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The Cheese Grater is back
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This is one if the best write-ups I have seen about the new technologies in the 2019 MacrPro, and why they matter. It was written by Sarah-Kimberly Euschen, a Swiss friend who lives and works in Doha (Qatar). She is a brilliant editor who is also very tech-savvy. Someone whose opinion I respect a lot:
https://themagicalworldofsakie.wordpress.com/2019/06/10/infinity-fabric-and-finalcut-pro/
– Ronny
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[Ronny Courtens] “She is a brilliant editor who is also very tech-savvy. Someone whose opinion I respect a lot:”
Excellent article, thanks for posting. This is the bit that should provoke most debate ☺
“The comments of – I can build a faster Hackintosh system or faster PC system my self are not to be taken serious. The power of Infinity Fabric as a hardware novelty should be clear by now and can not be copied at current state of affairs to self made systems, neither can the Afterburner unit.”
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AFAIK Renderman is still king at the “animation” houses that do CGI features – Pixar, Dreamworks, etc. But its use at VFX houses has been dwindling for years. As of last year, I believe it was still the primary renderer at ILM and MPC but all the other major VFX houses I know of use something else as their “primary” renderer. (Worth noting though that, IME, the big shops have a large collection of software that gets used here and there when it’s useful, what I’m referring to is the primary software most often used and best integrated into their primary in-house pipelines.)
The other “context” to my orignal comments, that I didn’t express well … I was thinking of the artist market is this way …
– Independent freelance artists who are completely stand-alone entities, deal with end clients directly, deliver final product directly to end clients, etc. For these artists Redshift and Octane are fantastic options.
– Artists who mostly work in large shops and occasionally work from home, also freelance at-home artists who regularly work in conjunction with large shops. For these artists staying current with “industry standard” software and renderers is very important. (I would also include in this group freelance at home artists whose current status is considered a stepping stone to getting a staff position at a large shop.) -
[Stevan del George] “AFAIK Renderman is still king at the “animation” houses that do CGI features – Pixar, Dreamworks, etc. But its use at VFX houses has been dwindling for years. As of last year, I believe it was still the primary renderer at ILM and MPC but all the other major VFX houses I know of use something else as their “primary” renderer. (Worth noting though that, IME, the big shops have a large collection of software that gets used here and there when it’s useful, what I’m referring to is the primary software most often used and best integrated into their primary in-house pipelines.)”
Ahhh, that makes sense. Truthfully, I didn’t know that Renderman was in such decline outside of the biggest shops…
[Stevan del George] “The other “context” to my orignal comments, that I didn’t express well … I was thinking of the artist market is this way …
– Independent freelance artists who are completely stand-alone entities, deal with end clients directly, deliver final product directly to end clients, etc. For these artists Redshift and Octane are fantastic options.”I’m not a freelancer, but that more or less describes my situation.
[Stevan del George] “- Artists who mostly work in large shops and occasionally work from home, also freelance at-home artists who regularly work in conjunction with large shops. For these artists staying current with “industry standard” software and renderers is very important. (I would also include in this group freelance at home artists whose current status is considered a stepping stone to getting a staff position at a large shop.)”
That also makes sense, and in that context, I can see your trepidation about Arnold becoming the de facto standard for commercial VFX work. Thanks for the perspective!
Shawn
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[Steve Connor] “”The comments of – I can build a faster Hackintosh system or faster PC system my self are not to be taken serious. The power of Infinity Fabric as a hardware novelty should be clear by now and can not be copied at current state of affairs to self made systems, neither can the Afterburner unit.””
Yeah that is hard to quantify because NVidia is NOT allowed with 10.14 or newer Macs.
So you can’t use an NVidia GPU with NVLink.And I would guess that Infinity Fabric is not a big factor in a more “modest” 2019 MP – i.e. single or dual GPU and not the 2xDual GPU config.
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[Oliver Peters] “Get them a loaded Mini with an eGPU Pro ????
“I would have to look into that.
I already made the call and told them that the Mac Pro is way overkill.
I am sacrificing myself since this means I won’t get one till a nMP dies at work.
Which hasn’t happened (a dozen since 2013) yet.
Now for home, I would have to wait to see what the extras will cost.
Now if we want a real debate, how about we start with…how much should that AfterBurner cost?
Man I remember the ICE cards loaded on the same box as our Avid Meridien.
That was expensing then. -
[Eric Santiago] “Man I remember the ICE cards loaded on the same box as our Avid Meridien.”
I’m a veteran of both the ICE card and the RED Rocket-X card. What’s interesting is that in spite of FPGA, the RED Rocket-X card was still made obsolete by changes in RED’s own color science. And FWIW – the RAW DeBayer quality looked different using the RR card versus CPU. Not better or worse, just different.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Oliver Peters] “And FWIW – the RAW DeBayer quality looked different using the RR card versus CPU. Not better or worse, just different.”
I stayed at DMSC1 (just ROCKET no X). Used mostly for dailies maybe for playback.
And once FCPX was able to handle R3Ds, I rarely counted on the card.
I have a few collecting dust, (in a CUBIX) made obsolete by time.I hope this Afterburner card isn’t a one year pony.
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Some more PC numbers to compare from Boxx. Scroll down on this page.
https://www.boxx.com/data-science-workstation
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Oliver Peters] “Some more PC numbers to compare from Boxx. Scroll down on this page.
https://www.boxx.com/data-science-workstation“
We had a few of them still working here as part of a renderfarm (Maya).
They are built like tanks compared to the HPs were forced to use (corp).
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