3d programs,

[Kamui R.]

Thanx !, I never thought sony would give any kind of support, although they did have that netyaroze (sp) thing on the ps1.

Soon's I get a job I want to get a machine that'll triple boot to osx, linux & a windows.

Kofikoduah, how do you know so much on this subject, if you don't mind my asking ?

I made some compiled 2d games ( as a hobbyist) on my old Amiga using a program called the Director, not the pc program of the same name. It only cost 89 $ and I was able to do some amazing stuff for the time. As you can tell from my previous posts I'd like to do the same with my 3d content but the price and complexity of such a project have grown exponentially.



Again thanx !


K.

[Kofikoduah]

Thanx !, I never thought sony would give any kind of support, although they did have that netyaroze (sp) thing on the ps1.

Soon's I get a job I want to get a machine that'll triple boot to osx, linux & a windows.

Kofikoduah, how do you know so much on this subject, if you don't mind my asking ?

I made some compiled 2d games ( as a hobbyist) on my old Amiga using a program called the Director, not the pc program of the same name. It only cost 89 $ and I was able to do some amazing stuff for the time. As you can tell from my previous posts I'd like to do the same with my 3d content but the price and complexity of such a project have grown exponentially.



Again thanx !


K.

I'm happy when i can be of help to anyone. Basically, i have a strange interest for all things open source and how to minimise the monopoly a company in Redmond has on our computer usage. I'm really into linux, and my way of contributing to that minimisation is by spreading the good word of all things open source and linux. Simply put, i read anything that has the following keywords: Unix, Linux, BSD, Linus, Torvalds, Stallman, Raymond, Opens source, Free, computers...etc. I hope you get me? if you wish to discuss more linux or any open source issue feel free to e-mail me or PM me.

Making an educated guess, am i right to assume you wish to import your 3d obejects into blender? I'm not well versed in blender (i haven't had time to use it, as i personally favour Maya and 3ds max, i'll come around to it one of these days). What file format are your 3d objects in? If possible, could you also provide information as to which modelling software you used, that would really help. If they are *.OBJ files, then using the bundled scripts that come with blender's import/export feature should work. The way i understand it, you need python for it to work. If you provide me with information, i'll do my best to help you out.

A point to note: A very useful starting point especially with open source software is to go to the communities around which the software was built, the CG community in this case, and also the blender forums, you won't be disappointed.

If you have time too and if you want to, you can read up on gmax, the game design engine for 3dsmax, you will enjoy it. If you're fairly comfortable with C++ then i suggest 3ds max and Maya (both of which if you need, i can help you get them, PM me for more details on that, also since i haven't really used blender i don't know about the programming api indepth).

In the interim, you can also check this out if it helps:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... arch&meta=
http://www.blender.org/cms/Import___Export.5.0.html
http://www.blender.org/cms/Community.19.0.html

useful links:
**These are resources that i use for 3d designing
http://www.3dkingdom.org/
http://www.3dm3.com/
http://www.max-realms.com/
http://www.cgsociety.org/
http://www.evermotion.org/

[Kofikoduah]

Thanx !, I never thought sony would give any kind of support, although they did have that netyaroze (sp) thing on the ps1.

Soon's I get a job I want to get a machine that'll triple boot to osx, linux & a windows.

Kofikoduah, how do you know so much on this subject, if you don't mind my asking ?

I made some compiled 2d games ( as a hobbyist) on my old Amiga using a program called the Director, not the pc program of the same name. It only cost 89 $ and I was able to do some amazing stuff for the time. As you can tell from my previous posts I'd like to do the same with my 3d content but the price and complexity of such a project have grown exponentially.

Again thanx !


K.

Kamui, i just realised something from your post, you want to triple boot, i'm sure you know you need an intel pc for the mac os. Here's a nice and lovlier suggestion, Install linux on the whole hard drive, Download a copy of VMWARE (i can provide you with that) install, then install windows and OS X in it and all you need to do is just click to switch oses. Also, you could have 3 separate hard drives, with 1 containing either linux or windows, then, install vmware, and when installing the other oses, give each of them full access to a hard drive each. you will have superfast speed... again all you need to do is click (for fullscreen) and switch. Just one of the many ways to make computing fun. you will need at least 512 of ram to that.

Kofi S.

[Kamui R.]

Which Linux would you recommend, I was a volunteer at a computer lab, it was open to the public and anyone could use the machines for free, (donation was requested). We had to go to Linux Ubuntu and 1 or 2 other distros because the windows was always getting viruses and worse clueless users.

If anybody is in New Yoek the computer center is on the 4th floor of 156 Rivington St., Manhattan, high speed internet, laser printer Liinux and Macs, and friendly & unorthodox people.

Would Linux allow me to use multiple monitors?

K.

[Kofikoduah]

Which Linux would you recommend, I was a volunteer at a computer lab, it was open to the public and anyone could use the machines for free, (donation was requested). We had to go to Linux Ubuntu and 1 or 2 other distros because the windows was always getting viruses and worse clueless users.

If anybody is in New Yoek the computer center is on the 4th floor of 156 Rivington St., Manhattan, high speed internet, laser printer Liinux and Macs, and friendly & unorthodox people.

Would Linux allow me to use multiple monitors?

K.

