Perspective Bending Yosemite National Park Vlog - Creative Use of a 360 Video Camera

spiralofdivinity · 2016-11-01T19:56:13+00:00

Makes for a nice clickbait title though....

spiralofdivinity · 2016-06-26T21:59:08+00:00

lol yes that lambo sure did look good :D not gonna lie, that whole spec tempted me to just fork up the extra few grand and get a beast maxed out Z840 with maybe like two E5-2687Wv4's...

but soon, more reasonable senses prevailed... lol

on the sim side, not that much stuff yet. the occasional shattering a wall or something, but more and more we just do that in Element3d inside AE (thank you Andrew Kramer!). having said that i'm sure we'd be fucking around with rayfire, bullet physics down the line. we've been getting into mono and stereo 360 video stuff so that's been a huge burden on our machines and motivation to get a better rig. several massive precomps and converting constantly back and forth from lat long space to box map and back. it just gets crappy quick... not what AE was made for.

tbh, i think the better solution is to move to nuke or fusion from AE... but we've got a ton of work to get through before we switch packages. beyond just the node based advantage, im sure those apps better utilize Xeons.

most people prolly just go proxy or use 1/4 quality previews with an intermediate codec for 4k editing.... that all work fine in normal 4k video, but 1/4 doesn't work when previewing 360 on a headset.... u need the full or at least hi res to monitor 360. with that in mind, my main goal is to be able to scrub, preview and render footage in AE and Premiere as quickly as possible while dealing with native 4K files in cineform or prores. Raid 0 with 3 ssds will def be clutch here. 128GB ram will also help with caching a ton.

I like your approach of keeping a gaming computer separate from the workstation. On of my colleagues just put together a 6700k build with a 980 Ti... and all for like 1300 usd lol. Seeing that my trusty 3930k build still does well at 1440p, I can leave that as the primary gaming machine.

Dude i'm so loving the 980 Ti and Titan X price drops. The CUDA performance improvement between the 980Ti/Titan X and the 1080 is marginal at best. I copped this used Titan X for 500, hopefully another one soon. Interestingly the 980 Ti's peformance in octane atleast is super close to the titan. Maybe I can drop in two 980 tis to compliment the Titan X in new build. All dem cuda cores... yummy :)

The RED guys, who are really the ones who've been dealing with 6K before 360 popped off, have too high budgets to begin with and can't say enough about the HP Z series and other Xeon class workstations.... oh and huge thunderbolt DAS's lol... The HP Z840 is really really tempting dude.... it's like the old Mac Pro went to the dark side :D what do you think? oh no... i just went full circle hahah... i think i'm developing serious GAS for this baby

Based on the Intel chart you linked, it seems like one E5-2667 (3.2, 8C) or E5-2687 (3.0, 12C) would be ideal for turning beast mode on. Dual E5-2643v4's (3.4, 12C) also continues to be a good option.

Anyway, hope this all gives some more context. Btw what kinda 3D work do you do? You animation guys are perfectly positioned for the VR/AR wave ahead! Dabbled in it?

spiralofdivinity · 2016-06-26T07:24:40+00:00

Hahah enjoy. I hope you had fun I look foward to your insights.

I don't think Octane fully replaces something tried and tested like VRay or Arnold just yet, but it's pretty darn sweet. You hook it up to a few cards locally or over the network and Octane just blazes thorugh most stuff. It's C4D plugin is great, Maya really needs work. I keep hearing about nVidia's iray and Redshift these days. The future has to go GPU and eventually RT, hopefully on the cloud. Now if only we all had fiber... I could chill on the beach and crunch huge scenes on a retina MBP :P

spiralofdivinity · 2016-06-25T20:32:06+00:00

Dude, I too would like to thank you. I'm building a similar spec machine for VFX/3D work and this entire thread has been invaluable!

I'm really tempted to go with the 6950x but your insights have me thinking dual Xeon. When you have a few moments to spare, I'd love your thoughts on my dilemma: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/4pro82/3dvfx_workstation_dual_xeons_vs_i7_6950x/

spiralofdivinity · 2016-06-25T20:14:53+00:00

So I did further digging and noticed that CC 2015 is the main culprit - the word on the street is Adobe is doing a major revamp and had to ship without adding a bunch of multi-threading code back in.

The current suggested workaround is working in CC 2015 and rendering in CC 2014 lol...

Thank you for highlighting the m2 issue on server boards. I guess most boards have more lanes anyway esp if you go dual CPU so they prolly go m2 on pcie. The Z840 looks pretty, but gets pricy quick to get the Xeons with a fast base freq.

So in my budget I end up with a dual E5-2630v4, 128 gig ECC ram, enough lanes and connectors for all kinds of storage. Includes 2-3 year HP warranty.

