Messages

4306

Hardware / Re: Virtual Machines In Servers - POWEREDGE 2900

« on: 2014-07-24, 20:46:10 »

Well, if he gave you like 8 of these, you would be able to render with speed of single i7 4770 node costing 600 euros, but you would have 6 big, loud machines to feed.

Virtualization is quite complicated topic, I know very little about it, but the point of it is it won't let you harness performance that simply isn't there.
If it's too nice to trash, you can keep it as souvenir ;- ) It can still web-server, and other small tasks.

4307

Hardware / Re: Virtual Machines In Servers - POWEREDGE 2900

« on: 2014-07-24, 16:37:28 »

It's not expensive, it's 4 years old very low-end basic server, not performance oriented. Probably from friend, or eBay ?

It doesn't need virtualization to run on it, it's regular dual-socket unit, with 2x DUAL-CORE Xeons clocked at 1.8GHz. {it was 140 euros per CPU...4 years ago}

The performance ? Multithreaded: 8 times less then single i7. Useless for anything today.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+5120+%40+1.86GHz

It belongs directly into trash :- )

4308

Work in Progress/Tests / Re: CG society Lighting challenge#37 entry - WiP

« on: 2014-07-17, 12:55:31 »

Who man, that's brutal ! Seems like the best CG mini-challenge in past year imho. (They even supplied decent nice model this time :- D )

For now you're clear winner, can't wait to see the finished results.

4309

Gallery / Re: First Corona render tests

« on: 2014-07-16, 21:15:22 »

Fantastic light and white balance. I like it a lot !

{if need crit, I would be less conservative and use bigger chamfers}

4310

[Max] General Discussion / Re: How much will Corona be??

« on: 2014-07-15, 00:38:32 »

I believe it will be safely within everyone's reach.

Regarding noise in post, some people really do advice NeatVideo. I personally wasn't really fond of it...but there really is no magical de-noising that will keep perfect clarity for architecture. I don't think
that's what these plugins were written in mind either. But it's decent.
Maybe some future version might offer fully precomputed GI algorithms (like IR maybe) but for now, you just optimize your scene best way you can and throw render power at it :- )

4311

Hardware / Re: Corona - Titan black SLI or Titan Z?

« on: 2014-07-14, 14:32:40 »

Thank you very much Juraj!! With that in mind i can now make the right choice and go for the 2680 V2...and with the money that i save by taking the cheaper one, i can think about the new i7-5960x in september :)

Thank you again for you rapid answer!

That's the spirit !! :- ) I am looking towards one too, can't wait haha. DDR4 + GTX880. I wonder how it's going to overclock (seeing as the base clock is only 3GHz)

4312

[Max] Tutorials & Guides / Re: Transparency versus geometry comparison

« on: 2014-07-12, 20:42:20 »

I also thought the same, that if filtering is OFF, blur doesn't matter. But it seems to be it does. Just check the preview ( I have small scene in Vray opened right now and it still makes difference).
I don't therefore think the filtering and blur is connected.

I used filtering OFF for quite some time too, it was the only way how to get good clarity in 2k renders. But when I started rendering more hi-res, and used high-res texture (4k+ with lot's of detail),
filtering off would give me often lot's of noise and artifacts and some materials with reflection/glossiness driven by these textures would appear somehow odd/noisy/artifacty.

And for animations, I have to keep filtering ON otherwise I sometimes get micro-flicker in very detailed textures.

4313

Hardware / Re: Corona - Titan black SLI or Titan Z?

« on: 2014-07-12, 18:58:37 »

Numerobis had posted on CGArchitect http://forums.cgarchitect.com/76503-render-node-configuration-light-new-v-ray-licensing-scheme.html this chart:



Regarding rendering performance, I do not think it's personally worth to go for higher cored models than 2680v2, because the additional performance increase is negligible, even if price difference would be small (but it isn't).
If additional budget is present, it's possible to rather think of 2687v2 WS, because of its high native/turbo clock, but again, it comes at price with only benefit for single-threaded tasks, rendering performance would again be close to identical.

Your overall math is correct, the ratio between  'number of cores/frequency' only affects single threaded tasks, which benefit purely from higher clock, while overall multi-threaded performance can be derived by multiplying the cores by frequency.
In the latter regard, all the higher end Xeons are very close to each other.

4314

Gallery / Re: Chicago Loft

« on: 2014-07-12, 14:19:17 »

I have to give you compliments on amount of projects published recently, amazing :- )

I don't mind the hue, the heavy post seem to be quite a trademark of your work.

4315

[Max] Tutorials & Guides / Re: Transparency versus geometry comparison

« on: 2014-07-12, 03:48:27 »

So then the days of setting blur to default low value are to be gone? Interesting. I always followed Ludvik's advice on that one.

I always found interesting how differently people set this up.

For example:

Bertrand: Filtering OFF, but Blur kept default 1.0
Grant W: Filtering ON, but Blur adjusted to 0.01

Then there is of course, OFF + 0.01, which should in theory give the best result most close to original texture, but that often just produces artifacts, and downright doesn't work for sensitive maps (bump, glossy,etc..).

Now I am interested if this data is something handled purely by 3dsMax, or is it interpreted differently by renderers as this thread suggests ?

4316

[Max] Tutorials & Guides / Re: Transparency versus geometry comparison

« on: 2014-07-11, 01:02:25 »

I keep the 'B' for my foliage. It's the best of both worlds, gives edge detail of mapped alpha, but still reasonable performance.

The filtering dillema, is just something I hate. Sometimes it gives of superior result, sometimes too shitty artifacts. It's odd how it affects performance.

4317

News / Re: New Energy conservation mode

« on: 2014-07-11, 00:29:23 »

Nice. Looking forward to test how it compares with and without.

4318

General CG Discussion / Re: Mental ray GPU ?

« on: 2014-07-09, 22:25:50 »

Really, quite unimpressive. Tons of limitations for slow and ugly result. Amazing.

4319

[Max] I need help! / Re: Simple night exterior

« on: 2014-07-08, 18:53:00 »

pg is probably peter guthrie

Yes, this. Sorry for the abreviation, Peter is such a name that I often just assume people would get the reference :- ).
I mix his(or other) HDRi so I can get full spherical coverage.

4320

[Max] I need help! / Re: Simple night exterior

« on: 2014-07-07, 16:07:19 »

But there is no difference at all, should be absolutely identical.

Mine examples aren't so pretty, there aren't so many angular glass parts to reflect, but same setup. Just one HDRi (PG+CGSource mixed together) and only IES inside. Corona Alpha5.