kleer001

Something important to note about my previous choice of motherboard, the MSI - X399 GAMING PRO CARBON AC ATX TR4 is getting a lot of reported problems as well as the one I got had problems and had to be swapped out for a ASRock - X399 Taichi ATX TR4 Motherboard, which is now on the list.

Price.

Final setup that I pulled the trigger on last week. Parts should finish coming in early next week. https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/kleer001/saved/Cn7pGX Minus one GPU (will upgrade later along with another 64BG of ram)

Thanks! I've taken that into account and some other advice and I think I'll be going with this: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/kleer001/saved/Cn7pGX CPU: AMD - Threadripper 2950X 3.5GHz 16-Core Processor (due to RAM bandwidth seems nearly as fast as 32 core at 1/2 the price) Motherboard: MSI - X399 GAMING PRO CARBON AC ATX TR4 (should be good for a while) Memory: G.Skill - Sniper X 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-3000 (eventual upgrade to 128) Storage: 2.0TB 2.5" SSD, internal 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM (should be good for a while) 2X Quadro P4000 8GB Video Card (should be good for a while) Monitor: LG - 24GM79G-B 24.0" 1920x1080 144Hz Monitor (eventually upgrade)

After chewing on all the variables for couple days (after not building a computer for 20 years) I think I might have it. With my pro-level budget I think this should be good for a few years of freelance work. Opinions? Did I miss anything? Something too small? Too big? Something fundamental missing? (other than a keyboard and mouse) CPU: DUAL Intel - Xeon E5-2630 V4 2.2GHz 10-Core Processor CPU Cooler: 2x Corsair - H60 (2018) 57.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler Motherboard: Asus - Z10PA-D8 ATX Dual-CPU LGA2011-3 Motherboard Memory: 64GB Drives: SSD 480GB & Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM & Backup 6TB External Hard Drive Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Case: Fractal Design - Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 1300W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply Optical Drive: LG - WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer Wireless Network Adapter: Asus - USB-AC56 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter USB 3.0 Monitor: Dell 23.0" Budget 5 to 6 K Full details: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/kleer001/saved/dBPgwP

They may have apparently similar tool sets, but I'd insist that Zbrush is a more mature product. It's not necessarily a great factor though. There's trade offs. It will have a larger library of tutorials and plug-ins and forum posts to answer inevitable questions. But it will have a more entrenched interface. And for me some of the interface decisions in Zbrush are maddening. That said I've already bought myself a license and have sunk dozens of hours into learning it's bizarre ways. If I were you I'd check out 3D coat forums and look for major frustrations and watch a few tutorials to see how intuitive the tools seem to you personally.

It looks to me like all the art is in the noise. I'd start with marrying an Perlin noise with a high frequency modulous or tweaked tan function. It's whatever the "space-swirl" procedural function is doing. The math is probably somewhere to be found. Once you get that the rest should be easy to reproduce this effect. If it were me I'd prefer to do a more literal execution, investigate how cotton candy is made then work out a quick and easy model to make that. Then move on to shading and lighting experiments.

Use a SOP Solver and advancing through the frames as you iterator. Put all your operations inside it, merge your previous frame with your current stuff, use groups (with $F of course) to sort things. If you want the 100th or 1000th iteration just use a Time Shift SOP after the SOP Solver.

Looks cool, how does it work?

I really like the building destruction, no real notes. The tornado, not too much. It seemed very uneven and slow.

Any suggestions or recommendations? Where do studios get their temporary gear for emergency jobs? Or do those venders only deal with 50+ seat setups? (and no I don't wanna build or buy my own rig just yet, I do know how awesome it is)

Tight! It reminds me of that intermediate discipline stuff. Like, it's kinda rigging, but it's also kinda modeling, but also kinda animation... Was this to solve a specific problem in production?

AFAIK they do not use Houdini. They do most of their prototypes in Processing. Then web stuff in Java. And stuff in C++ if they need real speed. Lots of the techniques they have explored are available as trouble shooting sessions and works in progress and finished works here on odForce. Just look up the technical name of what they're doing that you want to replicate.

To be honest, depending on the screen space scale, I would mostly hand animate it. I'd find some artistic way to apply noise to the staged hero page. Weather that's a high frequency or low frequency moving noise at the edges and less in the middle, or the other way around. Or just sim the outside edge 50% as cloth pinned to the main animated body.

A little essay and exploration of simulating watercolors with polygons programmatically. http://www.tylerlhobbs.com/writings/watercolor