[worldofmaya_vb]

wolf wrote:

why do you need a 27K background ?
more manageable size ? what version of inferno are you running ?

At the end it will be a little bit lower than 27k. I though about using multiple Projections with 4k each… 3 projection should be enough reoslution.
I’m running here inferno 5 on an onyx2ir system. The main disadvange about this system is that it only has 1GB of RAM… the discreet guy said it should be 512 Mb per CPU, better 1GB… I have to break more complex composites into smaller parts…
-klaus

[worldofmaya_vb]

wolf wrote:

i did a shot last year that used a fairly large bg image and i don t think
it was nearly as big as what you have in mind.

Thanks for the tip, something similar was the setup I was thinking about. I use a modified plane with an displacement(a painted depth pass). This should add realismn. The main problem with this method is the memory… I hoped there exist some more advanced setups.
-Klaus

[worldofmaya_vb]

jazzman121 wrote:

just image screenshots would do.. thanks

have a look at:
http://www4.discreet.com/files/flame/effects_brochure.pdf
page 4
There was a better one sometimes back… but I can’t find it!
Why you’re interested in an screen shot?
-Klaus

[worldofmaya_vb]

I forgot to add that the inferno machine has a really limited memory, perhaps some tips about hot to save memory would be cool too 🙂
-Klaus

[worldofmaya_vb]

vks3d wrote:

the major reason behind it is that my university has sgi octane and origin workstations.

Hi there!
You could get an educational license for your university… the good thing is it doesn’t costs that much… the bad thing… it’s a lot if it’s only for university and “just for fun”. if you only have octanes than you would have to go with flame. You would also need a frame store and of course you would need some kind of infrasracture… like camera / tape drive and so on. Otherwise the only chance to get data into flame would be image sequences…
From my point of view I, would say costs are much here than you would have from this… I would start with After Effects, combustion (for both AE and comb there’s an demo version) or shake. You could get one production ready shake workstation for the price which you would have to pay for the educational license. And for most of the work you’ll be happy with it!
-Klaus

[worldofmaya_vb]

zolo wrote:

“The Xeon is still our choice for content creation and artist types, despite the fact that its once dominant stranglehold on our benchmark suite is now cracking, the Xeon is still a dynamite chip for heavy multi-taskers.”
-zolo

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~96831,00.html
I think the money is what counts… if you want a Xeon system I would wait for new chipsets!
About using different OS with maya… the floating license costs more and doesn’t help if you just need one. The thing with different OS you could use when using floating licenses is pretty nice especially if you use Win and Linux…
-Klaus

[worldofmaya_vb]

zigfil wrote:

How much RAM is enough??? 1 or 2 GB?? Hard disk?? Graphic card?? an so on…

If you just wanna have one processor, I would go with an Intel, otherwise I would take a Opteron system. The problem right now is, how fast 64 bit will be an advandage. Operon system seam to be quit fast and Intel isn’t that cheap. Some of the software have special optimizations for Intel/AMD.
As graphic card I would use a NVidia Gerforce card. ATI and Maya isn’t the best combination… there were a lot of troubles in the past. There’s allways a little war if someone posts ATI or NVida is the better choice. From my experience NVidia doesn’t make much trouble if you use the right driver version. And of course if you’Re system doesn’t make trouble, don’t change something…
2GB of RAM is enough… more doesn’t make much sense now. You should buy at least two harddisks… one for system and one for data.
About the renderslave setup, if you buy maya for your sgi and mental ray standalone for your PC you can use an SGI and render everything even previews directly in maya. Only problem, this costs a lot… you now get with maya 6.5 complete 2 (8 with unlimited) satellite rendering licenses… but this only works as far as I know on one platform. So if you have a windows license you have to use a windows pc as second or third renderslave… this is what I’ve heard at the 6.5 presentation, I don’t use it so perhaps someone has newer infos about that.
-Klaus

[worldofmaya_vb]

zigfil wrote:

Also, the SG O2 has installed the piranha hd ¿4.0? (i don’t remember the version).. but i can’t find a place on the internet (or outside) where i can learn about this software.. or any tutorials either..

You can find out more on:
interactiveFX
I don’t think that you’ll find a lot of tutorials about that program. You mostly get access to such compositing apps only with you allready have done compositing. But a good manual should be part of such a software.

about Maya…
The main problem with O2 and and Maya is the missing 3D performance. And a the end when you’re doing render jobs, the processor can’t be compared to something that is common right now on Windows systems. have a look at the Maya Test Center at Highend3d… the first SGI system is at the end of the list an Onyx2 with 4 600 MHz CPUs. You can’t compare a Onyx with an O2, the interactive speed is miles faster than that of an O2 (and it costs a lot more).
I had a couple of O2s to maintain, now I use one for exchanging data and as a simple web server. The performance is really weak. Perhaps it’s enough for the beginning, but if you wanna create complex scenes, dynamic simulation and render images for example with global illumination or other processor intensive techniques, you will work much faster with an simple windows box and one of the NVidia or ATI gaming cards. You could also use Linux on an Intel/AMD box if Unix was why you’ve taken the O2.
If you’re an artist and don’t want to have to do much with hardware, perhaps Apple is an option. The only weak point are graphiccards there, but people say that it’s much easier to work with them than on a Windows system. I would recommend Windows because there’re much more programs, but only for Maya and perhaps Photoshop, an Apple could be enough.
Anyway, if you already have your O2 and you bought a Maya version, I would go with it as long as it isn’t too slow for the things you do. But if you wanna buy Maya should have in mind that you have to pay if you change your license from your O2/Irix to Windows or something else!
-Klaus

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