moshenko

I'm late to this party, but I would like to point out something that often gets neglected in these types of cost/performance analyses, and that is the "human time" factor. It would take quite a bit of additional cost in hardware before I would consider implementing a solution that involves double the amount of physical computers for the same performance. Over the lifespan of this setup, how many hours do you think will be lost to configuring, maintaining and trouble-shooting these machines? Monitoring Windows updates alone would drive me insane... Anyway, cost/performance is tricky because it often fails to factor in those activities outside of processing and power consumption. There's also the additional equipment to deal with (cabling, power supplies, switches, hard drives, etc.) that can drive up the cost over the long run more than is evident at the start... Good luck!

Cool. Glad I could solve something!

You just need to make sure "user" has permission to write to the Backburner directory (eg. C:\Program Files (x86)\Autodesk\backburner). If it can't, jobs won't be saved.

Hi Jeff, I'm jumping in late to this discussion, but I thought I would recommend looking into Adobe's volume licensing: http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/volumelicensing/tlp/ The term "volume" is misleading, as you can purchase single licenses through this method. The main reason I would recommend it is that it gives you a single serial number for all apps and you don't have to go through the authorization hassle every time you install something. If you haven't already purchased, you may want to check this out. It won't save you any money, but it will certainly save you hassle down the road (in my experience).

Hi Felix, Thanks for answering - it's good to hear that you've got the rights all arranged, and I hope you didn't feel I was attacking your company or products. The case I mentioned was just a story about a developer that I know of. I believe the creator of the ad was told to use a photo that had been taken for reference purposes, and they ended up in trouble.

Yes, but you don't sell those photos on the Web to be reproduced in thousands of renderings...(or maybe you do!) A developer I know of was recently sued because one of their ad campaigns featured a person rollerblading along a boardwalk. The photo was taken without the person's permission and they went after the developer (and won). It should be a concern, IMO.

Just wondering: these shots seem to be of people on the street. How do we, as potential purchasers, know if the individuals in those shots have agreed to the use that we would use them for? I don't see anything in the collection stating image rights...

Thank you both for your input! The exact system I'm investigating is an HP Z400 and I'm only looking at it because there is a specific model that is being offered at an incredible price (in Canada) with this processor and some really great components and specifications. We have chosen to stick to HP or Dell for our workstations for various reasons, so an i7 and overclocking is generally not an option. However, the Z400 does offer an optional water cooling system, which makes me wonder if it is open for performance tuning... Anyway, thanks for the info from both of you. The cost/performance of this system may make me seriously consider it for my next purchase.

So, if it weren't more expensive it would be a good performer?

Hi, I'm way out of the loop on hardware these days, but I have been presented with an offer for systems with this (Xeon W3580) processor. As far as I can tell, this is a uni-CPU version of the latest Nehalem processor family. Has anyone heard/read/witnessed anything about this particular processor and how it performs?

More than that, the camera is (I assume) computer controlled so that each time it does a "pass" the movement and timing is exactly the same. This means that one could produce 20 "passes" (i.e. takes) and seamlessly edit them together. When you think about it this way, the actors really only have to be still for a few seconds, and they don't all have to nail their scenes on the same take (at least, that's the theory). This is not to say that the whole thing is "easy"

Au contraire! It's more than noise - I read that a construction project in Maine was halted last week so that "Made in Canada" pipes could be dug up and replaced with "Made in USA" versions! Never doubt the potential for stupendous idiocy within government!

Given what the current administration is doing with it's "Buy American" infrastructure initiative - and I mean no offense to Americans in general, here - those of you in the US visualization market may get your wish soon enough. Industry here in Canada is already feeling the pain of US free-trade-when-we-feel-like-it policies (and I recognize that we provide much of our own nonsensical trade policies as well). I'm waiting for the moment when I am rejected for a project because my company is Canadian (or not American, if you prefer), not because I am not the lowest bidder.

That was phenomenal! I don't think anything is actually moving in the scene and a single camera was used for the whole shot. Did you watch the little sub-movies (at the blue markers in the timeline)? It looks like it was all done as lit, live-action and all of the actors and main pieces were rigged in place. Then, an fx pass was done for all of the explosions, flames, etc. One of the sub-movies shows that the guns all have little lights on the ends of them, presumably to allow the effects to be composited afterwards.

The system you've quoted *is* a render farm (albeit a small one), so I'm not sure what your alternate solution is. My advice for purchasing a farm is: - Define a budget - without a budget you'll wallow around in system configuration hell wondering if you could get 2% more power for x more dollars/pounds; - Purchase the fewest number of systems with the greatest amount of processing power that your budget will allow - fewer systems means less ongoing maintenance, fewer licenses and less overall headaches. Don't get sucked into thinking that 100 cheap boxes will be better than 10 expensive ones. You may get slightly more processing power but you will be overcome with maintenance and configuration issues; - Purchase systems with great hardware support - with fewer systems you will want to know that if something goes wrong it will be fixed right away; - Get the right system for your operating environment - rackmount units are LOUD and are intended to be in enclosed rooms with separate air conditioning units. If sound is an issue it would be best to look at quiet workstation systems (I have some Dells that are virtually silent) and configure them for processing/RAM only; - Don't consider proprietary hardware solutions unless a) you already use them/are familiar with them, or b) you are ready to reinvent your workflow and commit to a long-term, single-use investment. With a standard farm you can always switch software and be ready to go, but with a proprietary system (a la RenderDrive) you are stuck. The quote you listed only includes a single Xeon processor per node. You should have it re-quoted with the extra processor to really be able to decide if it's economical (it seems silly to order a system like that with half the available processing power). Good luck -