L'Ancien Regime

Personally I will never bother Andrew on this account; Zbrush has very deep pockets and I was at their Siggraph booth listening in on private conversations there with a top Zbrush manager in the year when Zremesher was first unveiled and the word was that they had hired 21 mathematicians with masters or PhD degrees to create it. I'm sure Zremesher v3 has had some very powerful thinkers toiling on all the topology problems inherent in this tool's development to this new level. It's unfair to expect Andrew to somehow equal this feat given his very lean operation. To me it's still a marvel that he could take a white paper and 5 weeks later create the first functional auto retopology tool in 3d graphics all by himself when so many other bigger operations didn't have the scope of imagination to do it themselves. What a guy.

SideFX has unveiled Houdini 17.5, the next major update to its 3D animation and effects software. The release, which is due to ship later this month, introduces the Procedural Dependency Graph (PDG), described by SideFX as a potentially industry-changing new technology. PDG, also due to become available in a new standalone application, PilotPDG, enables users to specify the dependencies between different parts of a project’s task graph, making it possible to do anything from running simulations and renders in parallel to ‘assetizing’ entire sections of a studio’s pipeline. SideFX also expects PDG to form the basis of new machine learning workflows within Houdini. Other new features in Houdini 17.5 include distributed fluid simulation, a high-quality new GPU-accelerated viewport smoke shader, and updates to the Vellum multiphysics solver. Key features in Houdini 17.5: the new Procedural Dependency Graph Although there are a lot of changes to the existing simulation toolsets and viewport display – about which, more later – the major feature of Houdini 17.5 is undoubtedly the Project Dependency Graph. In development for over three years, the new PDG API and an accompanying set of TOP (Task OPerator) nodes enable users to explicitly specify the dependencies between different parts of a project. For example, when calculating a simulation, each frame depends on the previous frame. When rendering, frames may be processed in any order, so long as the state of the simulation has been calculated. In a traditional workflow, simulation and rendering would be done sequentially. With the PDG and TOPs, the two can be done in parallel, with each frame beginning to render as soon as the corresponding part of the simulation has completed, greatly reducing processing time. more; http://www.cgchannel.com/2019/03/sidefx-unveils-houdini-17-5/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cgchannel%2FnHpU+(CG+Channel+-+Entertainment+Production+Art)

Teya Constructor has some very strange stuff in it. The guy that's making it has some very original ideas and his program has a unique approach. I admire that a lot. For example, his take on drawing in 3D is enough to sell me on it; I'll be buying it as soon as my new rig is up and running.

Yesss...forget gaming...this is a creator's monster GPU. "This card is the deal of the century" Wendell, Level 1 Looks to me like it's still available at the Radeon store... (that's in Canadian pesos...it's still $699 USD)

Finally reviews that examine the Radeon VII and compare it to the RTX 2080TI and the Radeon VII is winning.

I actually handled one at one of Annex Pro's events in a night club around a year and a half ago. It was pretty heavy. And very expensive. You would be better off doing this; 1. Buy a used Teradici 2 card off of eBay. 2. Install it on your home workstation PCIE slot. 3. Buy an IPAD Pro 12.9". $999.00 USD. This will give you a pencil or scribe that rivals the Wacom pen and a Retina screen that is basically 4k. It's easy to pack with you wherever you go, super lightweight and just the right size. 4. Download the Teradici app for iOS. http://www.teradici.com/web-help/pcoip_mobile_client/ios_tablets/1.5.1/release_notes/ 5. Log into your home computer from any decent internet connection world wide. Now you can turn on your computer, literally power it up and shut it down from anywhere on earth. Once logged into your computer your iPad Pro will be a virtual client with all the functionality of your home workstation. They're saying 60fps " Teradici Tera2220 PCoIP Host Card • Specs: 2.713 x 6.8 in.; requires single PCIe slot (x1, x4, x8 or x16); maximum resolution: two displays at 1920 x 1200 at 60Hz; frame rate: 60fps; includes 128MB memory; consumes 13 watts There are other alternatives including a monitor on a stand that contains a Teradici Zero Client in it. https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-t310-AIO-TERA-2321-PCoIP-Zero-Client-512MB-512-MB-DDR3-SDRAM-J2N80AT/152769462418?epid=691469029&hash=item2391c50092:g:wvsAAOSwGwlZ-gX8 You could use all your programs, Maya 3D Coat Zbrush, Houdini on your iPad or any cheap laptop or even that zero client. This is the technology that hundreds of thousands of engineers use worldwide for Catia and Siemens NX. The movie industry, (ILM) uses this extensively as well. https://www.digitalengineering247.com/article/access-your-workstation-from-anywhere/

