United3dArtists Archive

After being offline for a few months, I came back fresh, and now have to re-orient. But with no ties (well, other than you guys here which is why my first post is here). So now.... should I upgrade to Windows 8.1? I read many negatives, but that's always the case with new systems. I like that it's geared for 3D printing which is important for me, but... what's cool abt it? What sucks? Do I have to be on the net to use it, or can I disconnect and it works fine? The start screen needs getting used to, but in general, give me your thoughts?

What's this Photoshop 'CC' b.s. ? I don't want to be on an open cloud, I don't want to subscribe, I just want to buy a paint/photo/draw software.
What's the best free software that does the basics of Photoshop/Painter?

In 3D, this being my core interest, I would say Blender is a must have. It's free, it does great work in the whole spectrum of 3D needs, and is actively being developed. (and, it seems my email had an effect ; they're seriously thinking abt changing the UI. I told them to take a good look at trueSpace btw)
Now there's a bunch of others that do specific tasks well (3D Coat, Sculptris, zbrush, etc) but to answer the thread, I'd say Blender is it. No matter what the minor drawbacks, for someone starting from scratch trying to enter the 3D field... learn Blender. It's free, powerful content creator, and improving. Maya and the others can keep their dongles, and subscriptions, enormous price tags, and pocket-bleeding add-ons.

How abt ... video card memory? Does it really matter if you have 1,2, or 4 GB of memory on them? For normal usage it shouldn't be a big deal, but what the heck is 4GB good for? I'm talkin' real world experience, heavy duty usage. The only data I can find is using game testing, and there was hardly any difference between 2 and 4 GB, using the same video card (nvidia GTX 760). Surely not 'twice as better' so in what function specifically would 4GB shine? Anybody have experience with this?

Well quite frankly I'd look up all my old software to begin with. Heh. Hardware wise I'd go for an i7 3770K, GTX 690, 2TB HDD, 500GB SSD and load it all up with Win 7.

Then I'd start with looking up programs I know work, so that would be:

trueSpace 7.61
GIMP (latest version)
IrfanView (I often forget how I cannot go without this program)
SpeedFan

Others would be Audacity, VLC, FireFox, Adobe After Effects and Rainmeter.

That being said, I'd love to give Modo a try again some time.

Cool Mikom. Thanks for the reply.

GIMP & Irfanview; will look that up now.
I tend to use Firefox browser myself. Just appreciate anyone trying to be independent. And yeah Audacity for sound.
Any particular reason for 3770 over 4770 other than price? And why stop at GTX 690 for video card? Why not higher, or lower (heard lotta good abt the 660Ti)?
And why Modo modeling software in particular?

No particular reason for those hardware specs. I was just thinking of something in the price-range of my current PC.

As for Modo, it's said to be one of the best modeling tools for professionals. I've tried it out some before, found it a bit funky. To specific tools and to little trueSpacy-ness if you know what I mean

horse hair brush
cheese and crackers
100 tubes of acrylic

assorted classical music cd's

open bay window

distant chimes

Well I have already started off my year. My graduation present to my self was a AMD FX Black 8350 8 core/8GB ram/ GTX 660 OC and a WD VelociRaptor HDD. Runs like a charm. Lovely to see 8 render lines in TS.

Software...
I am stuck with TS, but I want to get in to Blender, because of all the add-ins it has.
I am also playing with Hit Film 2 for some post production stuff.
I also have Bryce 7.0 Pro, nice little program as well all know.

Same software. No new to learn so more time to search ideas.

Me too RJeff. New system if I can afford it (here).

TS is still great but I'm beginning to feel limited especially since I want to try animation and architectural/product rendering. Since I have little else for CG I sort of am starting over.

I have no problem with the big boys other than the price tag. I'd try their demos if I could afford such things as toys and see if any were worth it. But I need the free and cheap options. As you wrote, "with economics the constant".

