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Good advice; doing my due diligence on the housing market there and it seems that everything is extremely overvalued. Why would I want to take out a mortgage on a very modest home (in need of updates, I might add) for 700k plus the outrageous monthly property taxes when the valuation is so fluid (or so according to the predictions that the housing-bubble is about to burst)? I think it may be sage advice to sit back and wait it out for a year or two, just to mark the local trends. We'd be in a much better position to buy at that time anyway. Anyone know of any good cities close to the coast, good for families, and perhaps pedestrian friendly? I've checked out Huntington Beach -- that's about as far south as I can easily consider....

Absolutely! I love that show - as a militant recycler of all things, early adopter of the CFL (yeah, the light is nasty and my wife secretly changes them out with Reveal bulbs when I'm not paying attention), and -homeowners association be dammed- I am going to put up that wind turbine....Funny you mention that. We're absolutely going to do this. I also want to check out the corporate culture in the office -- make sure that I'm not getting into a 'greener-grass' situation; do a late Friday afternoon drive-by (non-Compton style, mind you) to see how many cars are still in the parking lot; see where families are hanging out; where the good markets are located; I call this softening up the LZ. I'm hoping there are enough positives to outweigh any negatives of congestion and the sheer density of humanity. Btw, I might add that my wife is from Sonoma County and this would be a great stepping stone in that direction at some point in our future....

Hi Brian, I'd certainly like to try to live in somewhat close proximity to the office -- I think it might be feasible just from our preliminary MLS searches. Of course, seeing something online is one thing, seeing the context of what surrounds it is another. I've been using Google Maps to scope out the locations; the listings don't tell you that the awesome house with a pool for an incredibly low 669k backs up to an off-ramp on the 405.... Nonetheless, I think we'd be willing to tolerate a bit of a drive, perhaps I'm wondering if we should try to rent first prior to buying. Any advice on a good family-friendly area closer to the coast? South Orange County would be too far, I think....

Hi Ernest, Yes, we have a 6 month old and it's never too soon to figure out where the best schools are, especially for an all-expenses-paid relo. Currently, I have my own design firm (had a partner who left the company, so now it's just me and an intern designer) and my daily schedule is flexible, so my wife and I do the 'tag-team parenting'. If we were to do the relo, my wife would stay home, so only the one income. Just got some encouraging news from a friend who is a mortgage broker in the area, so it sounds extremely doable. I think it will be hard to let go of the freelancing lifestyle, as I am basically an 'unfunded' serial entrepreneur, but with a consistant paycheck, benefits, etc, etc, it may end up being a well needed sabbatical. I will connect with Scott as well. As always, thanks for the advice!!

Hello SoCal Peers: I'm reaching out to anyone who has experience doing an east coast --> west coast relocation; have an incredible opportunity in south bay and need to get some 'real-world' advice on what is actually possible vs. our prelim number crunching. I've known that the real-estate market there is inflated, but a 3/2 ranch that needs some serious updating for 850K....??? It's enough to scare us out of the decision. It seems like the average salaries in the area would not support this; is it that most people rent and don't own? My main question is this: what is a reasonable base salary for living close to where you work...not so remote that the commute is beyond 'reasonable' (my family and I try to live a relatively low carbon lifestyle, so long commutes and the cheaper housing that goes with it are a no-no). My potential offer is in the ~135-150 neighborhood, which is quite comfortable by east coast standards but may not be enough for a mortgage (and other monthly expenses) in an area with fine schools for our son. As I said earlier, the opportunity is world class and would be a positive professional move, just not sure if the financial is there to back it up. I may be wrong about the scale of economy out there and will need to slap myself, therefore any advice would be appreciated!! Cheers!

Hey Tim, I also saw that very same instance of "backburner" in the path syntax...it was the last entry in the syntax for me, as I had recently installed VIZ 2007. For some reason, backburner 3 doesn't include the "3" in the syntax string.... But....if you scroll to the left in the syntax string using your left arrow key, you'll come across "backburner 2". Because this instance of backburner occurs first in the string, VIZ looks for that instance first (which doesn't exist anymore 'cause you've already deleted the backburner 2 folder)..... I think you'll have to change this for each machine on your farm, including deleting any folders for backburner 2. I hope this helps you out; let us know how it goes!!

Yeah, baby! It works alright....and I didn't need to reauthorize or reinstall nuthin'! Just finished a 15 shot series and it worked like a charm. Note that "System Variables" is actually "Environment Variables"... Let us know how it goes for you!

I had the same problem with my new install of VIZ 2007; found this solution at the Autodesk discussion groups: -------------------------------- Re: Backburner Problem For your purposes this is an easy problem to address. The steps below summarize how to remove this outdated information. Also, if you are done using the older version I would also recommend uninstalling it and cleaning up any Viz 2005 or backburner 2 folders that remain. To modify the PATH statement: 1) Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Environment Variables button 2) Under System Variables, highlight the PATH variable and click Edit 3) Remove the following path from the Variable Value field: C:\Program Files\backburner 2 Note: Be careful not to disturb other entries that may appear before or after the backburner 2 4) Click OK 3 times to exit the System properties 5) Restart Viz 2007 and test the NetRender functionality. Viz 2007 was trying to open the old backburner 2 on the computer. This did the trick. It will also work for Max. Hope this helps your problem. --------------------------------------------- Worked for me!!

Hello Peers: I am attempting to build a new office network - optimized for network rendering tasking as well as daily operations, backup, etc. I'm a bit 'grassroots' in the way I've adopted technology; over the years, I've cobbled together a network that functions but is far from efficient/automated/or accessable remotely. I would love to see what others are doing from the standpoint of a notated network diagram. Perhaps we could all learn a thing or two about what hardware works and what hardware is a waste of time (server vs. NAS RAID drives) or just a time hog in regards to management. Thanks in advance for your input!

