Bruce,

Cool - different and interesting. I like the display that you have chosen. This looks very much like a Corel/Illustrator vector drawing. Could you post another view so we can appreciate the 3D?

That magazine make it in the mail yet?

P: Shaun Tennant

Stu,
That's pretty nice especially for 1 hour's render time - I think that image is very effective and I'm certain your clients will love it. It looks very relaxing. I really like the materials on the house, and the windows look just about right. The plants (obviously what you are really concerned with) look really quite good - especially the farther back they go, this looks very complete, which I have a lot of trouble with finishing a render...nicely done.

P: Shaun Tennant

then you have an hour and 15 min to get 16 people over here and signed up. I'll give you some help - post a sign that says Free Beer or Hot ladys! That's how we got Chuck (Kannon)

Shaun Tennant

will we make it by the end of the day?

I think it's incredible how the membership has grown so quickly, and how this site has become a comfortable home in about a week (probably less actually). I don't care how many members we end up with, but I am struck incredulous by the quality of the membership. Fricking Fantastic!

Shaun Tennant

You guys- that actually sounds pretty good - I could stand losing some lb'age.. I'm all for it.

Shaun Tennant

Fletch you dirty rascal! - I'm just glad you're here, but try that in a month after we're all settled in.. I dares ya!

Shaun Tennant

Whaat? Were you sick or something? Wow. That's incredible.. are you healthy then now? or was this a relapse into Bulimia or something.. wow. I sure hope you are okay - but something tells me that you are happy with your new body. I could stand losing some weight.. I was 200 when I got married 5 years ago, and now am about 260.. so I'm looking a bit more.. married.. Luckily I'm 6'4" and things get distributed much better.. but ...

25 lb in a month... must have been abducted by aliens... or maybe you knew about Googles plans in advance and stopped eating? Or maybe you lost a leg on your lawn tractor.. seriously I don't know how you did that... 25lbs... man.

Shaun Tennant

bump whoops - sorry Ross... I told you I'd push you in too! Is that Susan and Joy (CATamountain) in the pool?
Glad you came! - here's a towel and a beer that you can't get so readily in PEI,

(Image is nice and clean - very refreshing and I like the style.. If I had time - I'd doctor it to have some Squirlz reflections and you in the deep end in your trademark sweater and wet beard!)

Shaun Tennant

I just pushed Alan in the pool!

So glad you're here Alan! - just a personal note - I was thinking of all the help and encouragement you have given me since I started a year ago in the pro forums. Thanks Alan... here's your towel - dry off you deserve it old chum!

Shaun Tennant

Jeff, thanks for that - so it looks like a G4 500 would be less interesting choice, I think If I could do a G4 1.5 or so, that would do, but 500.. nah.

Keep em coming - thanks in advance.

Shaun Tennant

Hey guys, I am always looking at computers for my renderfarm, but I'm PC based, sometimes Mac's come up for free, or for a little bit of cash, but I don't know what kinds of speeds comparatively they would be - I think Jeff Jacobs has a great idea (unfortunately I have deleted the PM you sent me with your cross-mac times on different machines)
I would greatly appreciate it if you could give me a processor speed and a file that you tried - how long it took, and then the same file that you tested on a different machine (either mac or PC - doesn't matter - I like numbers.) Please mention if it's a laptop - heat dissapation can make the numbers for a laptop not look quite as good.

I'll start with some numbers:
Using an animation that I just ran that was as complex as heck, one frame:
My Opteron 170 dual core (at 2.02 Ghz) took about 6 minutes
My AMD TurionX2 Laptop 1.66 Ghz dual Core took about 8.5 minutes
My Celeron 2800 took about 27 minutes
My p4 1.6 Ghz Dells took about 52 minutes.
My p4 1.0 and 965Mhz Dells took also about 52 minutes (I found that very strange - but it tests out on my machines all the time)

Using the Celeron 2800 (yech!) as the benchmark, I could think that:
the Opteron is about 4.5 times faster
The Laptop is about 3.17 times faster
The 1.6 and 1.0 P4's are about 1.92 times slower.