- Blender. I'm certainly getting that soon.
- Bryce
- Terragen if it is free or cheap
- Ivy Generator (Make Ivy?)
- Plant Studio and other free or cheap plant generators
- Sculptris
- Paint Shop (maybe Gimp if I didn't have PS)
- Daz if I had plenty of time to learn to model normal clothes. Make people for architectural rendering and such.
- Messiah Studio. I got this on a super deal ($40) they had but I might not take time to learn it (notoriously difficult but powerful) due to the documentation, support, and setuptab forum not being that great and my inability to ever upgrade it unless there is another super deal.

If I had money:
- Modo
- Vue
- Maybe Plant Factory
- Still get Blender and plenty of free and cheap things too.

Also, make what James said real. Draw, paint, write, create in traditional media. Unplug a little. More hiking. More visiting family and friends in person.

Note: Blender Cycles does not like OpenCL (AMD's gpu's). It likes Nvidia Cuda.

Funny you should mention that James. A few months back my computer fell apart. So no internet, and... no computer at all. I took the opportunity to totally disconnect digitally all this time. Very interesting experience; many talk/lament abt it, but nobody really can anymore. Anyway, having 'nothing to do', I ... Drew! Like for real. I stayed to add some details instead of the usual '10 second sketch then go into tS, Blender or zbrush and start working it out. It may seem a trite thing to some but for me it was like an epiphany. I have really forgot abt actual drawing, 3D/digital is so more efficient(?), effective, and totally liberating for an oil painter like me. I also dug around (since I 'couldn't get any work done now' ) and discovered the last paintings I was working on, my brushes, my oils... I almost cried because of the joyous memories.
So in short... I agree Marcel, and, I feel ya James.

The reasons I started this thread is that now that I'm back online, I am totally starting fresh (now when I go online I feel like the man who just came down from the mountain, into 'civilization' ), and also I see Finis is looking to upgrade, so the question just came to me.

Finis, don't know how much foliage stuff you're trying to do but Blender has an ivy generator installed.

Checking out Gimp. If I can create a painting with it, then its fine and I'm good to go with a paint program.

* Finis thanks for the tip abt AMD/Cuda.

I think because of Cuda, and not knowing if its possible to have it work at less than full bore, my computer died.

Finis, Ivy Gen is a nice program. It can take a bit to get used to IVY placement, and getting the settings just right, but it has a small learning curve, and it can have some nice results. I would look into getting some other ivy leaf textures as the ones provided are a bit washed.

@Rjeff: Did this with Ivy Gen vi ... f=6&t=3793.
@Dragneye: I'll try that generator in Blender. I'll get a cuda based gpu when I can afford one someday unless Cycles gets opencl compatible. Then shop both types.

Finnis if you go to newegg.com you can get awesome prices on CPU components. I got my GTX 660OC for 180 bucks there.

Question: OverClock makes the video card run hotter, right? Has anyone noticed if it cuts life length?

Also, anyone know any real-world instances where having 4gb of memory on a video card rather than 1 or 2 has actually been shown to be better?

Yes OCing the video card and reduce life, but I am not sure by how much.

The only way I see getting the benefit of more memory is if the program is wrote to handle it.
Of course the more memory the better the card can handle pushing polys.

Check out some of the 4grand Quadro video cards.

The most important task for a new computer and 2014 is downloading Skype we are missing you Drew !
Peter

PETER! Hey buddy!
Got ya abt Skype.

Happy New Year to all!


So, I was hoping to get any sort of input from you guys abt the question
"Where's the advantage in getting a video card with 4GB of RAM versus the regular 1 or so."
I recently was able to check a scene to compare frame rates.

Here's one of the things I was working on before the computer died. On my machine, quad core, nVidia GTX 240 video card, 64 bit 2.8 Ghz, the best frame rate I could get when previewing the animation... on Layer 1, no Cycles render... was around 6 fps.
In Layer 2 which is a stripped down version of Layer 1, same specs, 24fps was no problem.
Now on my friend's machine, AMD FX 8350 8 core processor, 16 GB RAM, GTX 760 4GB memory, 64 bit, 4.0 Ghz... Layer 1 gets abt 8 fps, with Layer 2 again no problem at any frame rate.
I thought that I would see an improvement in realtime frame rates, but 8 fps is no where near 24 fps.
So still stumped.
Or maybe his rig is not optimized.
Any input?

