would love to get the i7 PowerMac but a similar config. is +$2,500 which I just can't justify right now, especially since I would then have to purchase a Windows OS/Parallels on top of it. If anyone else viewing this cares to recommend another similar laptop, your thoughts are always welcome. Thanks, Sean
  6. Hi all, It looks like there is a pretty awesome deal on this laptop right now - about $1,100 with Core i7, 8 gigs RAM, ATI HD 5730 - and was wondering if anyone has experience with it or any comments on if it would be suitable for 3d archviz work - mainly 3dsMax/MentalRay, Maxwell Render and Autocad. This laptop would be used to supplement my Core i7 Workstation, allowing me to be a bit more mobile during the summer. I was also looking at the Dell Studio XPS16, with an almost identical configuration the Dell comes in around $1,400 (though it does have a higher resolution screen than the Lenovo). There are not a lot of customer reviews out there on the Lenovo yet so I was hoping someone around here would have some thoughts. Thanks in advance for your comments.
  7. I need to wrap a texture across a curving wall - but can't figure out how to get it around the corner of the wall. I have a "box" UVW map on, but as soon as it hits a section of the curve it is treating it as another plane on the "box" and tiles the texture. The screen grab should pretty much convey my problem - basically I need the texture to wrap the wall as if there was a vinyl graphic applied to it. Any advice would be appreciated. btw...the geometry was created using a spline, giving it thickness, converting to editable poly and extruding. I did check the mapping coordinates option but didn't seem to have an effect - still needed to apply UVW coordinates.
  8. hey thanks to both of you guys for your help. Did some trouble shooting and I think what was causing it was some missing UVW maps. I knew they were missing but since they were on objects that weren't visible, I just clicked "continue" through the warning dialog. I think the last few times I tried to render, the translation was hanging right at the point the "missing uvws" dialog would pop up - but instead of getting the warning window it was just freezing. I got off my lazy a** and applied the missing uvw's and it seems to be working now. thanks again! SD
  9. could that be possible - the scene only has 20k polys, I'm running x64 with 6 gigs of RAM. I do have a lot of photometic lights which is the only thing I could think is taxing, but it has translated fine before. I just tried switching to BSP2 like you suggested, but still hung up on the translation.
  10. Matt - if you weren't in London I would ask you to come by and slap me! Thanks for the reply. Now the next problem: My scene freezes halfway through translation - has done it the past 20 times I have tried to render it, causing me to cancel, close and re-start Max.
  11. I just decided to give Mental Ray a try since I have Max 2010. My renderer of choice has been Maxwell, but the project I am working on is a dimly lit interior, wood ceiling, lots of lights behind glass - aka a Maxwell nightmare. So I spent the better part of yesterday setting up the lighting solution and finally got to a place I was happy with. My small test renders were rendering fine - so for my final I just bumped up the FG settings to "Medium" and the output resolution to 2000x1200, I watched a good portion of the FG map creation then went to bed. During the FG creation everything appeared normal, albeit slow - but when I woke up this morning this is what I was greeted with. It took a little over 7 hours to complete the render - I have 4 views that I need to do, so obviously I am a little tentative about wasting another 7 hours to end up with a useless result. Any ideas what may have happened? Do you think maybe this was an isolated fluke, or do you think there is probably something wrong with the scene? EDIT: just tried a smaller resolution render and got the same results, FG generated in "color", once rendering started each bucket went to this "black&white" result, and a red grid line remained where each bucket completed rendering. WTF!
  12. Hi - need a little help with something that is driving me crazy. I imported a ACAD floor plan for a retail store into Max2010 and used the line drawing to trace with the line tool and then extrude a lot of the fixtures (the fixtures are all positioned at random angles). Now my issue is all of the transform gizmos are not aligned with the objects - even changing to Parent or Local does not affect the pivot alignment. I also tried using the Working Pivot to see if I could work around it that way but had no luck. Any ideas on how to get the transform gizmo aligned with the geometry? Thanks! SD
  13. hmmm, it seemed like the right place considering the description of the forum is "general discussions about rendering hardware and technical issues". If I called Dell I would get exactly what you said - "sales info" - what I was hoping for was more of an unbiased point of view from the helpful people around here. sorry for the inconvenience.
  14. Hi all, I'm in the market for a new mid-range PC and am strongly considering picking up a Dell - I've configured a Studio XPS and a Studio XPS 435 identically but the XPS 435 is $170 more expensive ($1,319 vs. $1,489 with 24" monitor - full specs below). Is there something I'm missing regarding the price? Would I just be paying extra money for a nicer looking case or can I expect better performance from the XPS 435? One of the cons I have read about the XPS is it has limited options for upgrading (ie only room for one graphics card). Is it worth the $170 to have some more upgrade options available to me if I need it later? Feel free to advise for/against either of these machines or make some recommendations for some others you think I might want to consider - I'd like to stay below $1,500. For some background - I have been out of the viz side of the business for a while but I'm starting to get pulled back into it. Not sure how much work will be coming so obviously hesitant to drop a ton of money on a new machine, but my old P4 certainly won't cut it anymore. 90% of the work will be arch viz with 3ds Max, rendering with Maxwell. The other 10% is Autocad. I must say from the research and reviews I've read, both of these machines seem like the best in terms of value/performance, especially with the included monitor. I'm definitely not a techie though, so any advice would be appreciated. Specs: PROCESSORS: Intel® Core™ i7-920 Processor(8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz) WARRANTY AND SERVICE 2Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis edit OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-Bit edit OFFICE SOFTWARE No Productivity software pre-installed edit MEMORY 6GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs edit HARD DRIVE 750GB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache edit (XPS 435 only comes with 650GB - not a deal-breaker though) OPTICAL DRIVE Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capability edit MONITOR 24" Dell S2409W Full HD Widescreen Monitor edit VIDEO CARD ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB edit SOUND CARD Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit SPEAKERS No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system) Thanks in advance, Sean
  15. thanks for the tips regarding Alt-W. This is the first project I modelled in ACAD which imports as meshes, I normally do all polygon modelling in Max so I never really ran into the problem before. It was driving me nuts but I'm glad to know the fix. Thanks
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