I didn't want to create a separate thread for it but since this is here I suppose we could also note that Polybrush3 has come out and it's been renamed Teya Conceptor. http://www.cgchannel.com/2018/12/polybrush-3-renamed-teya-conceptor-now-in-free-beta/

Gaea looks very nice but now there's World Creator with real time GPU landscape generator. This is the first time I've heard of it and the results look really impressive. https://www.world-creator.com/

For those who don't want to spend hours and hours watching tedious demos, here it is in under 3 minutes A longer harsher assessment; haha 2:40 min mark; Folders. "A lot of people coming from 3D Coat already have something like that.."

Not worth a separate thread but while we're on the topic of new releases, Houdini 17.5 gets released on Thursday evening in Montreal. I'm hearing talk about USD improvements and perhaps GPU rendering for Mantra...if not 17.5 then 18.0 https://graphics.pixar.com/usd/docs/Introduction-to-USD.html And I keep hearing about something called Project Solaris; " Project Solaris is focused on Lighting/Rendering/Assembly + GPU support was top-wish last years), there is nearly zero chance it will support AMD chips. Same thing as every GPU renderer out there. I'm MacBook houdinist myself, so I feel your pain, but don't have hopes, buddy."

And that is why I love 3D Coat. Mudbox has a simple interface, but it doesn't even lay a glove on 3D Coat for functionality. Zbrush has only one thing I want; Zremesher. That's awesome. Other than that, forget about it. "would snap me out of creative mode". You're very polite. How about "would throw me into a murderous purple faced rage for hours"?

Exactly. That's the sticking point for me right there. I can't stand all the nonsense that goes with that.

Actually I distinctly remember it wasn't you. And it will be interesting to see if the make any changes to the UI. I just don't like Zbrush UI.

I was tempted to post about this several days ago but in the past I've had the moral committee scream at me for being so rude as to post about Zbrush on Andrew's forum. Of course this is nonsense but nevertheless... http://www.cgchannel.com/2019/02/pixologic-teases-zbrush-2019/ http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/topology/zremesher/ I looked over the 2019 release and the most interesting thing to me was the extensive amount of work they've done to upgrade Remesher, since after all it was Andrew who offered the first remeshing for scupting in 3D in history. The problems they struggle to solve are apparently the same ones Andrew has struggled with.

Ouch. What exactly broke and how?

The other benefit of the M2 NVME is less wires and cables to manage. It's a cleaner build.

So I just bought the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB from NewEgg. https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=SAMSUNG+970+EVO+PLUS+M.2+2280+1TB&N=-1&isNodeId=1 It came to $349 Cdn from NewEgg and free postage. That was almost a $50 saving from the price at Amazon.ca Some facts I picked up on my shopping forays for this item; 1. The larger the storage capacity of an M2 device, the longer it lasts. A 1TB M2 lasts twice as long as a 500MB M2 drive. 2. Samsung EVO Plus > Samsung EVO Pro. The Plus is the more recent model with superior stats. Bascially it's faster.

