Messages

16

[Max] General Discussion / Re: A question for the Corona Dev team.

« on: 2024-04-08, 12:38:18 »

I've argue that most of those systems became (i)too robust, becoming too complicated for many users (myself included). Streamlined alternative fits with the Corona's philosophy.

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[Max] I need help! / Re: Sharp objects in reflections with bokeh

« on: 2024-04-08, 09:38:57 »

Had no idea CameraRaw has any feature :- ) The native PS version isn't on level of Frischluft, the one popularized by Alex Roman but it does sufficient job. But I render blur 99perc. of time.

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[Max] I need help! / Re: Sharp objects in reflections with bokeh

« on: 2024-04-07, 15:25:13 »

If for artistic reasons you don't want this (and this could be requested by your clients as well), you can bypass this with z-depth mask based blur in post-production (even native Photoshop Lens Blur takes z-depth map).

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[Max] I need help! / Re: Is the floor generator worth the time ?

« on: 2024-04-05, 15:25:28 »

It still has its uses, but with TileMap/Triplanar/etc.. a fully procedural shader to be dropped on plane without any UVWs is something I use more often today.
It takes 4 click process into 1 click process and time&patience is money in our business :- ).

Effectively, the whole thing can now be done inside shader, instead of geo+shader combo. It takes longer time to setup that shader, but you can quickly reuse it across projects, drag&dropping from something like Connecter straight onto ugly CAD geo (one that would crash floorgen without clean-up).

That's my take.

20

[Max] I need help! / Re: Kelvin temperatures are not realistic?

« on: 2024-03-28, 08:34:43 »

Did you try photographing night-time interior at fixed 6500K WB with Lightbulbs in 1800-3000K range? (Although cameras and afterwards raw interpreters will afterwards disagree on how to write that temperature, Adobe being biggest offender).
I think lot of people underappreciate how warm such light is because of how effective our eyesight/brain is at balancing colors and interior daylight is mostly colder through out day.

With that said, architectural photographers have been swapping to 5000K white-bulbs during photoshoots for many years :- ). It works better for photography and rendering is the same.

I am always shocked by the opposite, how "blue-ish" 5000K light-bulb feels, even though it's still on warm-scale. But 5000K bulbs are the ones called daylight or pure-white to keep in mind.
Perceptiveness plays a very big role.

The big discussion with devs many years ago had more to do with tint, the 6500K in Corona didn't feel like absolute white in some tests and there some odd explanation of 6502K or something happened if I remember correctly. I didn't understand the explanation.

But it's not like white-balance works great in photography either, the color matrix translation that raw interpreters like ACR do (i.e converting 6500 into 5600 + Random Tint) is still confusing to me many years after I started photography.

Tonemapping plays great role. ACES OT or similar is necessary for taming saturation of highlights and perceiving colors correctly. Without it, you're looking at nonsense that can't be compared to what you're seeing with your own eyes or camera.

21

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2024-02-29, 21:11:04 »

Damn, nice. I guess a lot of well paying but too long rendering projects are in pipeline :- )? I don't do any animations, so for me new big PCs are just "nice to have" but no longer really sound investment.

22

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2024-02-29, 20:13:08 »

It's the same ultimately, like setting a pass or time limit for rendering :- ) Temp limit sounds nice on paper, but could be quite fluctuating. Watt limit should still adhere to temp limit since that's hardcoded into the firmware (otherwise our PCs would burn).

10perc. rendering improvement for 2X the power draw and massive temp spike might not be worth it though. Looks like the 350W was quite smartly chosen. Thank you for testing it out though :- ).

Nice build, looks like worthy investment.

23

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2024-02-29, 12:10:14 »

700Watts at 95C degree is not bad at all with just AIO cooler :- ). So what performance did you gain?
You can try 600Watts manual limit.

