Re: OT: How low can you go (Hardware)
A few ideas: I have a 30$ geforce in one of my boxes and even though I don't work with it full time it does the job. If you want performance for your main hdd you can go for a 10,000 rpm instead of a ssd. WD Velociraptors are great. Basically you're trading space for better speed. 8 gigs of RAM is very little nowadays, especially if you're going to do rendering. That i5 along with ASRock H61MV-ITX is a good deal IMO. If I was to build such a machine here in Canada it'd cost ~700$ plus monitor, plus backup drive + taxes. I think your best bet if you're on a tight budget is to carefully pick second hand parts or look for a package deal. Sometimes studios give away their older machines for different reasons. They can still be okay for simple work and you know they're configured for 3d. my 0.02c, Good luck! On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 3:01 PM, Johan Forsgren johan.forsg...@edithouse.se wrote: Hey all, I'm currently hold a permanent position i small studio, but I'm starting to wonder if freelancing isn't the way to go for me, This brings me to the question of hardware, and I'm wondering if any of you freelancers can't give your input on what the minimum spec for a workstation should be. I cant afford anything beyond basic, really the no 1 reason that I'm thinking about freelancing is the complete lack of zero's on my bank statement. But it also limits my options equipment-wise quite a bit. I'm thinking something-ish like this: intel i5-3350P 8 gig ram geforce 640 gtm no ssd :( So I guess my question here is if there's possible to do simpler 3d work on a personal workstation like this? I understand that its POSSIBLE but how badly will I want to chew my arm of after say 6 months of freelancing doing product viz and motion graphics? -- JOHAN FORSGREN CG ARTISTPhone + 46 31 752 20 00 johan.forsg...@edithouse.se Direct + 46 31 752 20 07 Follow Edithouse at at twitter.com/edithouse http://www.twitter.com/edithouse [image: example's logo] http://www.edithouse.se/ Edit house Film Works www.edithouse.se Lilla Bommen 4a, S-411 04 Göteborg, Sweden www.twitter.com/edithouse
Re: OT: How low can you go (Hardware)
I am using a Windows 7 64 bit Intel core i7 950 with 12 GB RAM no SSD and a Quatro FX 3800 I have heat issues, when rendering, and I'm liquid cooled. I have had a lot of luck using Redshift (in Alpha) to render. It uses the Quadro FX 3800 to render instead of the CPU here is a render test of Redshift for Softimage done with the geforce 640 gtm: http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=36t=3640 pretty impressive! I would say your setup would work with Softimage and RedShift. You may get the heat issues, that I do, with mentalray rendering. I do have a second networked PC for rendering while I'm designing, modeling, etc. I found this essential for keeping up with the rendering. With RedShift, however, I don't use it as much since RedShift is so fast. On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 3:01 PM, Johan Forsgren johan.forsg...@edithouse.se wrote: Hey all, I'm currently hold a permanent position i small studio, but I'm starting to wonder if freelancing isn't the way to go for me, This brings me to the question of hardware, and I'm wondering if any of you freelancers can't give your input on what the minimum spec for a workstation should be. I cant afford anything beyond basic, really the no 1 reason that I'm thinking about freelancing is the complete lack of zero's on my bank statement. But it also limits my options equipment-wise quite a bit. I'm thinking something-ish like this: intel i5-3350P 8 gig ram geforce 640 gtm no ssd :( So I guess my question here is if there's possible to do simpler 3d work on a personal workstation like this? I understand that its POSSIBLE but how badly will I want to chew my arm of after say 6 months of freelancing doing product viz and motion graphics? -- JOHAN FORSGREN CG ARTISTPhone + 46 31 752 20 00johan.forsg...@edithouse.se Direct + 46 31 752 20 07Follow Edithouse at at twitter.com/edithousehttp://www.twitter.com/edithouse [image: example's logo] http://www.edithouse.se/ Edit house Film Works www.edithouse.se Lilla Bommen 4a, S-411 04 Göteborg, Sweden www.twitter.com/edithouse -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson** **(954) 552-7956 *sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke http://www.3danimationmagic.com
OT: How low can you go (Hardware)