I would recommend either Debian, Redhat (or CentOS), Suse or Ubuntu. Yep linux can allow you to make use of multiple monitors. What's more, with a program called Desktop Mutiplier you can have up to 10 users sharing a single desktop pc (1 CPU) with their own user desktop, monitor, keyboard and mouse. Just google Desktop multiplier. It can significantly lower your TCO by upto 77%.

[Kamui R.]

Hello Kofikoduah,


I want to thank you for the information, since I've had to change locations I no longer am around people who know these things.

1) By the time i get to buy a new computer I assume everything including Linux will be 64-bit. True ?

2) How many harddrives can I attach to a typical computer ? I've heard of a coming generation of terabyte sized harddrives, is this a sure thing or just wishful thinking ?

3) What configuration would you suggest for 3d animation with video editing including a basic sound editing program, are these available for Linux ?

Please don't go to any trouble looking up info if you don't know these off-hand,

Again thank you for your advice and willingness to share your knowledge.

K.

[Kofikoduah]

Hello Kofikoduah,


I want to thank you for the information, since I've had to change locations I no longer am around people who know these things.

1) By the time i get to buy a new computer I assume everything including Linux will be 64-bit. True ?

2) How many harddrives can I attach to a typical computer ? I've heard of a coming generation of terabyte sized harddrives, is this a sure thing or just wishful thinking ?

3) What configuration would you suggest for 3d animation with video editing including a basic sound editing program, are these available for Linux ?

Please don't go to any trouble looking up info if you don't know these off-hand,

Again thank you for your advice and willingness to share your knowledge.

K.

Hi i just logged on, but here are your answers

1. The current 32-bit architecture will continue to exist for a long time till it is completely phased out. There are currently 64-bit architectures available for the more established linux distributions. So if you buy 64-bit hardware, you can run 64-bit linux natively and also receive support for it.

2. You can put any number so far as you are not limited by physical constraints. That is if you want to go internal using IDE then you need to make sure you have enough IDE channels (the connectors for your hard drive, each has two available). You may want to increase the number of IDE channels you can get a PCI IDE controller to increase the number of drives you can have. You can also go the expensive way by investing in SCSI controllers.
Yes it is true, very soon you can buy terabyte sized hard drives in shops. Currently the only way i know to achieve this is to buy 500GB drives. You can use either Firewire or USB2. all you need to do is buy an IDE to USB/Firewire adapter, buy an enclosure and you have your extra storage. Just plugin and you're on your way. If you plan to use linux though, i suggest you use the USB option if you don't want any headaches.

All the available solutions on the market use this method.I know a company called Lacie (www.lacie.com)already sell full terabyte drives, but they are all external. you could buy it and just take out the drive and fix it internally.


3. For 3d animation, you need powerful workstations with the right hardware, secondly, you will need enough machines (workstations or servers) to do distributed rendering (If you want it as a busines). Also, you will need to decide on which package you wish to use. You have the option between, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Lightwave, Cinema4D, XSI, Blender

Choosing the right 3D animation package is never easy – particularly when so many of them seem to offer a similar set of features. 3D programs can usually be divided into 4 areas – modelling, texturing, animation and rendering – and each program will tackle these sections differently. For example, all the applications i know of offer some kind of polygon modelling, although some also provide mathematical representations of 3D geometry, or NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines), and/or Bézier patches. Likewise, each app provides keyframe animation, although the related tools and interfaces vary considerably.

Specifications matter when selecting any kind of product, but they should not be the determining factor. Far more important is how well the application integrates various features and, of course, how well it works.


My Ideal Setup Includes Both windows and linux setups:

For Modelling and Animation:
For Windows:
Windows XP Professional
3D studio Max, Cinema4D or Maya
Intel Pentium 4 (minumum 2Ghz), Intel XEON, Intel Core Duo or AMD dual core or AMD Turion 64
at least 1GB Ram
Nvidia Graphics Card with at least 256MB of Ram
Enough hard drive space i'd start with a separate 250GB in a RAID array

For Linux:
Maya or Blender
Redhat/Debian, Solaris, SGI (Unix or Linux)
Intel Pentium 4 , Intel XEON, Intel Core Duo or AMD dual core or Turion 64 (all processors should be a minumum of 2Ghz)
at least 1GB Ram
Nvidia Graphics Card at least 256MB Ram
Hard Drive 250GB in RAID

or you could buy a full hi spec workstation from either Sun Microsystems or SGI

For Rendering:
It is important you understand that, with rendering, it's not so much really about the power of the machine but the number you have. So if you have 2 Pentium 4 machines @ 2GHz each for rendering, it is possible for 4 Pentium 3 machines @ 500Mhz will out-render the P4 machines. In my view, the more machines you have the better. Others hold different opinons.

For Video Editing what i prefer to use includes:
Sony Vegas
Adobe Premier
Adobe After Effects
Adobe

For Audio Editing:
Sony Soundforge
Sony Acid studio
Audacity

Rule of thumb for any video/sound editing is to use Macintosh hardware as they're best suited for that activity. You may use windows at the risk of instability, the higher your hardware specs for windows the better of video/sound editing.

Feel free to ask for more info anytime... [/url]

[Buffalo Soljah]

The new blender 2.49 is out www.blender.org.

and here is the python link
http://www.python.org/