DM 2.0 is in Alpha now;

https://medium.com/@EightyLevel/how-voxels-became-the-next-big-thing-4eb9665cd13a How Voxels Became ‘The Next Big Thing’ We’ve talked with the amazing guys behind Atomontage, trying to figure out if the voxels can actually return and take down the polygons. WHY NOW? Large scenes made out of millimeter-scale voxels presents a difficult data management problem Atomontage has focused fifteen years of R&D on this challenge, resulting in patent-pending breakthroughs that finally allow volumetric simulations to scale in deeply interactive 3D applications Other features recently proven viable with our voxel tech include complex rigid-body physics, soft-body deformations, standard PBR shaders, and efficient playback of multiple volumetric video streams Around the 34 min mark a questioner brings up 3D Coat...while asking them about down and up resing models using algorithms. In their talk they mention another voxel program; Magicavoxel https://ephtracy.github.io/

http://www.cgchannel.com/2019/02/quadspinner-ships-gaea/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cgchannel%2FnHpU+(CG+Channel+-+Entertainment+Production+Art) Gaea is available for Windows 7+ only. The free Community Edition, which is licensed for commercial use, provides access to most of the key tools, but caps export resolution at 1K. The Indie edition, which caps export resolution at 4K, costs $99; the Professional and Enterprise editions, which provide unlimited resolution plus a range of advanced features, cost $199 and $299 respectively. https://medium.com/quadspinner/mini-tutorial-drawing-a-mountain-range-c14ec7eec722 Drawing an entire mountain range.

Cases are nice but there's the UPS there's a second rig, there's switches and routers and hard drive storage in one of those hot swap arrays to play with. It turns into a big mess on the table and it becomes a major project to keep it all dust free. A used tower is $250 to $350. And I'm seriously looking at virtualization. VMWare Server 15 is only about $115 right now. Run that on top of linux. The pass through to hardware like the GPU is so good now that the layer of virtualization only takes up about one CPU cycle, which is really negligible. I'm thinking of two Samsung 970 M2's at 500 GB in RAID 1 and then have everything else offloaded to virtual machines for VMWare stored on a hard drive outside my main server. There are other such options to look at.

See, 2933 MHz is the top speed supported by Ryzen+ and that G. Skill Flare X399 is ECC. That's why it's pricey. A waste of money? If you're doing something that takes 6 or 8 hours of computation like one of those Houdini simulations you were talking about not having error correcting can cause your system to crash in the middle of its work https://level1techs.com/video/memory-unleashed-threadripper-128gb-2933-ecc-tested The G. Skill is on the way any day now. But I still have some decisions to make about the M2 hard drives and the CPU cooler and the kind of case it will dictate. Basically I want to control the confusion by packing everything into an enclosed server rack (should be up on casters for ventilation and moving it around, like the external UPS, the routers and switches I want to experiment with for Cisco networking, another older server I own, and a hot swappable hard drive storage. So I'm looking for a 4u case and cooling that will fit that. Something like this stuff; I really want order and an easy to keep clean and dust free setup. But I'm outside my knowledge on this stuff...I'm asking all my server room friends for guidance on this...I think I'd actually prefer not to get into liquid cooling...just to avoid the maintenance.. And then there's the monitors...

Even with a major snowstorm last week this stuff got delivered really fast.

And it looks like at least initially, the NAVI won't be rivaling the 7nm Vega architecture for high powered computing and desktop workstations. NAVI appears to be focused in the near future on gaming, specifically targeting the future consoles. OTOH the new Ryzen X570 motherboards for Ryzen 3000 desktops will have PCIE gen 4.0 and The 8 core models can sell for around $199-$299 while the 12 core parts can go for $399 and finally, the 16 core parts can end up around $499. The reason we will be looking at such good prices is that unlike Threadripper CPUs which use a bigger PCB and four dies (based on EPYC layout), the Ryzen CPUs will only be featuring 2 dies and that saves up space and design costs. Also, the 6 core and 4 core parts may end up under the $150-$200 US bracket which would make them an ideal choice for budget users. https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-3000-cpus-x570-motherboards-and-radeon-navi-gpus-7nm-launch-rumor/ You can never be up to the moment very long in this technological race. At some point you just have to stop and say what do I need to do the job and then be happy with that.

My oh my, look what just arrived in the mail!