Hey all, I'm currently hold a permanent position i small studio, but I'm starting to wonder if freelancing isn't the way to go for me, This brings me to the question of hardware, and I'm wondering if any of you freelancers can't give your input on what the minimum spec for a workstation should be. I cant afford anything beyond basic, really the no 1 reason that I'm thinking about freelancing is the complete lack of zero's on my bank statement. But it also limits my options equipment-wise quite a bit. I'm thinking something-ish like this: intel i5-3350P 8 gig ram geforce 640 gtm no ssd :( So I guess my question here is if there's possible to do simpler 3d work on a personal workstation like this? I understand that its POSSIBLE but how badly will I want to chew my arm of after say 6 months of freelancing doing product viz and motion graphics? -- JOHAN FORSGRENCG ARTISTPhone + 46 31 752 20 00johan.forsgren@edithouse.seDirect + 46 31 752 20 07Follow Edithouse at at twitter.com/edithousehttp://www.twitter.com/edithouse[image: example's logo] http://www.edithouse.se/Edit house Film Works www.edithouse.seLilla Bommen 4a, S-411 04 Göteborg, Sweden www.twitter.com/edithouse
Re: OT: How low can you go (Hardware)
I would like to advise having a sour bite off reality first. Very simplified and overly black and white dramatised into a nutshell: You´ll need enough funds to cover at least 4-6 months of your costs of living (including everything from rent to taxhealthcare). That is if you plan on taking on your own clients and working from at home, which means you have to kickstart yourself into a full-fledged, responsible businessperson, office manager, IT guy, producer and artist while making rounds for new contacts, finding the opportunity, getting the job, doing it, delivering it and waiting for it to get paid. I would like to advise you look into just freelancing, e.g. you get booked by a company, they bring you in, you work there on their equipment and you leave them with a smile when you´re done. That´s hard enough to get into but doesn´t give you the burden of having to invest into personal equipment on top of securing your cost of living for the first few months. Judging from your email adress, you may want to look into utopiapeople.com or vfxjobs.com Remote 3D jobs (e.g. working from home) are quite rare, it´s far more common to bring in freelancers (including the travelaccomodation expenses) as needed in my personal experience. Concept design or highly specialized tasks can be an exception. Even if you land just a junior position, you should expect/gain a reasonably good day rate and hopefully at decent work experience out of working at a new shop. Another thing to realize is that working freelance means you may have to embrace months of downtime as natural and don´t just expect to multiply your day rate by 180 days/year, which some fellow employees may tend to do when you´re judged on what you ask per day. That can lead to some tension and misbehaviour. Everybody seems to forget about all the taxes, too. Cheers, tim P.S: I don´t have an SSD here but would advise you make sure you have at least 16 or 24 GB of RAM. On 13.09.2013 21:01, Johan Forsgren wrote: Hey all, I'm currently hold a permanent position i small studio, but I'm starting to wonder if freelancing isn't the way to go for me, This brings me to the question of hardware, and I'm wondering if any of you freelancers can't give your input on what the minimum spec for a workstation should be. I cant afford anything beyond basic, really the no 1 reason that I'm thinking about freelancing is the complete lack of zero's on my bank statement. But it also limits my options equipment-wise quite a bit. I'm thinking something-ish like this: intel i5-3350P 8 gig ram geforce 640 gtm no ssd :( So I guess my question here is if there's possible to do simpler 3d work on a personal workstation like this? I understand that its POSSIBLE but how badly will I want to chew my arm of after say 6 months of freelancing doing product viz and motion graphics? -- JOHAN FORSGREN CG ARTIST Phone + 46 31 752 20 00 johan.forsg...@edithouse.se mailto:johan.forsg...@edithouse.se Direct + 46 31 752 20 07 Follow Edithouse at at twitter.com/edithouse http://www.twitter.com/edithouse example's logo http://www.edithouse.se/ Edit house Film Works www.edithouse.se http://www.edithouse.se/ Lilla Bommen 4a, S-411 04 Göteborg, Sweden www.twitter.com/edithouse http://www.twitter.com/edithouse
Re: OT: How low can you go (Hardware)
