Career in CGI Animation/Modelling

[Sage]

yeah, get the regular 5900 128MB. It's amazing how similar cards perform in workstation apps. Even the QuadroFX 500 (NV34) turns out benchmarks that are competitive with top Quadro 4's. Of course, we all know nVidia's view on benchmarks... but still, most users will not be limited by a mid-range gamer card (except for the issue of driver compatibility).

Yes, what they are selling is not PLE. Alias has three versions of it's Maya line- PLE, Complete, and Unlimited. What you're buying is either Complete or Unlimited (depending on what you choose- $700 lies pretty much in between the pricing on the two at Journey ed so they could be selling either at that price); complete is what most commonly used, it lacks some of the really cool extra's like Maya Live, cloth simulation, and fluid effects. The difference between what you are getting and the commercial version is the license- you cannot use it for commercial purposes and often it expires some time after you "graduate." Before you buy it you need to go over and understand the license to make sure it suits your needs. The license restrictions appear to vary by country, and possibly even by vendor. You should get the info directly from who you buy it from.

 

[London Geezer]

yeah, get the regular 5900 128MB. It's amazing how similar cards perform in workstation apps. Even the QuadroFX 500 (NV34) turns out benchmarks that are competitive with top Quadro 4's. Of course, we all know nVidia's view on benchmarks... but still, most users will not be limited by a mid-range gamer card (except for the issue of driver compatibility).

Yes, what they are selling is not PLE. Alias has three versions of it's Maya line- PLE, Complete, and Unlimited. What you're buying is either Complete or Unlimited (depending on what you choose- $700 lies pretty much in between the pricing on the two at Journey ed so they could be selling either at that price); complete is what most commonly used, it lacks some of the really cool extra's like Maya Live, cloth simulation, and fluid effects. The difference between what you are getting and the commercial version is the license- you cannot use it for commercial purposes and often it expires some time after you "graduate." Before you buy it you need to go over and understand the license to make sure it suits your needs. The license restrictions appear to vary by country, and possibly even by vendor. You should get the info directly from who you buy it from.

Thanks as usual hun...

Right, the $700 one is the Unlimited version (i want the unlimited, since the cooler effects are what interest me the most), and it says "Perpetual license"... Which in my brain sounds very much like "forever and ever licence"...

And yeah i'm not gonna "get any money out of it" for wuite some time, so the non-commercial thing doesn't interest me...

 

[Sage]

yeah, although most people are still using the older "dynamics" and geometry to create effects, I personally think that it's worth the extra money to get complete just for the Fluid Effects- they are SO COOL!

also, if you're big into effects you might consider downloading the trial version of Houdini and heading over to 3dbuzz.com for a basic heads-up on how to use it. I have practically zero experience with it but from what I understand it's very different from other 3d packages in how it works. It's much more technical but is also renowned for producing some of the absolute best "special FX" available. Also, if you can master the program then it's definitely going to give you a huge advantage to the larger production houses when it comes to getting a job.

but then, what do I know? I'm not even employed at all, never taken a course, and (to be honest) really suck. I'm just extremely good at rooting out information, storing it, and analyzing and comparing it to other data from other sources, and then regurgitating the results. Scary thing is I'm almost always right even on things I knew really nothing about only a few hours previous... I wish I could get paid for finding crap on the internet 'cause I'd be rolling in dough.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Your budget seems to have risen from £1900 to £2500

I know, that happened to me too when building my system. I started with 500 euros and ended up spending 1300 euros, the appetite increases...

'An Athlon XP2500+ just 80 euros.. I'l built mys system around that...'

after a month... 'XP2800 is just e120... that's not much more expensive... I'll take that instead...'

Afer few days 'XP3200 at e220... hmmm, it's not that much up from the price of XP2800, but with just few euros I'd get a brand new A64 3000+.
The motherboard is a bit more expensive for A64 system, but it's just in tens of euros after all. It'd be nice to get a DVD RW too. '

 

[Sage]

LOL you sound like me

"hmm I'll get a SCSI drive next time because they have 5 year warranties and I'm tired of drives dieing on me, all I need is a 36GB drive for my important stuff... oh and ne of those cheap $40 controllers"

a few minutes later

"ooh you know what? I could get three drives and put them on a RAID 5 config and get doubble my storage AND better reliability"

then it was

"hmmm I might as well get the 15k RPM drives since they are soo much faster, definitely worth the money"

and then it was

"oh but if im going to do that then I should put everything on the one drive system- better make them 70-80GB drives instead"

and then

"hmm well but I should get a U320 controller with hardware XOR function, ooh and with expandable memory... oh and I need to get some extra memory for it..."

and, in only a few hours, my $150 drive system had turned into a $1500 system... but there's more

"OOOH you know what would be REALLY COOL? If I went with a NAS-deal"

but that was waaay too expensive so then it became

"oh, I'll just use Fibre Channel instead"

and

"hey there's an idea- use a gigabit fiber network card to connect my PC and another PC thats a dedicated file server with the SCSI RAID system in it"

but that didn't work out so well either and I returned to my $150 deal, but then...

