blumentopferde

Hello, I'm looking for a software or tool that allows me to create displacement maps and bump maps! Would be great if I could - for example - model a surface in 3D and have a software that would convert this surface into a grayscale displacement map picture... Is there anything like that? If not, how do you create displacement maps?

What I like about the 16-core Opteron setup is, that you're still at the lowest end of what's possible so you can still upgrade without having to replace you MoBo, RAM etc, while with the Intel solution you are already at the max and any further CPU-upgrade would mean a completely new system. But what I am actually looking for is something in-between render-node and workstation: The Computer should be usable as a workstation AND as a render node. So it's not a waste of money in times where there is not much to render, but if there's something to render the rest of the workstations won't be blocked with work they're actually not designed for. What I am also looking for is SLI-support so I can still scale the rig up if GPU rendering becomes mainstream. I don't think that AMD Opteron boards support SLI, there are actually not even many mainstream AMD boards that do support it, so from that point of view the Intel-Combo would be most probably the better solution...

I also postet it on the blog - but I'll post it here again: What do you think about the Opteron 6128 8-core CPUs? With 306$ for a CPU they seem to have an unbeatable price-performance ratio. That would mean 2300$ for a 16-core system - in the same configuration as the 24-core render node posted in the blog... OK, it's about 40% chepaer but probably over 50% slower (considering less cores and lower clocks) but it seems to have a lot of overclocking potential (don't know if Opteron motherboards are overclockable though) as it runs at lower clocks (1,5Ghz) and less cores than the 12-core CPUs but shares the same architecture, thus should produce much less heat...

I wouldn't fall for these marketing tricks... you can be pretty sure that there will be 4GB graphic cards available in the future. If not in two months then in the next generation of GPUs - and the next generation will come sooner than you think, release cycles become shorter and shorter... I wouldn't bet on ATI if it is about GPU rendering - all major render software developers are focusing on Nvidia at the moment. That might change quickly, but hardware also changes quickly. I'm pretty sure that there'll be a new generation of ATI Cards available before there are good GPU software solutions available for ATI, the same might apply for NVidia. Don't invest into today hardware for a future technology!

Indigorender is jumping onto OpenCL and CUDA, bunkspeed is jumping onto CUDA.... hope that Maxwell, my favourite, will follow this trend... http://www.indigorenderer.com/content/announcing-gpu-acceleration-indigo-renderer http://www.bunkspeed.com/shot/ As far as I can read from the announcements CUDA is absolutely taking the lead... OpenCL will definetely not take over in this or the next generation of GPUs - one has to consider that most of the announced Software won't be finished before the next generation of graphic cards...

Thanks for your opinions! Well, if you're a student or a one-person-company 50K$ is still one extremely large figure... I'm thinking (or dreaming) of having renderings done with a standard PC or a laptop in short time. Being able to quickly compare several variations of lighting, textures and camera settings without having to invest hours or even days. Or to be able to run through a 3D-model like a photographer and take snapshots of interesting perspectives. If the speed increase is really as big as promised one might be quite close to that...

Let me guess, theres no significant speed and viewport quality increase with "Pro" cards compared to "Gamer" cards, at least none that would justify the price difference? At least that's what I've experienced...

I run a ATi FireGL V7700 (actually I run a hacked consumer model with FireGL drivers but practically it is the same, with the sole difference that I can't run the latest drivers as the hacked ones don't update very often) and I cannot recommend it! The viewport speed is theoretically quite good but practically desastrous as it has problems with most common CAD-Programs which means that you have to run them with no hardware accelleration at all most of time. There are selection bugs in Maya and Sketchup (which makes it practicalle impossible to use hardware accelleration in these programs!), there are display errors in Autocad (lines sometimes look broken) and in Rhino (Icons won't show up but this is a solvable problem). I don't know if these bugs were fixed in the latest driver versions but i doubt it since they persist since years. If anybody knows if these problems have been solved please let me know! If you are interested in hacking a consumer card you might visit the "Rivatuner" section of the guru3d forum: http://forums.guru3d.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18

Hey! Does anyone know if the AMD 6-core CPUs are good for overclocking? I usually buy the lowest end Intel CPU (in that case it would be the Intel Core i7-920) and Overclock it to the Max. This way I ran always faster and cheaper with Intel CPUs than i could have ever run with AMD CPUs so far. The i7-920 should - adequate cooling provided - run neatly with up to 3,6 Ghz. Could an (overclocked?) AMD Phenom II x6 1090T keep up with that?

