Thank you for the replies. Your help is very much apprechiated.
This is how far I got:

CPU- Intel Core i7 870
Motherboard- Asus P7P55D LE
Graphics card- Asus GeForce GTS250, 1GB, GDDR3
RAM- OCZ 6GB, DDR3, 1333MHz, CL9, Kit Of 3, Gold
HDD- Western Digital 640GB 7200RPM 16MB Caviar SE16 + Intel X25-V SATA SSD 40GB 2.5" MLC
PSU- Corsair 550W 12CM ATX12V2.2 80+
Case- Antec THREE-HUNDRED
Acer H233HEBMID, 23" monitor

When including the OS, the PC fits perfectly into my budget, but I wonder if I haven't overdone with the RAM, and can anyone tell how good would the HDD+SSD combo come along? Would the 550w PSU be good enough?

Hey!

I'm an architecture student who wants to make his way in the CG scene and I'm in a need of a new computer on a 1300$ budget(excluding the monitor) and as I mostly use my PC for sketchup, Autocad, 3ds max and photoshop I wonder if it's worth paying the extra buck to buy an entry level workstation card like Nvidia Quadro FX 580 or rather spend more on the rest and buy a cheaper Geforce series card instead. In which case would I benefit more performance wise in these applications? By the way I don't play any games.

I don't remember the full story behind this, but for those who did't know- he is acting. This video was made to parody efforts in Germany to make public policies against computer and video gaming followed after two massacres at two different schools. In the end, the video backfired and he has become one of the internet legends. But yeah, very hilarious

There is a fierce battle of the pixels going on that takes away my attention from the animtion

I was talking about a plugin that allows you to specify the viewport resolution in SketchUp.

Nice detail!

I would sugest you to keep the source aspect ratio when rendering the video to lose the black bars(or in this case white bars at the top and the bottom. When I'm making a video I usually try to make the viewport at a 16:9 aspect ratio, so I wouldn't have to crop something off later. I think there even was a plugin to do this.

looks interesting but unfortunately not all textures from your scene loded corectly and this is what I got

great model! I think the renders could gain much from better sky imges and It seems that the world ends right about behind the trees. The cutout people should be made as componensts with "face camera" sssigned to them. There are some very good sky images at cgtextures.com

EDIT: I just noticed the LIDO sign on the door. Such a lovly place that serves latvian national food and great design also. I heard that the owner of this franchise supports only hand drawn draftings and no CG stuff what so ever, times change probably... Is this by any chance going to be located in Lithuania? Would love to hear some detail about the project.

Sveiks Aidus !

I see your point. Had such a question from someone just today when I gave in my work, but most of peaple liked it, so I don't care

Rendered with Vray, PP with photoshop

Thanks for the coments!

I hadn't tried to use cutout people before, so I'm still on the way to figure how they look best. For these scenes I wanted them to be there but also merge with the background a bit with the semi-transparency.

Hey!

I have been working on my school project for the past few months and finaly it's done. The assingnment was more oriented around the draftings but as I had a lot time on my hands I figured to go further

I have the same kind of mouse. At first I was very shocked about the scrool wheel and slightly angry that I will not be able to pan around as I used to in the good old days but now it seems OK. It's easyer to click and hold it now as I don't have to put so much pressure in comparison with my old mouse. This one is very bad for gaming but overall I'm very pleased with it.

Boosted up my productivity as I haven't played any games since semptember because of it

@robert111 said:

nektares but how do Zdepht map in Chanal in photoshop , i dont know that
can you make picture to explain how do add zdepht map in chanal in photoshop
thanks nektares

There is a great video from asgvis on youtube comparing Depth of Field vs. D-Depth. There you will find how to use the zdepht map.

Got 26939 with the fifth time and always getting at least 20k. Going for 30k right now

@cmoreink said:

@speaker said:

At a momemt I wanted to go more to a silent hill kind of look, but the scene was starting to look too damn depresing, so I made it a little bit more positive with the bamboo.
Maybe if I put a siluet of a man reaching for the bamboo would look interesting, or any other kind of life form...

I woudl like to see a bug or an insect or some sort of animal

Sci-fi or something ordinary? How about a thousand of those?

At a momemt I wanted to go more to a silent hill kind of look, but the scene was starting to look too damn depresing, so I made it a little bit more positive with the bamboo.
Maybe if I put a siluet of a man reaching for the bamboo would look interesting, or any other kind of life form...

Thanks! This is what I get every time I want myselfe a new desktop background

The plant is a tiny bamboo that has spread its roots through the layers of reinforced concrete (I guess it could be from Chernobyl naturally) Beware of mutant raging panda bears

edit: Rendered with v-ray. And the god rays are made with PS.

Just having some fun texturing

Excellent model! Love it