I would never spend the time picking up a P3 or 4 500mhz, but I saw a G4 lately for 150.00 that was a 500mhZ - I suspect that might be more in line with the 1.0 and 1.6 Ghz PC's? Don't know, so I didn't move on it and it sold right away..I can use PC or Mac for my render nodes, so no issues there. I guess I just want to know how your machines stack up to each other, then I can get an idea after putting this all together, what roughly I should spend per/speed... thanks guys!

Shaun Tennant

oh. Oh Alan, that is really upsetting, unless I don't get it - it sounds like you gave some freebies out to the warehouse, all the sudden Google owns them now because of the "legalese" and so now you could get in "trouble" for hosting your own components... maybe I don't get it - and you can't talk about it I'm sure... but I'll say this - I never liked the idea of the warehouse. Well actually I did until I saw the stuff that was in there... I didn't even like having to post my entries into the first couple SU competitions (for which I won some sweet sox) in the warehouse.. too much garbage, the people who build these models are the people who want mine? no thanks!

Take care Alan.

Shaun Tennant

Stu,
That is very interesting! - I wonder why all of the sudden this is the way it is..?
I ran back there to check out what thier membership is doing:
Members: 5817
Activity: Low activity
I can't remember what it was the other day, but something close to that. I still haven't seen any posts on the main pages by anyone I know - except Gaius and Gully - but they are like the top posters over there... so...I did do a search for Ross Mac and found lots of posts by him though... that's comforting to anyone who wanted to head over there.

I have to admit that I was a little.. um, a little, sad? about the announcement this AM to do with not posting images/components/movies etc - but y'know what - I'll definitely be glad to be here, and find other ways to do this - Coen has done more with his limited team of developers (him) his Backend "scalability" (switched to new server without a hiccup or us noticing) and lack of marketing budget in 5 days than I've seen other giant companys do Coen is really trying to make this place awesome for us, and I know that he really cares to bring the community in, protect it. So many changes have been made, and I just looked at the change log - I wondered how long the logo tag line was like that (not too long). And the often quoted wrong name that I have been prone to use "Sketchunation" is on top with mention of @last age.. I think he wants to get it "just right".

Seriously people - how cool is this?

Too cool.

Shaun Tennant

Firkin's!!! yes I'm ready - but I don't know about Coen's Bandwidth though (yet?)

I still have a render that I was working on called "Firkin's Dismay" that I need to finish up and post for you (always a bad sign when the title is done before the image! )

Glad to see you here, you are a core dude.. very giving and hard working for the community and many of us appreciate your work like crazy...
<edit - added image - finally - I didn't wanna start a new thread or post later in this one - cause that's not what this ones about I guess... here you go my friend - 2 cars you posted and that excellent parachute by AndyC>

Shaun Tennant

Coen,
I made the counter sticky with orange juice this morning - I digress, anyways why would we make this sticky then? would that be because I mention that I would offer my goods? or that people should remove thier attachements? I am just confused - I also don't want to cause controversy more than I have already and I am not too sure about making threads sticky either - don't want to junk up the forum.

Shaun Tennant

Tom,
I have fixed the link in the first post and the post mentioned in there is definitely worth a read.. somehow I always get myself into controversy!
Nice to know what you all look like! I'm beginning to really like it here. Good beard action Tom!

Shaun Tennant

Hey all
I just posted this on the dead forum.. http://forum.sketchup.com/showthread.php?t=81396 If anyone wants anything from me -please feel free to ask. I have some killer industrial kitchen pieces I just finished... some furniture - some of you know I'm about a year old at this - so y'know.. I won't firkin's or RonS this place up or anything, but if you like - PM me or emal..

Or you can call me - my number is 4 and I live in Canada!

Shaun Tennant

Coen,
Everytime I come back to check things out - you have made things better than I could have thought. That new front page, icons and descriptions are great. I don't know how you are going to make this any better, but I know you and I think you already have something else cooked up, another way to serve the SU community. You rock brother!

Shaun Tennant

I've always wondered and this is feeling pretty special - I can't get over the improvement... I love being able to see all the posts that I haven't read at a single click, and pictures of everyone.. also I'd have to say that from the member list, it looks to be about 80% people I know just from the name, and it could even be more so.

Cheers to Coen
Cheers to all' y'all!
Have a great day friends

Shaun Tennant