Re: Introduction

Hi Paul,

Sounds like an interesting project you have there.  Let me just give you 
a little tip:
If you are going to do mostly video work (and not movies), you might 
want to stay away
from heavy CPU-intensive rendering like with Shake. You're probably 
better off with
something more interactive like Combustion in order to speed-up your 
workflow and
get more production out of your man-hours, especially if your going to 
be on a tight
budget.

Best regards,

    Justin

-- 

 
*Justin Novosad*
Software Developer
Image Science Group
Autodesk Media and Entertainment (formerly Discreet)
 

Autodesk Canada, Co.
10 Duke Street
Montreal, Quebec H3C 2L7, Canada
 

Direct       514 954-7443
Fax          514 393-0110



Paul K Egell-Johnsen wrote:

>Hi there,
>John Hearns pointed me to this list from the beowulf list since this
>list might be of some help to me. Though, I've combed the archives and
>the activity hasn't been that high; not a bad thing neccessarily.
>
>
>
>A little presentation of me:
>
>My first computer graphics experience was DeluxePaint and Sculpt
>Animate 4d on the Amiga. I tried my hands on Real 3d, but never felt
>comfortable there, and let things rest for many years.
>
>During that period I earned my engineering degree in software
>development and worked as a programmer, system administrator and all
>around trouble shooter for whatever computer related problems there
>are.
>
>Then, last summer I wandered into NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting
>Corporation) expecting to do some freelance system managment at the
>Sami language branch here in Karasjok. Instead I ended up as a 70%
>news graphics artist and 30% diverse childrens and magazine artist.
>Currently I'm working on creating new graphical profiles for the Sami
>parliament elections and news profiles.
>
>And last week I was invited to join a startup in 3d animation here in
>Karasjok; which is a place of 3000 inhabitants, 70 working in NRK and
>70 working at the Norwegian Sami Parliament (there is a Swedish and
>Finnish Sami parliament as well...).
>
>Being Sami, and living in a very remote part of Norway is actually a
>great boon for our startup (only sami people in it), since we can tap
>into a lot of financing for different stages of our work both on
>national, regional, district and Sami levels; not to mention a couple
>of Nordic and Barents Sea councils.
>
>The startup is going to aim for a 3d feature animation based on Sami
>legends and characters. During the 3 to 5 years this development might
>take we're going to produce 5 to 13 minutes animations for children
>for the NRKs Sami language broadcast which is co-sent on the national
>television networks of Norway, Sweden and Finnland from next summer
>(only in Norway this year).
>
>
>TO THE POINT:
>
>I'm therefore trying to find out what kind of software and hardware to
>aim for in some areas: audio, video and 3d. The timeframe is 6 months
>until start-up, so I hope I'm starting my investigations early enough,
>even though the summer can effectively be counted out (june and july).
>
>We're aiming for 4 people working full time on our projects. We're
>aiming for a 10-20 node rendering farm, though I'm curious about how
>some special purpose hardware like ART VPS and the specialized render
>engines which also use GPU resources (Gelato, and I also noticed a
>more well known renderer had this, though that link is at work and not
>here at home) . How is this affecting render speeds? Should we think
>about including PCI-Express GPUs in the server racks?
>
>For video editing and post-production I'm aiming for Macintosh, then
>we can use the Apple (Final Cut Pro, Motion? and Shake), Adobe
>(AfterFX, Photoshop) and Discreet (combustion) software
>
>For 3d modelling I'm sad to say that we're more versed in 3d studio
>max than in Maya, even though Maya have had their learning edition
>available for free for several years...
>
>For sound editing I'm again thinking Macintosh (Logic Audio, perhaps,
>but definetly Steinberg soft), and either Zen with Windows for
>GigaStudio and FX Teleport (I need to test this) or dual boot the
>whole render farm when we're needing the extra processing for audio
>work or extra room for sample playback channels for sampled
>instruments.
>
>For score writing I have to go with Sibelius (which I know and love)
>from Sibelius software, which will run on Macs as well.
>
>Now, have in mind that it is a very far from Karasjok to Hollywood.
>Our budget for investments is less than USD 400K, or even less, if the
>dollar gains some strength again. Ah, and we have 25% value added tax,
>so it's actually more like 320000. That's for audio, video and 3d.
>
>My specific questions are as follows:
>
>What renderer do you use, why do you like it, what don't you like in
>it? This is not a renderer war, it is just a gauge of what the users
>think.
>
>If we choose a render engine like Mental Ray (though Brazil is
>favoured by my IT guy...) is it worth investing in more cluster boxes
>or more ram per box? John Hearns suggested dual opteron 2 GB ram
>solutions, which seems to be a good price/performance solution. But,
>should one go for 1 MB or 2 MB L2 cache on those computers? As an old
>IT-student I'd say bigger cache wins, but price/performance do matter,
>and is the win that big?
>
>I'm also thinking middle of the road opterons, since the price jump
>for a couple of hundred extra MHz often is way out of proportion from
>the gains in processing speed.
>
>Do you guys on this list use Linux exclusively, or do you more or less
>use linux for rendering farms?
>
>Is there a need for accelerating Shake or Motion? I know After FX can
>be very slow even with rather simple nested comps, 20-30 cell animated
>Illustrator imports and rather large backgrounds 16k by 800 with
>animation (literature boasts it will utilise any GPU but I doesn't
>feel like it)?
>
>What kind of rendering solutions do you use? What are your experiences
>in building a render farm for 3d/video work?
>
>What do you view as the greatest pitfall?
>
>Finally, before I spend a dime on buying stuff I'm going to try to
>travel to some effects and animation outfits in London, try to get a
>feel for workflows they are using. Of course I'm going to travel to
>Oslo as well, but from the other GFX artists in NRK I don't have an
>impression that cheaper solutions like Combustion is used much there,
>some After FX, but most of the work is done on equipment which would
>eat most of our budget.
>
>Best regards,
>Paul
>
>
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