I have a i7 3770k which is 3.5ghz IF I had something like a 760 it would be a decent setup for GPU rendering , sadly I have a 1gb Quadro 600 which is awful lol, I'm still a Thea user which now uses Embree, so GPU+CPU is lightening fast
Worth a mention the Thea4Blender plugin is now free, its open source as well so maybe some clever python developer could make something for TS

If I was just starting out it would be Sketchup, Thea, Gimp

nigec wrote:I have a i7 3770k which is 3.5ghz IF I had something like a 760 it would be a decent setup for GPU rendering , sadly I have a 1gb Quadro 600 which is awful lol, I'm still a Thea user which now uses Embree, so GPU+CPU is lightening fast
Worth a mention the Thea4Blender plugin is now free, its open source as well so maybe some clever python developer could make something for TS

If I was just starting out it would be Sketchup, Thea, Gimp

If I were starting out it were Moi3d ..Sketchup... Silo... Thea .. Gimp ...Lightroom and Vue....and Camerabag 2 (from the Silo people for 2d)
and I´d ad Blender and sculptris too ... thats about all you will need in a long run anyways.....
All in all less the 2000 $ altogether for 2d and 3d....
if you ad video......something like adobe premiere essentials...
putting hundreds of programs on the computer and adding trash doesnt make any sense....
Keep it down to the basics..
Peter

I have the learning versions of Maya and Max also Blender, C4D, sculptris, TS7.6,After effects cs2, photoshop cs2, illustrator cs2, Flash CS3, Shader Map pro, Gimp, Sketchup, Thea, I just binned Carrara 8 and Daz Studio, Smak
There's only Flash CS3, Shader Map pro, Gimp, Sketchup, Thea that I use regularly, I want to get better at C4D but never have time
All I do these days is beta test or programing

Nigec, your i7 sounds better than I had.
Dunno. Really expected a better outcome for that .blend file. Have to bribe him for more airtime with his puter to see where the advantage may be with a better card.
Now I'm curious. As I understand it, the advantage of having more gb memory on the video card is that as the info is cycling through, it has a bigger 'cache' space (ie: bucket) so it doesn't 'fill up' (thus creating a hiccup in the frame rate) as quickly as a card with less memory.
(how fast it's frame rate is is another issue)
So, if my assumption is correct, then... why so little difference in frame rates between the two computers? Anybody?
Yeah... need more airtime.

I agree Peter. Though the concept of 'use the best tool for the job' is sound, my brain is swamped and memory... worsening, so keeping the workflow inventory small is the only way to go for me.

Just guessing on the frame rate: If both cards, or neither card, is pushed beyond its on-board ability then I'd expect similar performance. But, if the test requires resources above the on-board ability of one card and within the range of the other then there should be an observable difference. That is, maybe the big card's advantage is in handling bigger or more difficult renders so there would be little difference when a test is within the ability of both cards.

How would you finish 2014 ? That is the question.

With Style.

marcel... one has to start, before they can finish.
Now, any input with what we're talking about?
You do some nice work and have definitely put in some 'rendering time'. Any input?

Good point Finis.
I would think, for whatever reason Layer 1 bogs down, its due to an issue with processing power (it has a ton of more info than Layer 2). I should have seen a bigger difference.

^5 @ Draise.

Dragneye ecrit
'If you had to start anew today, with an artist's (what I dub 'creators' ) needs as the guiding principle,
and 'economics' the constraint, what would be in your inventory?'
Mig welder and lots of scrap steel. About £150 second hand and £100 ton. I'd have to throw out the wife and kids and make the homestead into a welding shop but i reckon that's where the ART cutting edge is these days.

