Loklo Media 3D Animation Blog

I’ve got an AMD 1090t (6-core) CPU and related parts coming soon, and will be overclocking it – probably to 4.0 – then comparing to my q9550 which is OC’d to 3.4GHz.
It won’t be here until the end of the week, or maybe next week…
I’ll let you know how it compares with vray, mental ray, and scanline renders.

Since Loklo Media is based in Lethbridge, I decided to make a video specific for the Lethbridge Area (and anywhere else).

This uses a 3D model of the Viaduct, with a simplified and highly inaccurate representation of the Coulees and Old Man River in the first sequence, then a “practice” motion graphic animation based Loosely off of an Autodesk sequence, then a couple of paid-for jobs – the Architectural Visualization render of an interior (The exterior was also done, but not shown in this video), and a quick little oil/water separation unit as a process animation.

Enjoy, feel free to comment, subscribe, etc. Remember to connect with Loklo Via LinkedIn, Youtube, Facebook.

So I was able to recently help out a middle school class with some green screening of a movie they were making from a novel. This was a fun little experience, and I learned alot.  I’ve read and watched tutorials about chroma keying/green screening in the past, but have never actually tried it. So, I went to Walmart, picked up a piece of green cotton 1m x 2m, and went to town. We stretched the screen nice and flat (after ironing it) and taped it to a portable whiteboard with as flat of lighting possible in the school. Then, using an old Flip cam on a tripod, shot the “actors”. Some garbage matte was applied in Vegas to get rid of the non-green stuff on the fringes, but I didn’t roto the actors to prevent holes in their clothing/bodies. Oh well… time was short.

Anyway, here’s the result:

Here’s an awesome resource for HDR (or EXR) high dynamic range images to use as light probes in your favorite 3D animation/rendering program (I use 3DS Max and either Mental or v-Ray now; Blender somewhat supports these as well).

He’s got dozens of different skies – so if you don’t like this one, you can surely check out the rest in his collection! (oh… they’re not free – but a good deal!)

These images are used for the ambient environment light in your scene, to give a more natural and realistic feel to your renders compared to a generic sky that comes with Mental ray or vray. Obviously if you’re trying to match your scene for a photo-comp, you’d need a sky probe as close to the real photo as possible – he’s probably got what you need.

So I’ve been able to borrow a core i7 2600 based computer to help render a project, and I must say I’m impressed!!

My main workstation is an Intel q9550 overclocked to 3.4GHz – you’ve probably read my other posts about it. It’s decent, but aging.

I compared render times between my three computers plus the borrowed i7 – wow!

See the results for yourself.

Now, raiju64 is my slowest computer – I bought it on a budget, used. It’s an HP media center, with an Intel quad q6600 running stock at 2.4GHz. The Banshee machine is similar, but custom white box, and overclocked – q6600 at 3.0 GHz (I think… it might be 2.97… can’t remember). Pholus is my workstation, mentioned above running a q9550 at 3.4GHz (400×8.5). These are all fast computers, and would blow the average home computer out of the water. But for 3D rendering… their strengths (or weaknesses) shine.

I could replace Banshee and Raiju both with a single i7 2600 (or 2600k if you build yourself) for around $850 CDN. That’s worth it, if you rely on yourself for rendering. It’s a worthy investment.

Compare frames 1407-1409 – Raiju + Banshee’s total render times for two frames is 18:59, and Predator (the i7) rendered a single frame in 4:11 – I can render 4 frames on the i7 in the same time that two machines take to render a single frame each. wow! I know what my next purchase will be!! Save power on the utility bill, get results quicker, and have bragging rights to a fast computer.

Now, this is in the consumer/prosumer level – if you have a bigger budget, you would likely consider building a system with dual 6-core intel Xeons to really blast through the renderings. I’m not there… yet.

I’ve decided that if I’m to do more product reviews and tutorials, then I need a little more funding – so please consider donating to help out with more good blog entries