24

Hardware / Re: New PC Build AMD Ryzen 7950X VS 7960X

« on: 2024-02-27, 10:38:15 »

7960X wouldn't justify the cost of motherboard and RDIMM memory as you correctly identified. Also the next Ryzen later this year through IPC gains will catch up to it at less cores (and much faster single-thread).
Memory amount is no longer issue either, as even mainstream platforms like Ryzen support 192GB memory. So the Threadripper only matters if you do a lot of rendering on your workstation (I for example don't as I offload everything longer than 5 minutes tests onto dedicated farm node. And with IR Denoising, the multi-thread advantage isn't felt either).

Now 7950X and 7970X would be different discussion, but it will introduce a magnitude of cost different to those two builds. Threadripper is now simply as costly as any previous server builds used to be.

It's quite tough choice honestly today. Easy to build lot of arguments for one or other, but in the end, it's mostly money question.

25

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2024-02-23, 16:09:57 »

Oh I never cared for specific number. Laptops run for 105C for last decade and they do ("mostly") fine. At worst, you will shorten their lifespan from two decades to single decade..

With desktops, it's mostly about using the temps to gauge potential for additional performance (or silence).

But temps in fifties.. that's a bit miraculous :- ) 3990X/5990WX can run in 60s for simple multi-threaded tasks (like Corona rendering when not doing denoising or other demanding tasks). But mid-50s?
Maybe really good silicon lottery, or good room ambient (my room very quickly gets into 25C... even with all heating turned off and windows open in middle of December).

So the 7980X perhaps is really good chip in this regard and may easily eat lot more than stock 350.

But then the general temps I see on Reddit are quite bit worse in general compared to 3xxx and 5xxx series, which would make sense for Zen4 chips.

Threadripper and AMD in general always had issues with reporting accurate measurements with all the Tctl/Tdie and Offsets being taken into account differently by different applications. Ryzen Master vs HWiNfo vs HWMonitor, etc.

26

Hardware / Re: AMD Threadripper 7970x cooler

« on: 2024-02-23, 13:23:18 »

I would like to point out that one reason ProSiphon scores often well is its stock configuration compared to competition.

It comes with two high-pressure high-rpm fans stuck to very dense "radiator", making it quite loud. When noise-normalized (measuring how each cooler does for example with 50dB noise output), it didn't actually even beat Noctua UH-14s sTRX (remembering KitGuru or Guru3D charts).

Put two 3000RPM fans onto UH-14s and you will see some improvement there as well :- ). Although less since the fin density is optimized for lower pressure/higher airflow, so even adding second fan doesn't do that much (and increases turbulence. There is reason why Noctua by stock adds two fans onto thicker, high-density heatsinks like the U12A series).

There are only few fitting AIOs, Enermax (Liqtech and Toughliquid) and Silverstone IceGem for example. I believe they are manufactured by same OEM, chinese Apaltec, infamous for poor quality control. People still use them and some successfully for years if you keep replacing (often from day-1 ideally) the coolant inside. That is kind of hassle since the point of AIO is simplicity and avoiding the use of building custom open-loop. But that's it.
Looks like Eisbaer Pro Aurora might be something to look into. I know nothing about that one. Eisbaer has fairly good reputation.

There are few air-cooler variants on market meant for 4U racks, but they will offer poor performance/noise ratio compared to U14s (i.e same performance but 50perc. worse noise).

That leaves us here: It's been what..6 years with Threadripper on market? And there really is only single goldilocks cooler, U14s. It's strange... but it is what it is.

27

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2024-02-23, 13:12:47 »

Checked the 7970X temps, yeah that's not doing well. So putting that idea on ice.

Threadripper with 8-dies like the 64/96C is more reasonable choice. Your reported temps still seems fairly weird, I haven't see anyone report anything that low. How are you reading/measuring these?

28

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2024-02-22, 20:18:16 »

I don't think you will see any dramatic boost :- ) Threadripper is already fastest at multi-threaded workflow with low-voltage memory. For example, 3990X stock (no PBO) can achieve 16 seconds easily with stock JEDEC 2400 MT/s memory. OC-ing to 3200 MT/s, lower timings, and upping the voltage to 1.35/1.4 will bring the score to 17 seconds :- ). So, slower. Really, the CPU isn't neither bandwidth nor latency limited with most multi-threaded tasks. Oppositely, fast memory is taxing on the IMC.

