First Job with Maxwell Render
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The new machine was pretty quick even for maxwell but i did leave them overnight to clean up at 5000,3000 pixels, the night scene was the only really stubborn one and that needed a couple of days.
The Artlantis community has become a bit stale and i am not feeling any love from the developers. Bugs have been outstanding for too long, plus i have hit the wall with what can be done. I have an appetite for knowledge and self development. The results from maxwell can be stunning and the quality of light is what interests me.
Yes it's Daniel Craig it's my little bond homage.This is Cyprus so it's a little dusty !
I agree with the too interesting people i think next time the more obvious ones could be movement blurred or something to de-focus them.This was a new client so we were getting to know each other a bit which added to the stress levels. The model, intermediate meetings, test renders and final output was done in 2 weeks.(while working my day job)
Maxwell seems to have a great road map and a dedicated development team so i figure it's a worthwhile investment.
I might also add that sketchup is only enhanced by it's super community, it has been my consistent modeller since day one and is a joy to use.
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Glad to hear my input helped
It looks like you've got a great start for these being your first trial-by-fire renders!
I think at that distance, your ivy works just fine without displacement. The only thing I think I'd change about it would be the color. It looks more like fall whereas everything else is very green.
Are you finding Maxwell to be pretty easy to work with so far? Feel free to pm me if you every run into any issues, always happy to help.
How are you liking your SSD with your new computer? I'm often tempted by them, but the IT guys here at work are still quite afraid of them which causes me to shy away.
-Brodie
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Yeah i'm loving the SSD it is super snappy for booting, launching apps, reading & writing files etc i wouldn't go back now !
Your IT guys are protecting their position by installing fear. Because it has no moving parts it is less prone to failure IMHO with less heat & noise also. Half there time they are replacing dead drives and restoring systems i expect. I work in an office of macs and we have never needed any IT support.
Also i am leading the artlantis benchmark thread at the moment, i shaved off extra seconds by using a ram disk, the new machine is certainly no slouch.
Is there a Maxwell benchmark test i seem to remember benchwell ?
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great renders and a nice design too.
is the design yours? -
I think the bad thing about IT guys is that whenever anyone who's ever met them has an issue they get called - so they get a skewed representation of reality. Sort of like how doctors look around and see how everyone is going to die I guess. Their issue seems to be not so much that they die MORE (although they probably did in the beginning) but that when they die you're pretty much screwed. That said, you're not keeping data on it, but I guess it's the downtime of having to replace it and install all the software again.
Benchwell was a 3rd party deal which died out when 2.0 came out (you couldn't really compare 1.7 results to 2.0). Maxwell has suggested a couple times that they would take over and create a new benchmark scene but it's yet to happen. There are a few threads on the forums where people have posted their results with 2.x using the old benchwell scene but that's about it (you can compare 2.x to 2.x but not 2.x to 1.x because an SL of 15 in one isn't the same as an SL of 15 in the other). I've got a list of my results as well as the old benchwell scene if you'd like me to email it to you and you can at least compare your results to what I've come up with.
-Brodie
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Thanks Brodie i see 3m22s i'm guessing that's not bad ? Well for sure IT guys are a weird breed that's a given, i keep a time machine backup & a bootable clone so a dead drive is pretty easy to restore in about 30 mins.
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@designerstuart said:
great renders and a nice design too.
is the design yours?No unfortunately the design is not mine but the architect who commissioned me. Although as always i took a lot of design decisions while modeling & texturing from a flat dwg file.I also enjoyed working on the building as i appreciated the design it really makes a change from my run of the mill residential work !
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Yes, that's quite good. About what I expected based on my own tests. A brief rundown.
74m 35s - an old machine with a single core processor
17m22s - my old rendering machine with a Q9550 (4x2.83ghz nonHT)
10m03s - i7 860 these are what they're currently using for revit machines here
6m19s - our server machine, I think it has an older but very good quality (for the time) xeon
5m35s - 980x, my current rendering machineTo get into your range I had to start networking the benchmark...