Also, the cost of buying an AD product from scratch is something to budget for. At least with Adobe stuff you can get in at an affordable monthly rate. I guess you could rent from AD for a bit? On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 4:28 PM, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de wrote: I would like to advise having a sour bite off reality first. Very simplified and overly black and white dramatised into a nutshell: You´ll need enough funds to cover at least 4-6 months of your costs of living (including everything from rent to taxhealthcare). That is if you plan on taking on your own clients and working from at home, which means you have to kickstart yourself into a full-fledged, responsible businessperson, office manager, IT guy, producer and artist while making rounds for new contacts, finding the opportunity, getting the job, doing it, delivering it and waiting for it to get paid. I would like to advise you look into just freelancing, e.g. you get booked by a company, they bring you in, you work there on their equipment and you leave them with a smile when you´re done. That´s hard enough to get into but doesn´t give you the burden of having to invest into personal equipment on top of securing your cost of living for the first few months. Judging from your email adress, you may want to look into utopiapeople.comor vfxjobs.com Remote 3D jobs (e.g. working from home) are quite rare, it´s far more common to bring in freelancers (including the travelaccomodation expenses) as needed in my personal experience. Concept design or highly specialized tasks can be an exception. Even if you land just a junior position, you should expect/gain a reasonably good day rate and hopefully at decent work experience out of working at a new shop. Another thing to realize is that working freelance means you may have to embrace months of downtime as natural and don´t just expect to multiply your day rate by 180 days/year, which some fellow employees may tend to do when you´re judged on what you ask per day. That can lead to some tension and misbehaviour. Everybody seems to forget about all the taxes, too. Cheers, tim P.S: I don´t have an SSD here but would advise you make sure you have at least 16 or 24 GB of RAM. On 13.09.2013 21:01, Johan Forsgren wrote: Hey all, I'm currently hold a permanent position i small studio, but I'm starting to wonder if freelancing isn't the way to go for me, This brings me to the question of hardware, and I'm wondering if any of you freelancers can't give your input on what the minimum spec for a workstation should be. I cant afford anything beyond basic, really the no 1 reason that I'm thinking about freelancing is the complete lack of zero's on my bank statement. But it also limits my options equipment-wise quite a bit. I'm thinking something-ish like this: intel i5-3350P 8 gig ram geforce 640 gtm no ssd :( So I guess my question here is if there's possible to do simpler 3d work on a personal workstation like this? I understand that its POSSIBLE but how badly will I want to chew my arm of after say 6 months of freelancing doing product viz and motion graphics? -- JOHAN FORSGREN CG ARTIST Phone + 46 31 752 20 00 johan.forsg...@edithouse.se mailto: johan.forsgren@**edithouse.se johan.forsg...@edithouse.se Direct + 46 31 752 20 07Follow Edithouse at at twitter.com/edithouse http://www.twitter.com/**edithousehttp://www.twitter.com/edithouse example's logo http://www.edithouse.se/ Edit house Film Works www.edithouse.se http://www.edithouse.se/ Lilla Bommen 4a, S-411 04 Göteborg, Sweden www.twitter.com/edithouse http://www.twitter.com/**edithouse http://www.twitter.com/edithouse
OT: How low can you go (Hardware)
Uping the ram, good thing that's cheap :) My not so much formulated plan is to dip my toes a bit before I decide to go by myself full time, trying to squeeze in some quick-and-dirty jobs here and there when I can find the time. Nothing is set in stone and I'm guessing it will take another six months or so before I'll know how I'll do this. But yeay, onsite freelancing might be a way to go also. Thanks for the pointers Byron :). On Friday, September 13, 2013, Byron Nash wrote: Also, the cost of buying an AD product from scratch is something to budget for. At least with Adobe stuff you can get in at an affordable monthly rate. I guess you could rent from AD for a bit? On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 4:28 PM, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de wrote: I would like to advise having a sour bite off reality first. Very simplified and overly black and white dramatised into a nutshell: You´ll need enough funds to cover at least 4-6 months of your costs of living (including everything from