Shawn Miller
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[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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[Stevan del George] “I’m happy that Redshift and Octane (primarily used in the motion gfx world) are supporting Metal. But I worry that the new Arnold GPU renderer will become the industry standard in the future for a couple of reasons …”
I wouldn’t be so sure. I agree with most of your points regarding the final quality of GPU renders, adoption by large VFX houses and all, but let’s not forget Renderman XPU (using CUDA and Optix). ☺ It’s already one of the most heavily used renderers in the industry, and it has a GPU/CPU workflow that gives artists fast previews while allowing for high quality output to CPU based render farms. I also think that Arnold will face more competition from Redshift (when and if) all of those Solid Angle perpetual licenses expire. For those like me who are not 3DSMax or Maya users, the thought of maintaining an Autodesk subscription for Arnold seems unattractive.
But getting back to the subject of the thread, I plan to keep a close eye on the performance of the new Mac pro. If Redshift using Metal is a LOT faster than Redshift using CUDA, then I’ll have to give Apple serious consideration when looking at my next hardware refresh in three or four years. If OTOH, Arnold is still (mostly) CPU bound and I can still keep my perpetual license current via maintenance, then a Windows based PC will still be the stronger option.
Shawn
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[Bill Davis] “The thinking is that this alone will yield massive benefits for ALL X users – and, of course – help the FCP X truly shine on the coming New MacPros. “
That doesn’t help me at all… BUT, if my applications of choice (C4D, Arnold, Redshift, Houdini) run significantly faster on the Mac Pro than equal or less expensive Windows or Linux alternatives, then my first Mac may be on the horizon. Then, I won’t have any incentive NOT to try FCPX ????
Shawn
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[Jeremy Garchow] “[Shawn Miller] “However, I do wonder how many people will be willing to pay double to run C4D, Redshift or Octane on a Mac Pro instead of an Nvidia based workstation. ☺”
I am trying to figure this out. Are you suggesting a similar 28 core Windows workstation with 4 top spec NVIDIA GPUs, a similar computer monitor, and all the SSDs and RAM is going to be half the cost? That’s truly crazy if it’s true. “No one” will buy this Mac Pro, if you need all that power. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Nope, I’m not suggesting anything of the sort. To get near or equal performance out of a GPU bound raytracer like Redshift or Octane, you don’t need a machine as highly spec’d as the new Mac pro. I run Redshift, Octane and Arnold on three machines; one with dual 20 core Xeons, one with dual 8 core Xeons and one with a single 4 core Xeon. The two dual proc machines have identical graphics cards, so Octane, Redshift and Arnold GPU (beta) perform more or less the same, even though one has more CPU cores and faster SSDs. The single core machine has an Nvidia M3000M so runs the same applications slower. I guess we’ll have to see how these renderes run Metal vs Cuda, but for around $3k US, you can build or buy a very fast workstation for GPU rendering. If you’re doing CPU bound rendering, you’ll still have to pay a premium for high core count Xeon processors, but on Windows and Linux you can at least get dual processors.
Shawn
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[Martin Curtis] “[Shawn Miller] “This is why so many motion graphics and 3D artists have left the Mac platform… for Redshift, Arnold, Octane and other Nvidia or CPU hungry applications.”
Mac’s back.????
“… The new Mac Pro graphics architecture is incredibly powerful and is the best system to run Cinema 4D.” — David McGavran, CEO, Maxon
“… Mac Pro is like nothing we’ve seen before in a desktop system…” — Jules Urbach, CEO and founder, OTOY”
Sometimes, I wonder if Apple writes these press releases themselves. Aside from the gag worthy marketing hype, I think this is good news for Mac users who were reluctant to switch OS’s to run these applications. However, I do wonder how many people will be willing to pay double to run C4D, Redshift or Octane on a Mac Pro instead of an Nvidia based workstation. ☺
Shawn
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[Michael Gissing] ” NVIDIA is a deal breaker for me and I’m sure many Resolve users will be torn.”
The same is probably true for a lot of people doing 3D work. The most popular 3D renderers require CUDA cores, or benefit heavily from dual processor machines. This is why so many motion graphics and 3D artists have left the Mac platform… for Redshift, Arnold, Octane and other Nvidia or CPU hungry applications.
Shawn
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[Andrew Kimery] “I mean, patent trolls have sued/threatened to sue people over everything from using Wifi to using the scan-to-email feature on all-in-one printers.”
My favorite one of all time was Personal Audio, LLC’s patent claim over podcasting…
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Fabian Wagner thinks you’re holding it wrong
Shawn
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[Richard Herd] “but not the light. surely they could have opened up those fancy cameras one more stop”
I would be willing to bet that exposure wasn’t the problem, and that there weren’t any crushed blacks in the whole program (before post production). It looked to me like they graded the episode to be that dark on purpose.
Shawn
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[Carmi Weinzweig] “I think it is important to make clear to Blackmagic, what concerns people have about the new direction and see if they respond.”
You should read some of the comments on the Blackmagic’s Fusion forum.
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=88866