"hmm I really should get a bitter drive- okokok I'll just get the 76GB 10K RPM for $200 and the $40 controller. That'll work."

and now it's up to

"oh but I should get a new case while I'm at it- my old one looks so sad. Hmm and I should get one of those nice driver coolers, oh and one with that fancy stuff to slow down my fans when the temps are down, lets make that an aluminum case btw."

So I'm currently up to ~$400 just to replace a failed 40GB IBM harddrive (even though I'm actually running on a almost-brand-new 80GB Western Digital which is perfectly functional and doesnt HAVE to be replaced...)

 

[London Geezer]

Your budget seems to have risen from £1900 to £2500

I know, that happened to me too when building my system. I started with 500 euros and ended up spending 1300 euros, the appetite increases...

'An Athlon XP2500+ just 80 euros.. I'l built mys system around that...'

after a month... 'XP2800 is just e120... that's not much more expensive... I'll take that instead...'

Afer few days 'XP3200 at e220... hmmm, it's not that much up from the price of XP2800, but with just few euros I'd get a brand new A64 3000+.
The motherboard is a bit more expensive for A64 system, but it's just in tens of euros after all. It'd be nice to get a DVD RW too. '

EXACTLY!!! I'm always thinking "oh but next week a new processor's coming out, and this one will be half the price... And if i wait 2 weeks, the new processor will get a clock increase" "OH look at that new DVDRW!!! Aint that soooo cool!"...

I'm just WEAK.


I will only buy Maya Unlimited, since my "artistic vein" works around effects only those plug-ins can give you. (cloth and fur among others)...

I'll buy a system that is "powerful enough" but wont cost me a lot... errr.... I have a monitor already so i can save on that, and also the speakers (can plug the thing to my surround sound system anyway)... Although having 2 monitors would be cool...


OH i meant to ask you guys, i LOVE, ADORE, DIG those Mac monitors... errrmmm.. can i use them on a PC? I think i can, since they have a normal DVI connection... Just wanna check with you...

 

[London Geezer]

Righty, finally got my new system... And AMD64 @ 3200, with 1GB DDR400 and a GeforceFX 5900 ultra with 256MB Ram... It's the only graph card they had of the Nvidia family that wasn't a 5950 or a 5600, so i guess that's the best i could get... And it was cheap! Little more than a grand! (without monitor and speakers of course, which i already have)...

Will get it on saturday, then my second geeky age will begin...

Also, yesterday i went to Escape Studios for a tour. Mind-blowing. The best thing i've ever seen in my life. As soon as i get the money, i'm so going... Really, i had very high expectations, but the real thing just left me speechless...

And the marketing director (the guy giving the tour and explaining stuff) was F**KING GORGEOUS... I mean, REALLY....

 

[Sage]

hey awesome, sounds like you're going to have a lot of fun (more than one way maybe )! And that's a great deal on a system like that, I bet you cant wait to get started. And Athlons... man, Maya just looooves Athlons... can't wait 'til they give us the 46-bit versions on the binaries.

 

[London Geezer]

hey awesome, sounds like you're going to have a lot of fun (more than one way maybe )! And that's a great deal on a system like that, I bet you cant wait to get started. And Athlons... man, Maya just looooves Athlons... can't wait 'til they give us the 46-bit versions on the binaries.

Will they? Any info on when? Oh, and i have a man anyway, so it's all gonna be looking-drooling-over-the-cute-guys then go see my man and releave the frustration HAHAHAH... errr...

 

[Sage]

yeah, surely they will. It's just an assumption on my part, but considering they have developed for 64-bit platforms before I think that it is kind of a given. And I dont think that they would dare make a whole nother (sub) version that you had to pay more money for to get it, considering how many people are buying Athlon64's just because Maya likes AMD's so much.


.....and I've decided that I'm not touching the other thing

 

[rabidrabbit]

Righty, finally got my new system... And AMD64 @ 3200, with 1GB DDR400 and a GeforceFX 5900 ultra with 256MB Ram... It's the only graph card they had of the Nvidia family that wasn't a 5950 or a 5600, so i guess that's the best i could get... And it was cheap! Little more than a grand! (without monitor and speakers of course, which i already have)....

Seems like a good system, and not too expensive.

Will get it on saturday, then my second geeky age will begin...

hehe Next you'll consider modding your case with plexi sides, gaudy red and blue cold cathode lights, led fans and UV reactive cables.
Before I thought they are ridiculus, but now I've seriously started to think doing one myself.

Also, yesterday i went to Escape Studios for a tour. Mind-blowing. The best thing i've ever seen in my life. As soon as i get the money, i'm so going... Really, i had very high expectations, but the real thing just left me speechless...

And the marketing director (the guy giving the tour and explaining stuff) was F**KING GORGEOUS... I mean, REALLY....

Right for a second I already thought it was actually the Studio facilities that got you excited....

 

[London Geezer]

Right for a second I already thought it was actually the Studio facilities that got you excited....

OI!! i'm very excited about THE STUDIO.... It's just that loads of very cute guys is a bonus....