3m32s - the 980x plus the server
3m00s - the 980x plus the server plus the i7 860 revit machineHow much did that setup cost, btw?
-Brodie
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Yes the price is the catch Brodie well spotted ! I had my old G5 2.0 dual powermac for 7 years so bear that in mind !
The bare machine with ATI Radeon 5870 upgrade from the UK £5,238 (2x6 2.93 xeons)
24 GB 3x8 1333Mhz ECC $699.99 (OWC USA)
60 GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD $179.99 (OWC USA)
The impending divorce and medical bills however were a hidden cost.
PS i just restored my boot SSD drive from the clone it took 12.08 minutes IT meh !
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Well, that is a pretty penny.
I'm not sure I understand your backup method. So Time Machine is like an automatic backup software I guess that mirrors all of your data from the SSD to another drive. And if your SSD goes down you can just boot from that other drive? Is that about right?
Out of curiosity, were you willing to spend the extra money for a mac primarily because it's what you're used to using, or did you see some other advantage(s)?
-Brodie
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@unknownuser said:
Well, that is a pretty penny.
I'm not sure I understand your backup method. So Time Machine is like an automatic backup software I guess that mirrors all of your data from the SSD to another drive. And if your SSD goes down you can just boot from that other drive? Is that about right?
Out of curiosity, were you willing to spend the extra money for a mac primarily because it's what you're used to using, or did you see some other advantage(s)?
-Brodie
I doubt you can build a dual xeon machine for less with the same specs and included software. Also be aware that it came under the cost of the 3 networked machines used in your benchmarks.
Time Machine is included in mac osx it makes incremental backups at certain time points allowing you to fly back in time to retrieve files or restore to a certain point.It's pretty seamless and works in the background. For double safety i use an external raid 0 array for this . For triple safety and simplicity i also clone my important drives using an app called super duper.Both these methods can be restored from although the super duper method is restoreable & bootable.
My first machine was a sony vaio i kept it for a week before i headbutted the screen through, as it kept telling me the network cable was unplugged. Since then i have never used a windows machine. I know CAD lives on the PC but for me it's just not worth the hassle.I'm lucky in my day job also uses macs (i7 imac's).I know all the short cuts now and my workflow is superfast. The mac pro is silent & beautiful (on the inside too !). There is a whole bunch of advantages IMHO the installation and lack of anti virus being some of many. Networking screensharing & sharing in general is a dream compared. Plus the best thing is never get asked to fix my friends windows machines ! There is really a ton of bonuses IMHO they are all time saving and stress levels are low which is priceless.Is it still true windows machines slow down over time ? Most IT guys rely on windows for a living this is a known fact. If you ask them they will agree that a mac based office needs little to none IT support.There are endless lists of mac advantages available on the web a lot of mac myths have been busted now.I'm sure you can find some non biased articles.I will wait for a quad core mini to come out then i will add them over time as render nodes.
This article is a little dated but still stands true: http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/why-pros-use-mac.htm
In the meantime this guy is a bit extreme but you will get the message lol
The 12.08 minutes was the time it took to erase my bootdrive and copy the clone back to it.Then a simple re-start
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Hey Chedda, do you participate on the Maxwell forum? We can always use some more active Mac and Sketchup users to represent
Also JD (who designs the plugins) is easy to approach about plugin design issues... feedback is very welcome there.Best,
Jason. -
I only just got my license Jason, i was lucky enough to get it at a charity auction for Japan's earthquake. It was super of next limit to donate a copy ! These small things make all the difference in my eyes. I helped Japan through the red cross and got a license as well ! The forums, no not yet Jason but i intend too ! That's great news as i do have some basic workflow questions. Forums and communities cannot be underestimated in software choice.
