#Coming back(Need advice)
4 messages in this thread
Hi,
I am coming to 3D Studio and Animator after a hiatus of nearly two years. The
new company I work for now wants to get into this area and of course I have ben
assigned the task of putting it all together!
I know I want to buy 3D Studio, Animator Pro (1.3 is the last version I used
and I just learned that there is something called Animator Studio) and a paint
program like Adobe Photoshop. Perhaps I don;t need the latter because I hear
Animator is now 24 bit color.
Also we are mostly going to do 8 bit flics plus a few 24 bit still images.
What is the best graphics card I can get that will support all this and
windows? We are not going to get too much hardware initially, maybe just the
graphics card. (We are not going to do image capture and we can send out to
tape using a service bureau.
So anything you can tell me will me appreciated, including must have hardware,
names of dealers who can sell me this stuff at a good price. Roger, Mike B. I
know you are out there!
Anil Gupte
Howdy.
One of my systems is my "inexpensive" system; I do a lot of preview work on it.
It really works well for me, it might work well for you, too.
The system is a Digital Venturus 575 with 32mb of RAM (about $2500.00) and a
Mars 1 from Daewoo (about $999). Does a very good job of previewing, etc…
Very fast, and very upgradable.
For about $650 more, you can get a Mars II or PAR card and do broadcast-quality
video…and the prices just go up from there…but I really like the system.
A good editing deck for small-production work is the Sanyo GVR-S950 (about
$2450).
Just my thoughts…BJARTIG0@WCC.COM
I'd say you still want Animator Pro and Photoshop, but you might not really
need Animator Studio, from your needs description. If you're going to be going
to tape a lot, I'd suggest you look at the PAR (you may be able to pick up a
used one soon, as the new PVR model is just coming out) and give up doing
flics.
The PAR is an adapter card that uses it's own separate hard disk as a digital
VCR that can play-back in real time. There are some info documents in the
libraries here. In addition to saving you the hassle of putting your flics to
a tape/catridge medium to transport to a cervice bureau and then paying them to
put it to tape, you also save the time during rendering of 3DS having to do
palette-reduction for each frame plus flic-compile time. Then you hook up your
own VCR to the PAR's outputs and tape away.
In fact, if you get the Pyros' PAR Utilities, you can have each frame
automatically copied/moved to the PAR drive as 3DS renders. The PAR/PVR is
around $2k + hard drive, as I recall (it's been a awhile since I looked at my
invoice <g>).
Dave
Dave,
I just purchased a PAR for $1650.00; they've gone down a lot in the last year.
I used Select Solutions — in Champaign, Illinois.