Raptors stuff.

Hey Raptor. Just noticed this, been out of the loop for a bit. GREAT WORK!!!!

The details are amazing. Texturing is top notch. Compositing really works too. I'm always inspired by your work and you've done it again. :beer:

BTW - What's the poly count on that model, before displacement? Looks like a lot. C4D must be a real work-horse.
 
Hey Tower. Haven't seen you around in a while. Hope your still animating.

There are 2 states of the ship:

Undamaged Ship:
memory = 38meg
256,238 polys

Damaged Ship:
memory = 130meg
1,141,760 polys

The damaged ship had specific textures because I needed to burn/blacken some areas of the parts.

I also had to dent and bang up some parts so I converted the (hypernurbs)smoothing into the mesh so I could manipulate with finer detail.
So that gave a higher poly count.
Also, I think I made some of the meshes with smoothers editable to help speed up rendering times.

And in both cases there may have been a duplicate part or two for backups, that were turned off. But it should be pretty close to accurate.

Also, all of the scenes were rendered at the RenderTitan render farm.
 
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good work, you have access to a renderfarm! way cool

Mark set up the render farm account for Fat Monster projects so I had access to it for that project.

But after having used it, I'd like to set up my own down the road.
It's a must have for those lenghty renders.
 
Raptor - does a render farm help with C4d just running out of memory after a while? I have a rather large project composed mostly of other peoples cad files and some bubbles that flow through all the parts that just dies every time at a certain frame. I was able to kill the bubbles off and get a decent enough effect out of after effects to save my butt this time, but wasnt sure if a render farm would've alleviated this problem.

Thanks!

Jeff
 
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A render farm is one of those things that 3D artists can only dream about. Sweet!!!

I tried to download "O2" but it's not on either of the TimeFest download pages. Was it removed because it might be bought? Looks like working with Mark and the gang could be a great opportunity for the future for you Raptor. Keep it up!!

I've had a bunch of video conversion projects come up lately so haven't been animating much. There's no more boring video job that transfering other people's home videos to disc. I think I'd be a winner if dvxuser ever had a SnoozeFest. I'm going to start turning this stuff down so I can go back to doing something fun.
 
I don't know why 02 is missing. It may have something to do with their talks with Warner Bros or maybe it's just misplaced. I'll shout back when I find out.

The render farm we used (RenderTitan) costs $250 for 1000 credits. A credit being 25c per ghz hour. Your only charged for the rendering time you use, the remaining credits you can use later at any time.

An example of what it costs, the first render I did was the shot from the rear of the damaged ship as the nose comes up. It was twice as long as what was used in the video, but the entire shot rendered in under an hour and costs $7.

Pretty fast, pretty cheap. I think there were 144 frames for that one and on my computer it was 20min per frame to render. So 7$ to render it was a huge bargain.

At least your making money using the PC which at least beats shoveling dirt in the rain, so it could be worse. :)
 
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Talking `bout render farming, here is my "home farm".

5 Servers - each one emploing 4 Xeons
and the 4 drums on top "that look like Star Wars Power Units"
are Core 2 Quad render slaves.

In the rack is my new Workstation Core 2 Quad.

Pretty fast beast.

In the summer I got about 102f in my little studio - when I start the whole shabang it gets almost unbearable hot.

In the moment we have a heavy thonder storm with hail and all - thanks good it cools down a bit after a week with much over 100f

Frank

P.S. err.. sorry about the mess - I re-organize the whole room in the moment.
Get rid of some stuff - can´t bareley move in here.
 

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hot damn! (literally)

how much that set you back?

I've though manya time to set up a render farm, just don't have enough of the the green stuff...
 
I am still trying to figure out how all this computer gear incorporates in your lifestyle Frank :D
 
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@Anhar: it set me waaaaay back.

@ Simon - don´t we all have a dark side in our personality? :evil:

Frank
 
Raptor - does a render farm help with C4d just running out of memory after a while? I have a rather large project composed mostly of other peoples cad files and some bubbles that flow through all the parts that just dies every time at a certain frame. I was able to kill the bubbles off and get a decent enough effect out of after effects to save my butt this time, but wasnt sure if a render farm would've alleviated this problem.

Thanks!

Jeff

It probably would but I cant say for sure. I think RenderTitan has the high end gear and are up to date. You could send them a question and I'm sure they'd be happy to reply.
http://www.rendertitan.com/

Ive asked the support staff a few questions when I was doing my first couple renders and they responded in detail within 10 minutes. And this was at like 3am, 5am, ect. Very friendly staff.
---------

Postmaster:

Damn that setup looks sweet. Maybe invest in a dedicated air conditioner and a dedicated room/closet area to keep those babies cooking away.
 
Thanks Raptor.

I´m giving the 5 PROLIANT servers away for free if anyone is intrested - plus throwing in a shopping bag full of Xeons too.

Am I nuts?

No, the tower looks more spectacular as it is.
The servers are about 7 years or so old and one of the new quad render-slaves blows the whole tower out of the water (render-power wise).

Nevertheless those are fine machines that sold for 12000 - 19000 bucks when new.

Frank
 
Thanks Raptor.

I´m giving the 5 PROLIANT servers away for free if anyone is intrested - plus throwing in a shopping bag full of Xeons too.

Am I nuts?

No, the tower looks more spectacular as it is.
The servers are about 7 years or so old and one of the new quad render-slaves blows the whole tower out of the water (render-power wise).

Nevertheless those are fine machines that sold for 12000 - 19000 bucks when new.

Frank

First....
PM sent.
 
You know I live in Germany.

You get them for free, but the shipping will kill you.
Those are heavy beasts in 19 ich housings, about 70 lbs each.

I don´t think they are worth it for rendering.
If you want to use them as servers they would work great cause they have all that nifty high end server cards and all in there
3 redundant hot swap power units hot swap SCSI disks andwhatnot.

But as I sayd - one modern quad blows the whole tower away.

Frank
 
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If shipping costs were to outweigh the benefit for me, may I suggest you contact Simon or maybe Capser (in my sig below). He could maybe put them to good use.

There are also a couple other members from Germany that were in the last fest and the one before that would be appreciative maybe.
 
For the shipping to Belleville you can buy some much faster computers.

It´s hard for me, but I have to face it - they are nothing like boat anchors today.

That´s why I give em away - but probably I have to throw em away.

Computers loosing value even faster than cars.

Frank
 
Well if you have any old sound gear, I know a guy that collects the stuff. The old reel to reels and automated mixers and what have you.

Speaking of antiquated equipment, I used to have old, not vintage, keyboards that I'd pay 3K for and within two years they were worth $500. It was a real problem trying to stay updated.

The vintage stuff went up in price and the old keyboards I could buy for, I swear, $50 for a Rhodes around 84ish in a used music store, now go for 3K in any condition. Wurlitzer pianos ( I paid $800 new around 79), and Leslies, which I also owned....forget about it.

I dream (really, in my sleep) of having my old keys back.
But, I digress...:)
 
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