#Slave Hangup
16 messages in this thread
As you can probably tell, this is the first week I have had to sit
down and begin putting R3 through the paces in my studio. (And just
when I had R2 configured perfectly. But the new featuresmake it
worth the trouble. You guys have been busy.)
I am using a Novel-Lite network. I can bring the slave on-line and it
works great untill I try to take it off line. The system doesn't
respond to the "esc" key. It isnt locked up, because I can send it
tasks from my workstation. The system I am using as a slave is a
Gateway 486-66 with 16MB. The only settings that have been changed
in the 3dsnet.set file are the names and ID, drive pointers, and
polling to 30 seconds. Is there something that I am missing?
Thanks for the help with the tablet. I increased the poll time and it
helped a lot.
Jamie Clay is our resident Netware and Netware Lite expert. I'll send
him an email and make sure that he looks at your note.
Increasing the poll time has not only the effect you desire to the
network, but also it appears that the program only checks the
keyboard as often as it polls the network!
If you set the poll to 30 seconds and hit escape after it has just
polled, you will have to wait 25 seconds or so until you see any
effect! Seems odd, but that's what we found over here.
I'll give it a try. Have you found a good polling time that works
well and still doesn't conflict with the other machines?
Andrew:
>> Have you found a good polling time that works well and still doesn't
>> conflict with the other machines?
For longer individual frames, you could set the poll time to 30
seconds or so, if you are rendering flying logos at 1 min apiece, you
could set it for 5 seconds. For over five machines, I wouldn't go
much less than that. Paul Lind, what times are you using for your 48
machines?
We generally set our machines at 15 seconds. Obviously, it's something
that needs to be played with on each network. I generally don't mind
the units setting there for a few seconds, so we just left it at 15.
Looks like our network may be dwindling…… we're about to cut a
deal to replace everything with Pentiums, a local hardware dealer has
a company that will buy the bulk of our network outright at an
extremely good price, and we're going to work out a large Pentium
purchase through the same dealer. So our numbers may dwindle, while
our power increases. 🙂 Lower electrical bills 🙂
Paul:
Sounds like a great deal for both you and your hardware dealer!
Keep us informed on the status of your 'rendering plantation'!
Greg Pyros
Paul,
Not completely on the subject, but I find it amazing that there is enough work
out there for animation to support 48 machines on line all of the time. My
business is growing here in the midwest, but though there are times I would
love that many machines, I couldnt possibly justify it. You give me hope
though.
Who are you finding are the major users of animation?
Andrew McClary
Graphic Alchemy Productions
Andrew,
We've been in this business for a while, so we have a pretty solid list of
clients. Alot of them are governmnet or DOD based, so the pay is good. Actually
the machines are no big deal. If we bid a half million or a three quarter
million dollar contract, the choice comes down to shelling out a couple hundred
grand on a large workstation or spending a hundred grand and picking up 10 or
20 PC's. Up until recently the cost of ram was fairly insignificant, so we've
opted to pick up PC's for alot of work.
To be perfectly honest, alot of jobs require a phenomenal amount of processing
power, and we've found our current farm to be too small. You have to keep in
mind that we don't do spinning logos. 🙂 Additionally, we happen to be in this
industry because we love the work. Alot of our profits go into buying equipment
instead of buying more luxury items. Our ultimate goal is to get into film work
and large scale broadcast projects, and we work 20 hour days orienting
ourselves towards that goal. We keep our staff small and our equipment
purchases large.
As to justifying the costs ….. it's not really a matter of justification,
it's a matter of winning the bids and then purchasing the necessary equipment.
I don't think we've ever purchased anything on the hope that we could then
justify the puchase by finding work after the fact.
Major users of animation? Just every government body, every television
station, every corporate entity, every game manufacturer, etc. etc.
The work is out there, we look at hundreds of jobs every month and then orient
ourselves to the biggest one that we can handle. I happen to know that a number
of 3DS users are bidding major television productions, working on new games,
and developing DOD applications at this very moment. The market is growing at a
phenomenal rate.It's just a matter of positioning and effective
proposal/bidding practices.
Paul Lind
Paul,
Phew! I'm so glad to hear you don't just buy equipment in the hope of getting
work to pay for it. I'm in the same boat. I have a small render vegetable
patch, but to get any more equipment and software (other than spare parts when
things break) I have to be able to justify it with a decent-sized project.
Sounds like you are doing the same thing, except on a much grander scale.
Martin,
I think we share the same philosophy on purchases, and from what I know about
your work, I have little doubt that it won't be long before you're using the
same equipment that we are.
Paul
thanks very much, senor. I don't have huge aspirations, but many of
the projects I get to work on are high-profile.
Martin,
I am an Applications Engineer for an Autodesk dealer Advanced Data Graphics
here in Houston, Tx. and I met a guy named Bob with Animatrix here at a
couple of trade shows we did with Silicon Graphics. I was curious if his
company is related to yours or if you just happen to have the same company
name.
Don
I started my company about a year ago just doing small freelance
projects, and funding my equipment out of my pocket. We just
completed our first CD-ROM entitled "Exploring Ancient Architecture"
which began shipping Friday. For that project I had to buy one
machine and rent 3 more. (Cash flow wouldn't permit me to buy 4
machines.) As I said things are groing fast, and I am hoping that
our Cd-ROM will not only sell well, but bring in more exposure. I
must say that you give me hope that we too may grow to a point where
our projects demand that number of machines.
Andrew McClary
Graphic Alchemy Productions
Another thing to think about, is how your funding is occuring. It is
very common in this business, to get an initial figure for
exploratory work,( sorta like a retainer), and then get a specified
amount each month during the project, and then get a bulk sum at the
end of the project.
Almost all of our business is conducted that way and it helps pay for
equipment.
We've been approached by several different companies wanting us to do
CD-I work, and misc CD based animation projects, and all of them
start with at least $50,000 up front to begin development. $50,000
seems to be the magic number but depending upon the contracting
company, we often see $20,000 from private interest.
Congrats on the new CD, I'll have to keep an eye out for it. Was it
done with 3DS?
Paul
The major part of the CD-ROM was done with 3D Studio. We
reconstructed electronically 7 ancient structures. The user can
take a self guided tour through these reconstructed buildings. We
linked somewhere around 700 animations together to create a psudo VR
enviroment. I plan to upload an image created for "Exploring Ancient
Architecture" here on the forums library sometime this week.
The CD is being published by a new company called MEDIO Multimedia.
When you see it, let me know what you think. We are currently playing
with ideas for another CD. If "Exploring Ancient Architecture" is
well recieved, we have plans to do a second volume with more
buildings from other time periods.