Peers, Wondered if anyone else has come across archiving errors in VIZ 2005. Used to work like a charm; now I get the error message "Archive Failed (Code 18)". Prior to that error dialog, I get "Could Not Open Filelist File: %s". Anyone out there have this problem and what can be done about it? I'm assuming that something has gone wacky and the install may need to be repaired..... tho any advice would be appreciated!! Thanks in advance!

Hi John, Doing some surfing of old posts and came across your note.... yes, we use two lcd screens with our Dell dock and Precision M60 workstations.... See the link provided below for more info.... http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/solutions/en/why_ports?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~lt=popup Cheers, Aaron

Fyi, went ahead with the purchase of VR Toolbox's VR Worx 2.6 after evaluating both software packages.... So far, it has performed flawlessly. The interface is extremely simple to use/configure and the authoring of a multi-node tour was painless.

Peers: Does anyone have experience with using either REALVIZ Stitcher 5.1 or VR Worx 2.6 as authoring suites for multi-node VR tours? We're using the QuickTime export function in VIZ 2006, however we don't have a good way to create multi-node tours. Any helpful words of advice (or caution!) would be appreciated! Cheers!

Thanks Lambros -- you're experiences are inline with our thinking. We're actually 'beyond scope' with this client, so we're already on an hourly fee schedule with all the tweaking that has been occuring over the past few submittals. We're only doing a few different camera views - stills - so, thankfully no anima. Thanks again for the advice! Cheers!

Hello CGArchitecture Peers: In a bit of a quandary; have a bid we've been working on behalf of a very new client. Their client (the end-user) has requested some design changes that would impact our current set of renders. These changes will need to be completed by this coming Monday, 5pm to be available for a 9am meeting.... and as those of us here in the states know, we're about to begin a holiday weekend (client is in the UK). We're trying to get an extension because of our holiday, but it is looking unlikely. My question is this: what type of 'rush fee' would be appropriate to add to this round of work that is going to need to be completed over the holiday? We've always talked about this but have never implemented any fee structure for this situation. Time and a half has been suggested. I'm also thinking that 'double-time' may be appropriate giving that it's a holiday. Don't want to gouge, but want to make it worth having to slog into the office for 15 or 20 hours.... I'll be standing by -- any serious responses would be appreciated!! Thanks in advance for your opinions or experiences!

Naw -- only had about 8 or 9 hours of flight time plus some time in the classroom. Beginner mistake maybe, but the most difficult part of the first few flights (because they drill "instrumentation" into your head) was remembering to look up from the artificial horizon and airspeed indicator to scan the sky for other traffic. I can imagine how stall practice could be terrifying; however the difference between that and a roller coaster being that YOU are in control of the aircraft, and not merely being taken for a ride. Just remember that when you're experiencing some negative g.

Hey Jeff, I've spent a little time in the left seat. Learned in a very cramped Cessna 152, although you can usually opt up for a larger plane if you've got the cash. I'm not sure how flight school works up in Canada, but here in the states you usually get to fly with your first lesson. Unfortunately over time, 'financial obligations' got in the way of me getting rated for VFR or daytime flight. If I could convince the wife, I would pick it right up again! Let us know how it goes -- pls post some digital photogs of the first flight!

Thanks James -- that incompatibility is the main reason why my firm will not upgrade until the feature sets dictate that we do... We survived happily for years on release 3, probably far longer than autodesk preferred that we did; the problem now being that some of our clients are on subscription and therefore are now sending us files that won't talk with each other. Argh... Thanks again.

May or may not be in the right thread, but i'm desperate.... Anyone know if there are problems with VIZ 2005 being able to read VIZ 2006 files?? I file sent to me by my client will not open in our version of VIZ 2005. We get a 'missing dll' superclass window.... any ideas would be helpful. Tried merging the file in to a new scene with no success. Will probably get the client to save down to .3DS, although that's going to create it's own headache. Thanks for any advice or assistance!

Thanks for the help guys! Incredibly, no one on the planet has built an F-16 w/Thunderbird livery! The closest thing I found were files for mod'ing video games... argh! We will most likely fall back on Photoshop magic... gonna make doing multiple views a time consuming nightmare.

Hi Guys: Thought I'd post here for my peeps in the Viz community... We're doing a project that requires a few USAF Thunderbird F-16 Fighting Falcons to be placed in the renderings -- very tight deadline (this Friday).... Looked on TurboSquid and a few other sites that we regularly use with no luck -- anyone have any good ideas/resources? Obviously, we're in a paying mood.... Thanks for any and all help!! .MAX, .3DS w/all textures

Sounds like it's spoofing to me. On occasion, we will recieve email that has our address in the email header being returned because of viral attachments. The email did not originate within our organization. Either way, if you check the details in the email header, that can usually give you a clue to whether this is a spoofing incident or worse. If you are using Outlook, select your message in question and go to View/Options; this will bring up the Message Options dialog where you can view the return path and origination details. On a side note, it is best not to use the Outlook "Preview Pane" feature, as that can lead to multiple bad things happening -- use the "AutoPreview" instead. Hope that helps - good luck!

At least 135,000+ people have lost their lives in East Africa and South Asia in the aftermath of the earthquake and resulting tsunamis on December 26. Thousands of people in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and Indonesia are still missing; many others have lost their homes and livelihoods.... Please join my firm in donating a financial gift to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief fund during this time of need - You can donate safely, securely, and directly to the American Red Cross through Amazon.com. http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/my-pay-page/PX3BEL97U9A4I Any amount will help.

Check out QuadraSpace Presenter..... http://www.document3d.com/solutions/walk.htm

Hey Ronald - not the type o' equipment I was needing. Thanks for your generosity tho!