Loklo Media 3D Animation Blog

So, after having installed and used Dropbox, I can honestly say it is a great tool to use for syncing files between computers, and even your iPhone (android too?)

I’d had a Dropbox account for a while, but never had the program installed on my computer to fully take advantage of the service. Add a new folder or file within your Dropbox folder, and it will upload to the server, then sync and download back to your other computer(s). You can select which folders get synced, so your not wasting bandwidth.

Another really great thing is that you can share your folders with other users, so you can sync project files, without the need to email them back and forth; there’s even a light form of versioning that can take place if you and your partner are working on the same file at the same time.

Of course, the free account only gives you 2gb of storage – ample for office documents. But start throwing in some photo or video media, and the usage will eat up quickly. That’s why they have a referral program! The more users that sign up thanks to you, the more space you’ll get (250 mb per user). How nice!

So, if haven’t already, and feel a need, I’d encourage you to check it out!

If you want to be kind, you can sign up after clicking my link below, and giver a little extra storage too!

Thanks!

https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTM0MDQ5MjM2OQ

Just a reminder for those in Europe or with nice travel budgets – the VIEW conference being held in Italy is right around the corner – here are a few details:

WONDERFUL WORKSHOPS, AMAZING SPEAKERS

VIEW Conference, October 24 to 28

The 12^th annual VIEW Conference opens next Monday. Amazing speakers and workshops please reserve your seat! http://viewconference.it/docs/VIEW_Conference_program_ENG_2011.pdf

- October 24 – Sharon Calahan, Director of Photography at Pixar Animation Studios: Reflections of Light and Color.
- October 24 – Tom Wujec, Autodesk Fellow: Clarity – Using Visual Thinking to Collaborate, Innovate, and Get Things Done
- October 25 – 28 – Dylan Sisson, RenderMan Technical Artist: RenderMan Roadmap for 2011
- October 24 – Davide Pesare, Shader Writer – Pixar Animation Studios: RenderMan: Understanding Shading on SIMD architectures
- October 25 – 28 – Paolo Baccolo, Guru, Adobe Systems, Evangelist, Wacom Europe: Creativity, efficiency and ergonomics: Wacom’s tools for digital creatives
- October 27, 28 – Mike Springer, Software Engineer Google: SketchUp, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Apps & App Engine.
- October 25-28 – Francesco Lo Torto, Tom Krcha, Giovani Antico, Andrea Pontiggia, Davide Famoso, Luca Boni, Manlio Esposito, Fabrizio Volpi: Adobe Create Suite
- October 25, 26, 28 – David Revoy: Digital painting, concept, illustration using open source software.

Now in its 12^th year, the VIEW is Italy’s largest computer graphics conference. Keynoting the conference are Pixar Animation Studio’s Sharon Calahan, director of photography on Disney/Pixar’s Cars2; Skywalker Sound director of sound design Randy Thom, a two-time Academy Award winner who created the sound design for Rio; Tom Wujec, Autodesk fellow and author of three books on innovation; and Cory Doctorow, technology activist, science fiction author, and journalist.

The conference recently announced speakers who will present work on two recent releases, both created using performance capture techniques first honed on James Cameron’s Avatar: Weta Digital’s Wayne Stables will give a presentation on Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin, and Digital Domain’s Eric Nash will present the visual effects work created for Shawn Levy’s Real Steel.

Also presenting at VIEW this year are Glenn Entis, co-founder of PDI, former head of DreamWorks Interactive, chief visual officer for Electronic Arts, Technical Achievement Academy Award winner, and now a founding partner in Vanage Capital, Academy-Award winner Scott Farrar, visual effects supervisor from Industrial Light & Magic for Transformers: The Dark of the Moon. Two-time Oscar nominee Roger Guyett, also from ILM, visual effects supervisor for Cowboys & Aliens. BAFTA award nominee Peter Nofz from Sony Pictures Imageworks, digital effects supervisor for Green Lantern. Gavin Graham, co-head of 3D at Double Negative for Captain America: The First Avenger. From the Moving Picture Company, Adriano Rinaldi, head of effects, and Daniele Bigi, look development lead for X-Men: First Class. Rob Bredow, CTO for Sony Pictures Imageworks, visual effects supervisor for The Smurfs, and evangelist for the open source Alembic file format. And, Lucia Modesto, character technical director supervisor at PDI/DreamWorks for Kung Fu Panda 2.

VIEW 2011 takes place October 24-28 following the film festival VIEWfest, October 21-23 in beautiful Turin, Italy. For a list of all the speakers, to register, and to sign up for the workshops please visit our website:
www.viewconference.it

I’ve finally taken the time to make the menu on Loklo’s main site work properly as a drop down. My previous solution, which avoided the drop down worked, but wasn’t effective. Now the traffic should flow a little better to the sub pages. I’ve also updated the titles of some of the menu entries… might tweak pages and menus a little more, though.

After having a bit of a lull in sales on The3DStudio.com, I’ve decided to lower prices on some of my most viewed items, including the Pumps and Motors set, Grass Textures, Penguin and Wolf Models, tutorials and molecules.
Check them out here:
http://t3ds.com/m/260735

I did another little comparison using V-Ray this time to see the performance of the 1090T vs. q9550.

See the pics:

Ignoring the first frame render time, as that includes Max startup, I took the average for both:

Pholus (q9550 @ 3.4GHz with 6GB DDR2) – 8:36 (m:s)

Kraken (1090T @ 3.8GHz with 8GB DDR3) – 5:02

Kraken is 41.5% faster in this case.

If you remember this post, it’s not quite as fast as the i7 2600, but for the price, it’s ok, and good enough for now. IF you look at the render times for frame 1402 on the old post, you’ll figure out that render settings are slightly different, and so is the render time – therefore not a valid comparison, but good food for thought.

Here are the pictures of the assembly of “Kraken” – the 1090T.

[AFG_gallery id='1']