Hey Saul. Long time.
Um, (very cool you are taking it literal with a wider scope btw) so you'd start with a welder? Any 3D? How abt designing an addition to the homestead instead of throwin out the wife?
I think there's at least one other guy on here that would probably agree with ya about the welding. (waves at Doug)


PS: Been using Gimp and adjusting a lil. Also having problem it reading my tablet. Any guesses?

No Drew he is not starting out with the welder...he is starting out
with throwing out the wife !

I trust there's room for the plasma cutter.
Hope he's not too attached to the dog, those things need space.

Dragneye wrote:After being offline for a few months, I came back fresh, and now have to re-orient. But with no ties (well, other than you guys here which is why my first post is here). So now.... should I upgrade to Windows 8.1? I read many negatives, but that's always the case with new systems. I like that it's geared for 3D printing which is important for me, but... what's cool abt it? What sucks? Do I have to be on the net to use it, or can I disconnect and it works fine? The start screen needs getting used to, but in general, give me your thoughts?

I use 8.1 and prefer it over windoes 7 and 8 hands down. My only trouble is the sound system, and the lack of drivers it has for it... so had trouble with sound - but that is no biggie. The rest is fine (if it works in 7, will work in 8 or 8.1). I have had some errors, but that is mainly due to my computer, but it runs well and fast - better than my windows 7, takes forever to run and load on the same hardware. What's cool about 8.1 is the better tile system and putting your background into the tile system also. I do like the tile system to search for apps. It's search engine is also handy, sometimes replacing my default browser searches - but it's a hard habit to change! You don't have to be on the internet to use it - the search feature will search what you have nicely. I find the explorer search also fast. My only and other quipe I've found is the network troubleshooting in 8.1 and 8 to be insufficient compaired to 7. W7 is much better at fixing network errors. If I could get 8.1 on all my computers at work - I would thought.

Dragneye wrote: What's this Photoshop 'CC' b.s. ? I don't want to be on an open cloud, I don't want to subscribe, I just want to buy a paint/photo/draw software.
What's the best free software that does the basics of Photoshop/Painter?

I use Gimp, or Paint.net. Paint.net is like a super version of MS Paint, but GIMP does what Photoshop does, albeit much slower but equally as powerful.

Dragneye wrote: In 3D, this being my core interest, I would say Blender is a must have. It's free, it does great work in the whole spectrum of 3D needs, and is actively being developed. (and, it seems my email had an effect ; they're seriously thinking abt changing the UI. I told them to take a good look at trueSpace btw)

Now there's a bunch of others that do specific tasks well (3D Coat, Sculptris, zbrush, etc) but to answer the thread, I'd say Blender is it. No matter what the minor drawbacks, for someone starting from scratch trying to enter the 3D field... learn Blender. It's free, powerful content creator, and improving. Maya and the others can keep their dongles, and subscriptions, enormous price tags, and pocket-bleeding add-ons.

Blender will be stable as version 2.69 for some time.. but the next version - I think - will have an interface revamp and improvement. But it is a more than capable software - though I have not used it much. It is my UV tool, my texture painting tool and soon to be sculpting/modeling tool also. I stick to TS for modeling as it's the quickest for me - and I enjoy it's viewport immensely. I may have to learn Maya eventually for work opportunity. I'd invest in Blender or other upcoming software at good prices. I hear Modo 701 or the upcoming 801 will be something to keep an eye on for industry based software. If you are freelancing or doing your own thing, it doesn't matter what you use, the final product is what counts. I use Softimage personally for production - a good mix between any major animation package and Houdini.

Dragneye wrote: How abt ... video card memory? Does it really matter if you have 1,2, or 4 GB of memory on them? For normal usage it shouldn't be a big deal, but what the heck is 4GB good for? I'm talkin' real world experience, heavy duty usage. The only data I can find is using game testing, and there was hardly any difference between 2 and 4 GB, using the same video card (nvidia GTX 760). Surely not 'twice as better' so in what function specifically would 4GB shine? Anybody have experience with this?