rent to taxhealthcare). That is if you plan on taking on your own clients and working from at home, which means you have to kickstart yourself into a full-fledged, responsible businessperson, office manager, IT guy, producer and artist while making rounds for new contacts, finding the opportunity, getting the job, doing it, delivering it and waiting for it to get paid. I would like to advise you look into just freelancing, e.g. you get booked by a company, they bring you in, you work there on their equipment and you leave them with a smile when you´re done. That´s hard enough to get into but doesn´t give you the burden of having to invest into personal equipment on top of securing your cost of living for the first few months. Judging from your email adress, you may want to look into utopiapeople.comor vfxjobs.com Remote 3D jobs (e.g. working from home) are quite rare, it´s far more common to bring in freelancers (including the travelaccomodation expenses) as needed in my personal experience. Concept design or highly specialized tasks can be an exception. Even if you land just a junior position, you should expect/gain a reasonably good day rate and hopefully at decent work experience out of working at a new shop. Another thing to realize is that working freelance means you may have to embrace months of downtime as natural and don´t just expect to multiply your day rate by 180 days/year, which some fellow employees may tend to do when you´re judged on what you ask per day. That can lead to some tension and misbehaviour. Everybody seems to forget about all the taxes, too. Cheers, tim P.S: I don´t have an SSD here but would advise you make sure you have at least 16 or 24 GB of RAM. On 13.09.2013 21:01, Johan Forsgren wrote: Hey all, I'm currently hold a permanent position i small studio, but I'm starting to wonder if freelancing isn't the way to go for me, This brings me to the question of hardware, and I'm wondering if any of you freelancers can't give your input on what the minimum spec for a workstation should be. I cant afford anything beyond basic, really the no 1 reason that I'm thinking about freelancing is the complete lack of zero's on my bank statement. But it also limits my options equipment-wise quite a bit. I'm thinking something-ish like this: intel i5-3350P 8 gig ram geforce 640 gtm no ssd :( So I guess my question here is if there's possible to do simpler 3d work on a personal workstation like this? I understand that its POSSIBLE but how badly will I want to chew my arm of after say 6 months of freelancing doing product viz and motion graphics? -- JOHAN FORSGREN CG ARTIST Phone + 46 31 752 20 00 johan.forsg...@edithouse.se mailto: johan.forsgren@**edithouse.se Direct + 46 31 752 20 07Follow Edithouse at at twitter.com/edithouse http://www.twitter.com/**edithousehttp://www.twitter.com/edithouse example's logo http://www.edithouse.se/ Edit house Film Works www.edithouse.se http://www.edithouse.se/ Lilla Bommen 4a, S-411 04 Göteborg, Sweden www.twitter.com/edithouse http://www.twitter.com/**edithouse http://www.twitter.com/edithouse -- Sent from my fax machine.
Re: OT: How low can you go (Hardware)
precious time. I’ve said it above – think about your office furniture. if you ruin your neck/back/wrists... your fancy computer is going to be idle. ... Good luck! From: Johan Forsgren Sent: Friday, September 13, 2013 9:01 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: OT: How low can you go (Hardware) Hey all, I'm currently hold a permanent position i small studio, but I'm starting to wonder if freelancing isn't the way to go for me, This brings me to the question of hardware, and I'm wondering if any of you freelancers can't give your input on what the minimum spec for a workstation should be. I cant afford anything beyond basic, really the no 1 reason that I'm thinking about freelancing is the complete lack of zero's on my bank statement. But it also limits my options equipment-wise quite a bit. I'm thinking something-ish like this: intel i5-3350P 8 gig ram geforce 640 gtm no ssd :( So I guess my question here is if there's possible to do simpler 3d work on a personal workstation like this? I understand that its POSSIBLE but how badly will I want to chew my arm of after say 6 months of freelancing doing product viz and motion graphics? -- JOHAN FORSGREN CG ARTIST Phone + 46 31 752 20 00 johan.forsg...@edithouse.se Direct + 46 31 752 20 07 Follow Edithouse at at twitter.com/edithouse Edit house Film Works www.edithouse.se Lilla Bommen 4a, S-411 04 Göteborg, Sweden www.twitter.com/edithouse
