#Net render w/Max
13 messages in this thread
With all the excitement about MAX's modeling and animation power, I seem to be
missing details about network rendering. The 3DSMAX.TXT file reads:
"Renderer Independence: 3D Studio MAX is designed to be rendering-solution
independent–multiple software-based rendering solutions will be supported."
Does this mean that I will/won't have to upgrade my render farm ( OK, so I
have 2 other machines <g>) to NT in addition to my workstation for net
rendering? Will there be a DOS solution. It would be nice to not have to load
up the slave units with extra memory just for NT's overhead. I know DOS's days
are numbered but hey, it's cheap. Could give a whole new meaning to having to
sell the farm<G>. Better yet how 'bout " New improved NT lite – same great
operating system but less filling… : )
Seriously though, it reads as though there will be 3rd party rendering packages
entering the game. Could make the market rather exciting!
Bill – Triffet Animation Co.
Bill,
>>it reads as though there will be 3rd party rendering packages entering the
game
That is exactly what this implies. I doubt that you will be able to net render
from MAX to R4 (however, I am not positive about this) but, I have no doubt
that you, or someone with the programming expertise, could write a DOS renderer
to use as a stand alone net-render program. I know that I would be interested
in something like that.
The increased flexibility that is being put into MAX is going to open many
windows of opportunity. For instance, you could write your own Materials
Editor core-comp if you found a need for it, and it would integrate seemlessly
into MAX.
The future is wide open, hopefully many people will take advantage of these
possibilities.
Andrew
>>The increased flexibility that is being put into MAX is going to open many
windows of opportunity. For instance, you could write your own Materials
Editor core-comp if you found a need for it, and it would integrate seemlessly
into MAX.<<
I can see it now, chasing your animated character around the workspace with
your airbrush – In real time <BG>!
Without a doubt NT will be the ultimate platform for a long time to come.
Especially when it comes to multi-tasking and networking. Possibly, NT can be
installed in a minimal configuration sort of like I do with Windose, minus non
essential programs to reduce overhead on the slaves? Given the fact that
programmers have come up optimized versions of Dos and Unix for embedded
applications, that could happen with NT I'm sure.
I hope the benifits of network rendering as a cost effective solution will
still be possible without having to upgrade the whole farm to Alphas or P6's. I
know they are fast, but given the low price of 486-100mhz chips I would rather
put my eggs in many baskets, not just one big one if possible.
I wonder if someone will come up with a study showing how many PC's ( in
various configurations ) it will take to equal one duel chip Alpha in a given
rendering situation.
Bill – Triffet Animation Co.
>> I can see it now, chasing your animated character around the workspace with
your airbrush – In real time <BG>!
LOL!!!
>>one duel chip Alpha in a given rendering situation.
That's some serious rendering power. I found a company that had dual P133's
with 64meg of ram, a 2.1gig hard drive, a SONY 4x cd-rom, Adaptec pci-scsi II
controller, and a Stealth SE 1MB DRAM for $5,465. That is a serious rendering
machine if I every saw one, and for the price of a dual 300Mhz Alpha you could
get 4 of these dual 133's….. so where do you get more "bang for your buck".
I would be very interested to see a head to head comparision.
Andrew
>> for the price of a dual 300Mhz Alpha you could get 4 of these dual 133's<<
That's exactly what I'm thinking. It will be interesting to see what setups
become popular next year. : )
Bill – Triffet Animation Co.
Chew on this.
Nt now comes compiled for Ix86, Alpha, & PowerPC.
*Power PC !!! Not that whimpy one they are putting in power Macs.. but the big
boy, the 300MhzRISC version…. IBM hasn't released them as far as I know, but
they are making 300Mhz RISC based NOTEBOOKS as well as desktops!
As an NT NetAdmin and 3DS user, I'm looking forward to this…
Micron (CA.) Makes a MB that will handle 4 pentium CPU's, with independant
bi-cache (1mb per chip) (chaches both ways; to CPU and to RAM. not write back,
but cache to/from the CPU and to/from the RAM). Imagine a Quad P133 , loaded
with chache, 116 Mg 60ns Ram, PCI based Caching controller with 9G AV drives in
RAID5 configuration, throw in a perception and a turtle beach card, an 8 mg PCI
video card, and YOU ARE HISTORY!
That all sounds impressive. I recently spoke with an SGI dealer who was
telling me that she saw a 300Mhz Alpha outperform an Indigo 2 Extreme running
the same software. For the $60,000 price difference, Alpha sounds like it is
going to blow SGI out of the water. I can't wait to see MAX running on a
500Mhz Alpha………..
Andrew
Andrew,
If I may ask? What is the company that you are referring to ? You may send a
reply in private email if necessary.
Regards,
Jeff
N-IMAGE
Jeff,
The company is S.A.G. Electronics. They have adds in the computer shopper,
that's how I found them. Their number is 1-800-989-3475.
Andrew
Bill, I'm pretty sure MAX's network rendering will be much the same as it is in
Classic, but you'll have to run MAX (read:NT) on the slave machines.
You DO want your MAX to take full advantage of yur slaves while rendering,
don't you?<g>
-Alan
>>You DO want your MAX to take full advantage of yur slaves while rendering,
don't you?<g><<
Hmm… is this politicly correct topic? <BG>
Per my reply to Andrew, maybe an optimised verision of NT could built up? I
don't use NT yet so I'm no expert on this topic. No doubt though, I will be
using MAX next year!
Bill – Triffet Animation Co.
>Better yet how 'bout " New improved NT lite – same great operating system but
less filling.<
That reminds me of the NewTek Screamer. NewTek was going to release a four CPU,
Mips R4400 render box that supported up to 1GB RAM. After some Amiga people
found out the OS for the Screamer was NT some Amiga were upset. NewTek said it
was a scaled down version of NT just to support network rendering. It used
tcp/ip over ethernet to transfer files from a host Amiga/Toaster. It was
supposed to be $9995 without RAM. NewTek made a big splash at SIGGRAPH 93 when
the introduced it, supposed to be an SGI killer.
Needless to say NewTek couldn't afford to be in the hardware business.
Deskstation was the OEM of the hardware and they went on to sell it themselves
as the Raptor. The first Raptor was $12K with 2-R4400s and 128K RAM, from what
I understand it was two mobo's with 64MB RAM each. The Raptor 3 uses Mips and
Alpha CPU's and seems to be a nice machine with a 300MHz Alpha CPU. Now that
Lightwave runs under Win/NT alot of users are dumping their Amigas.
Now that MAX is probably going to run on an Alpha chip I'm looking to compare a
300MHz Alpha to an Intel P6.
>> The Raptor 3 uses Mips and Alpha CPU's and seems to be a nice machine with a
300MHz Alpha CPU. Now that Lightwave runs under Win/NT alot of users are
dumping their Amigas.<<
My near future plans call for replacing my ol' P60 when MAX arrives. If I will
be able to render while I'm working on another project that would be fantasic.
As this is still a part time business for me ( soon to change : ) I must wait
a whole day to see if I'm gettng the renders I'm looking for. Instant rendering
gratification would be awsome!
Bill – Triffet Animation Co.