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Interesting article. I come from an admitted standpoint of experiential ignorance when it comes to macs. The last apple anything I've honestly used was probably in the very early 90's and that was mostly playing Oregon Trail at school. I don't have an iphone, and itouch, not even an ipod. So all I know is what I've learned from friends and online. I'm not against apple stuff in principle, I'm mostly just cheap so I have a custom pc at home, a cheapo cell phone, and a creative zen mp3 player I got for xmas years ago.
A lot of things in the article didn't really resonate with me. He was pretty heavy handed regarding windows crashing all the time and getting viruses. That hasn't really been my experience. He mentions color calibration but from what he said, there's no real difference - both need hardware calibration for best results. He talks a lot about photographers using macs, but doesn't really give concrete reasons as to why they do so.
However, I can understand how piece of mind and not having to ever fuss with restarts or antivirus software would be nice. And being able to connect two computers and transfer files could come in handy sometimes. I pull those out because that seems to be a major claim to fame (they're somehow better for visual work), which I think is a bit outdated/unfair. At one time macs may have been inherently better but since they now use the same hardware and software (adobe), I don't see how that's possible. That said, there's certainly a lot to be said for a product that just works, which macs seem to do.
I suspect most of the issues (like viruses and such) that are mentioned could be an issue for novice users. A system could slow down over time, not so much from an OS standpoint but from a hard drive standpoint if you kept getting spyware and such. But with a decent antivirus program (i use a free one at home, avast, that autoupdates and such and haven't thought about it for a couple years). And it doesn't hurt to defrag your hard drive from time to time which you can also set up a schedule for and then forget about (macs probably do that for you I'd guess). But I guess those are the sorts of things a mac user can avoid - I just don't think they're as big an issue as many mac users make them out to be.
One question that I've had which he touches on. How DO mac users uninstall a program? I've heard that as an issue from one of my friends but he lists it as a positive.
-Brodie
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Just drag it to the trash along with it's preference file, there are some apps like appzapper that do this for you.I think windows prefers an uninstaller as it leaves bits & pieces everywhere such as dll and registry bits (doesn't exist in mac)
Adobe layout and UI differs between platforms the mac has a different way of laying out things & methodology even in sketchup.
I think you are interested and have a lot of un answered questions, ultimately you will get a mac perhaps a mini to start, just to quench your inquisitiveness.
I have no need for a laptop but it's pretty un-deniable apple have a great line up also.
I'm sure you have bumped into some experienced CG artists on your travels on the internet who use macs.
Anti virus software eats cpu cycles and scans everything pretty much constantly including email and attachments this is not a snappy experience.
Otherwise how will you know ?
PS you can tell i am pretty much entrenched now and am a stalwart !
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We'll see how it goes. I certainly wouldn't mind having one to see what all the hype is about. Next time I'm computer hunting I'll have to give them a fair shot. Thanks for the input.
-Brodie
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@chedda said:
I only just got my license Jason, i was lucky enough to get it at a charity auction for Japan's earthquake. It was super of next limit to donate a copy ! These small things make all the difference in my eyes. I helped Japan through the red cross and got a license as well !
That is a great cause -- Next Limit does charity donations like this often...
@chedda said:
The forums, no not yet Jason but i intend too ! That's great news as i do have some basic workflow questions. Forums and communities cannot be underestimated in software choice.
I agree and Brodie and myself are just a few of the active members on the Maxwell forum that try to help whenever possible -- overall it is a great community to be a part of. If you haven't discovered it yet there is also a free video tutorial site called THINK!( http://think.maxwellrender.com/ ) that can help as well.
Best,
Jason. -
Hey Jason i have an account at the maxwell forums but for the life of me i can see no way of posting a new topic. Am i missing something ? Do i have to use my customer gateway id to post ? I had made the registration prior to getting a license for research purposes.
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Follow the instructions here to get posting rights:
http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=97&t=32637
This keeps the spambots out very nicely
Best,
Jason.
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