You will see massive benefits when gaming at 1080px ;- ). Fast memory is really mostly feel-good thing in benchmarks, zero difference in reality for almost everything. The only people who think it makes drastic difference to their lives are terminally online youtubers and redditors.

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Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2024-02-22, 15:18:18 »

@dfcorona

Do you feel the 7980X to be lot more fluent/smooth/responsive than 3990X in 3dsMax or 3dsMax/Corona IR ?

I am debating changing my older 3990X into "mobile" (lol) workstation, or making 7970/7980X into one.
I am spending some time in fairly remote locations these year and not even Star Link is fast enough for sending the volume of scene to my home render-farm, so I can't get by alone on laptop anymore again.

How did the G.Skill installation go, select DOCP and zero issues running at overlock?

I am wondering how responsive would something like 7970X (32-cores being less trouble-some for single-thread tasks) be if given like 500W+ of juice alone. 15W per core, no scheduler shenanigans, running 5Ghz all-core potentially :- )

30

Hardware / Re: New Build options - mobility vs. utility

« on: 2024-02-11, 23:24:03 »

Yeah sadly OLED was made in laptop size only as big as 16" 16:10, I have one in the Dell Precision and it's stunning with its seamless glossy cover. 60HZ only, but 450Nits stable for SDR content. Just amazing.
My older Razer Blade Pro 17" have 17" glossy 4K IPS panels, very deep blacks and quite high contrast for IPS (close to 1500:1), but after that, most non-Apple manufacturers stopped with glossy high-dpi panels outside of the few OLED 16" screens. Like Precision or ProArt,etc..

All 18" panels right now are 2560:1600 16:10 IPS panels only except for one 4K one. Few are Mini-Led backlit though, but all are matte. Zero 17"/18" OLEDs on market.

Yep, workstation ones like the Precision have insane cost, esp. the CAMM memory units instead of SODIMM. Couple with fact how poorly they cool, they're just terrible deal.
Not really freelance friendly option.

Razer Blade 18 hasn't actually been finalized yet, they're still deciding what option to use. Intel sent 16" prototypes to ambassadors since that one is using last years 4K/2K (switch) IPS Mini-Led screen.
Previous year B18 had 2560/1600 non mini-led screen and I think they're deciding which display to use.

But since 2023 vs 2024 are perfomance was identical. Same 4xxx nVidia GPU, and Intel 13xx HX vs 14xx HX have no performance difference in practice.
They're the same laptops as last year.

You don't need the glowing snake if you get the silver studio edition of Razer Blade :- ). They're identical today, just different color, looks even more like Macbook now that they have black keyboards on silver body (few years ago Razer Studio used white keyboard, looked gimmicky and was hard to read).

Razer Blade is the only tolerable design in Windows laptops world sadly, it is what it is... It's why I never sold my old Razer, I love my 2022 with glossy 4K 17" 120HZ panel, it's beautiful. My wife Veronika also kept her 2021 15" 4K Glossy OLED. We already use much more powerful laptops for work but there is something about the combination of clean look and beautiful displays that most Windows laptops don't have.
Sadly no Razer Blade 16/18" use OLED or even Glossy finish panels. Maybe in next two years. OLED is getting very strong this year in mainstream 27"/32" monitor space finally, so it will come back to laptops in full force again.
Right now, for some reason, only ultra-books and workstations get OLEDs.

Yup, the Ryzen 7945HX is amazing if you can get it in laptop you like and one that doesn't use soldered memory slot. This has always been AMD laptops issue. Not enough of them on market.

Nothing officially supports 48GB memory SODDIMs on paper, they came to market like last summer. But they should work.

For reviews, Notebookcheck have quite unbiased reviews in that they just publish 20 A4 pages of almost useless data and you can just make your own takeaway :- ).
Laptops are pretty much about making a compromise you will be happy with. They're all pretty damn good today, just ugly and often very expensive. But they all do the job.