As mentioned in this thread, it is usually how many cores you have, at what speed they run, how many Memory threads you have, what spead they run - then how much vram you have to hold it all. But some cards may have more vram than others, but the gpu clock speads and the memory speeds are slow and thus a card with less vram will leave it in the dust.


My favorites for price would be the GTX 690 or the GTX 790TI - but the price tag is around a grand:

Because it's like a "dual-core" card (GTX690), it's still comparable to the new cards, 790 and Titan cards and for much cheaper... albeit still pricey. The 790TI is cheap for what it is, and still can compare to a Titan.

The GTX 760:
GTX 760 GPU Engine Specs:
1152CUDA Cores - kinda important - for different calculations
980Base Clock (MHz) - important, if you don't have many cores
1033Boost Clock (MHz) - will also depend on your power supplow
94.1Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) - very important!!!!!! The higher, the better - more textures, more beautiful

GTX 760 Memory Specs:
6.0 GbpsMemory Speed
2048 MBStandard Memory Config - kinda important to load large cache into Vram to render things larger - but not necessary for smaller work)
GDDR5Memory Interface
256-bitMemory Interface Width - semi important - the newer cards run at 386bits - which obviously is better)
192.2Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) - most important of all - this will influence your frame rate overall and how much you can chew using the GPU

Overall - you can get an equally awesome card for cheaper if you know it's numbers. The GTX 790TI is somewhat better than the Titan, and a good 200-300 dollars cheaper. The GTX 770 is also a great bet for your price range, cost similar to the GTX 760, but much better - just a couple more hours at work and it will pay off big time.

I got a card with a high GPU count (first of it's kind to have more than 1000 GPU's, with Opencl though.. sadly... most GPU render engines run only on cuda.. bummer. I think Cycles in Blender doesn't really matter?) and a high memory bandwidth - but not much VRAM. Run almost every game at near high settings - maybe not at HD 1080px - but it works - considering I only run a dual core machine with this card.

I would start this year with better marketing strategies and collaboration and clear vision on what I want to do, how I want to do it, and how I can sell it. My last year did not have this - so it did not go down well. Best of luck with your new year.

Happy New Year Draise!

... BIG hug!
THAT's what Ima talkin abt. Replies with details shared so we can each pull out kernels of info as needed.
Thanks man.

Have to run but will have to come back and digest what you wrote but stopped to say...
^5 bud.

I think Windows 8.1 is ok. When he starts his puter its a cool thing to see. It just... starts and is ready whereas my Vista would give me time to have a cup of coffee before I could do anything. But Vista was steady; 8.1 is just going thru growing pains imho. I did find that the game Supreme Commander (the only puter game I bother with at all) does not play on 8. Also my Painter X won't boot and, Corel tells me they don't support it anymore (why I was looking for a change). So GIMP is here to stay for me. It seems a bit cumbersome but I'll blame me for that until I can see what it can do. Did my first quick sketch and I see it can paint ok (it was an alien vista )

Draise, since you do animation, would love to hear your thoughts on how Blender holds up against Softimage. Though still in the learning phase, I found Blender animation tools to work quite well and steady, and Softimage is known in the industry as a good animation tool.

Now to the meat.
The amount of Cuda cores, clock speed, and specifically texture fill rate as you say, led me to think that the 760 would shine bright over what I had. But when I played the file, the difference in frame rate was basically nil. (ps: go for the GTX 770 instead of 760. I've stopped looking at prices now but remember when I last looked, Titan was good but after 770, the prices were too much )
My thinking is, playing the animation in the preview window for example is the same as frame rate requirements for video games. Is that right? If so, how come my test file sees no improvement? (didn't mention memory speed because that is included in my view here; faster is better). I didn't try to clean up or improve the file since I wanted to compare oranges to oranges.

Hmm... would you guys like me to share the file? That way we can all start from the same point and I can see what others results are. Maybe his puter isn't set up right, maybe I'm missing something basic, maybe, I dunno.
Technical is not me, but technical is who I need to be
Any takers?
Blender file - abt 25mb - the animation I was working on in my WIP thread