From: bobl@bobsbox.rent.com (Bob Lindabury - SysAdmin)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: Computer of choice?
Date: 11 Oct 92 13:57:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: bobsbox.bobl.8a42
Organization: Raven Enterprises -- Piscataway, NJ USA
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16f (10.6.92) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith

In article <1992Oct10.191052.7800@bert.eecs.uic.edu> spiff@bert.eecs.uic.edu (Jason Leigh) writes:
> In article <BvwsF2.MIo@mach1.wlu.ca> wool8657@mach1.wlu.ca (john woolsey 9209 U) writes:
> >they were slower was code optimization. Let's assume the number is closer to
> >1/8th. That would mean it would simply take 8 times as long. That isn't
> >really that bad. Especially for the hobbiest who wants to play around with
> >the images, and be creative, and not produce production quality products.
>
> So a raytrace on an SGI takes an hour and on a PC it takes 8 hours.
> That's not so bad, is it!  Nevermind an hour, let's cut it down to fifteen
> minutes on an SGI, that's 2 hours on a PC.  That's not so bad right?
> You're a whole lot more patient than I am that's for sure.
>

Not to add to the computer wars topic but I do 3D animation in a
production environment.  No matter what platform we use, we have set a
threshold for the amount of time any single frame should take to render
in any given animation.  That timeframe is 20 minutes.  If a animation
is taking >20 minutes per frame to render, then we take measures to
reduce the render time.  There are several tricks and shortcuts to
reduce render times.  In most cases we don't need full shadows,
transparency, deep reflections or the like.  Reducing polygons, using 4
or > point polys and several background/alpha channel techniques help us
to reduce these times.

In a production environment we must produce projects on time.  Measures
must be taken to do this no matter what the platform.

In many cases it is cost effective to use PC platforms over SGI
workstations.  In these cases the costs are calculated by comparing the
cost of a single SGI (with comparible software) to multiple PC's.  In
this case, we might be able to pickup say 6 PC's and software for the
cost of a single SGI and something like Wavefront or TDI.

Since a project rendering on 6 PC's comes very close (timewise and
quality wise) to that of a single SGI platform, we opt for the PC
platform.  Besides, we can then have several artists working on
different scenes of a project on those 6 PC's.

The most time intensive part of any animation comes in the design and
production phases.  The rendering phase is calculated into our estimates
based on our 20 minute per frame time limit.  Let's face it folks, if we
really hit the wall on render times, we will farm it out to systems
whose main function is to crunch numbers.  We take our time on design
and working with the client to get the desired effect.  That's
infinately more important than what single platform is going to render
the fastest.

Bottom line comes down to what gets the job done in a reasonable time
frame with the required quality.  Our clients are very happy with our
productions and they pay us going rates for those productions.  We are
happy.


Maybe we can all drop this silly "which platform renders the fastest"
discussion in favor of discussion of technique.

--
 Bob Lindabury

InterNet: bobl@bobsbox.rent.com                | Raven Enterprises
    UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!bobl              | 25 Raven Avenue
  BitNet: bobl%bobsbox.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
  Home #: +1 908/560-7353                      | +1 908/271-8878