I would definitely get a laptop with an i7 Quadcore Processor and a CUDA-enabled Nvidia GPU. CUDA is a very promising Technology and many developers of render software jump onto it. Here's a list of compatible GPUs: http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_gpus.html A Quadcore simply gives you double the speed of a dual core when rendering. And at least with Maxwell Render the i7 Quad (Desktop Version, i can't say if this also applies to the mobile version) has by far the best cost-performance ratio. see: http://www.benchwell.com/ I would'nt invest into a Quadro GPU, the performance increase stands in no relation to the price increase, better get a good consumer GPU instead of a bad Quadro GPU (most Quadros built into Laptops are rather low end models)! Actually a good gaming Laptop would also make a good rendering Laptop, ive seen models for as low as 900€ (as hardware is more expensive in europe that might be around 1000$) with really good hardware. Of course these models are heavy as stones, noisy as hairdryers and look and feel cheap, but rendering doesn't really need very expensive hardware any more... If you want OSX, get a Mac, but make sure you get a Quadcore CPU and a CUDA-enabled GPU. Oh and by the way, I wouldn't invest into a Mac if I did all of my major work in Windows, I couldn't see any benefit in doing so - but that's just my personal opinion...

Hi I've been stumbling over a few new renderers using Nvidia Cuda, that claim to be so fast that you can actually work in the render preview window. Here are the links: http://www.refractivesoftware.com/ http://www.randomcontrol.com/arion Whenever there's a new release of a Renderer you will read press releases praising the speed of the renderer but when you try it yourself you will find yourself growing old waiting for results, so I am sceptical... Is there anynone who already tried a CUDA-based renderer and can confirm if it lives up to its promise? Does Anybody know if these Renderers are compatible to material libraries for other 3D-Software and Renderers? Did anyone had the chance to compare speed and performance with common renderers? Would be great to hear from your experiences!

Hello! I have quite a problem with creating a material: Id like to make a material that looks like a grid of wire. meaning that there should be a displacement map that creates a round shape - on both sides of the face it is applied to - while the rest of the face is invisible (see picture). but how to create such a map? how do in know which grayscale gradient results in a cylindrical shape? how to create such gradients or where could i get them? is there maybe something like a basic displacement map library on the web? hope you can help me out (and hope that i posted in the right forum!) cheers!

well, i've tried it (in sketchup and 3dmax), and it didnt work. it will be a facade of an 8 storey building, one element being about 25x25cm large. the building alone, without facade, makes my computer react very slowly, but it is still possible to work with it and to export the scene. importing the facade paralyzes it completely. (it's a intel dual core processor @ 3Ghz, 1MB cache, 8GB Ram, 1GB Ram on the Graphics card) if you consider that i also want(ed) to have some greenery and furniture in the scene (which doesn't seem to be a good idea, if already this not so very complex geometry fu*** my computer up, i have to save as much geometry as possible! i also cant make the scene much smaller as it should be a wide angle interior rendering from the inner court yard, which reveals the view into the office rooms through glass walls. the marble thing seems to be feasable with a material consisting of 2 SSS-layers (marble white + colored enclosures) and one BSDF layer (invisible material for the gaps). but i simply don't figure out how to use the displacement maps in a way that they would create the desired cylindrical geometry of the metal grid!

because i already tried to model it. it is quite a big surface resulting in tenthouands of polygons that would not render but crash my computer instead. i was not even able to pan or rotatate the view in wireframe mode with this geometry loaded, neither to export it to maxwell render (even though i have 8 gigs of RAM!) so it obviously HAS to be translated into a material!

hmmm isn't it that simple: open the material click on the reflectance 0 texture then the texture popup opens then use the brightness slider...