[rescue] Maya Personal Edition/Mac available

[Brian Hechinger]

On Tue, Feb 26, 2002 at 02:02:01AM -0500, Joshua D Boyd wrote:
> > 
> > except that RE2 would probably stomp SI right?  also, i'd rather have a dual
> > headed Onyx. :)  i really wish i could find one of those damn cardcages.
> 
> Well, if you are displaying images faster than the maximum refresh rate, what
> is the point of being faster?

uhm, well, ahhhhh.  good point. ;)

> Seriously though, from an artistic point, the idea is to make your image with
> the fewest control points possible.  So, NURBS are better than polygons (well,
> kind of) and Subdivision surfaces are better still, and you have to be doing
> extremely complex animation to make a good impact machine stutter.  Either 
> that, or the software is badly written.

so what is the point of having insanely powerful gfx hardware if i'm never
going to use it?  what does the RE2 or even an IR2 gain me?  i'm kinda curious.

> I've worked with 20meg models, which is extremely complex on max impacts with
> out trouble.  I suspect that a lot of those polygons were hidden probably 
> helped, but that is going to be the case with most redicoulously large models.

again, see above.

> In that case, the model was from point data taken from scanning cryosections
> (the model was aquired from Visible Productions who made it from a 
> cryosectioned human).

that sounds cool.

> But, if you have an Onyx, might as well use it, even if the boost is wasted
> a lot of the time.

well, i won't disagree with you there. :)

the Octane is a general purpose workstation.  that's why i got it.  i needed
something new, and the price was right.  i'd like to use the Onyx for GFX
work.  get the Spaceball and the buttons and dials hooked up to it, and pretty
much dedicate it to the animation, CGI stuff.

> Err, it would take a little scripting to make it work like that.  I'd recommend

scripting just happens to be something i'm rather good at. ;)

> doing it by hand initially.  Depends on the system you are using though.  If
> you purchase Maya and are using MTOR (I don't remeber if that is free or not, 
> but it connects Maya to Renderman compliant renderers) it will be a lot 
> smoother than Blender would be.

something to think about when the time comes.  need to figure out how to get
a copy of Maya.

> Cheap hobbies are boring.

true.

> Besides, there is a lot that can be done on the cheap.

but this is more fun. ;)

> Well, then your only real option is Imagemagick and composite (included with
> BMRT).  You might be able to script the gimp to do it, come to think of it.
> Especially with the acid-gimp system...

hmmmm.  didn't even think about gimp.  interesting thoughts there as well.
i'll have to look into acid-gimp.

> Just need to find someone with a copy, and someone else who knows MIPS 
> assembler really well.

the latter is turning out to be a lot easier than the former. :)

> > hmmm.  well the offer still stand if you are interested.
> I'm sure I'll take you up on it sometime.

i'll have to see what i can do about picking up some projectors and we can
start fooling around with the CAVE project idea.  although i would need an
MCO if i wanted to do that.

-brian

-- 
"Oh, shut up Buddha."  -Jesus Christ (South Park)