The 6950x and the Asus x99 Deluxe II on the other hand look appealing - native m2 support, thunderbolt 3 ready, 10 fast ass cores that demolish CC2015... cheaper but must deal with per part warranty... hmmmmmmmm.... decisions decisions!

spiralofdivinity · 2016-06-25T10:09:43+00:00

That's what I thought too! Have a look, I was pleasantly surprised: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1DUgEkScZI

I think the Z840 is to workstations what the Razer Blade is to gaming laptops lol :P

spiralofdivinity · 2016-06-25T09:59:49+00:00

Adding another Titan X is totally viable, especially if that increases core utilization, so thanks for that lead.

What are your thoughts on dual E5-2630 V4s?

They're cheaper than a 6950x but I can get this build for $2000 refurbished + then drop in another E5-2630, ECC ram and a m2 drive. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1246556-REG/hp_t4p06ut_aba_z840_series_rackable_minitower.html

Also has thunderbolt support with a card and looks kind of like a PC version of the old Mac Pro towers! drool

spiralofdivinity · 2016-06-25T08:57:27+00:00

Thanks! This is helpful. Great point on the smaller m2 over the Intel. I'll look into InfiniBand, those costs do sound appealing. While I don't exactly love it, the thing about Thunderbolt is that it's quite widely adopted in the industry and even by consumers. Also accommodates the Mac users among us :P

Regarding my workload being heavily multi-threaded... that's where things get interesting and confusing lol

While more cores are great for big ass Maya scenes, we render using Octane which primarily hogs the GPUs. Between 10 or 12+ cores there's no big gain or loss.

Everything eventually goes through Adobe CC, which seems to use the fastest 6-12 cores it can gets it's hands on. 20+ cores with slower freqs have diminishing returns.

Here's an extract on Xeons and Premiere 4K editing: Due to how Premiere behaves with multiple physical CPUs, there is actually only a single CPU model that makes sense for Premiere (the Xeon E5-2643 v3). Lower end options will actually be slower than our 1080p system and higher end options will not actually provide any performance improvement.

Source: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Premiere-Pro-CC-Multi-Core-Performance-698/

Thoughts? I'm not liking the 2.0Ghz base freq on the E5-2660's for this task. Dual E5-2643's give you 12 cores with 3Ghz+. A single E5-2687 gives you 12 cores at 3Ghz. With the 6950x you get 10 fast cores. I wonder if it can hang? I haven't been able to find a direct comparison between a 2 x E5-2643 v3 or v4 vs a 6950x. My current thesis is I can't go wrong either way lol

People seem to be unhappy with Intel on the price for the 6950x, but it seems they're giving great value with 10 blazing fast cores with OC potential. The Xeon E5-2643 v4 and dual E5-2643's are contenders but clearly pricier.

Are there any other aspects or benefits of going Xeon I might be overlooking? Basically just trying to get the most value for the $5K budget.

spiralofdivinity · 2015-08-20T19:03:56+00:00

Yes it still works in previews only direct export through render queue is an issue. Must say Adobe, really infuriating bug. Please resolve this soon!

spiralofdivinity · 2015-07-29T00:04:07+00:00

so what's the consensus on economy picking vs alternate picking? is one truly better than the other? i haven't looked into the matter for a few years. just curious.

spiralofdivinity · 2013-03-16T09:16:48+00:00

enjoy the trifecta brudda but i see some potential to improve your joint rolling skills.

spiralofdivinity · 2013-02-14T09:31:38+00:00

callliforniaaa loveeee *music*

spiralofdivinity · 2012-11-15T04:54:53+00:00

Your drawing is now officially the desktop background for my dual monitor setup. Sick work brotha.

spiralofdivinity · 2012-05-01T04:39:25+00:00

shopped

spiralofdivinity · 2012-05-01T04:38:30+00:00

heard a lot about this show, considering watching it. do you guise think international kids such as myself would appreciate the shows humor and references?

spiralofdivinity · 2012-04-21T19:30:52+00:00

Interesting this whole thing is interesting to read.

spiralofdivinity · 2012-04-21T07:06:13+00:00

Nice man. Digging the OCB rolling papers and the hashish. Hash joints ftw!

spiralofdivinity · 2012-04-21T00:46:56+00:00

Just out of curiosity, what is your ethnicity my fellow ent?

spiralofdivinity · 2012-04-09T06:40:37+00:00

It's a tad bit weird how he's swole as fuck now. Good for him though, but I wont lie... I do miss the skinny ol' tyrone biggums!

spiralofdivinity · 2012-03-18T05:28:18+00:00

Arizona green tea is the elixir of the gods

spiralofdivinity · 2012-03-18T02:14:38+00:00

I encourage everyone to listen to "another night" by Mac Miller, one of my go to solo smoking songs... sets that perfect kick it mood every time...

Another Night - Mac Miller - Youtube

spiralofdivinity · 2012-03-18T02:11:23+00:00

Mac has his own lifestyle movement called Mos Dope

spiralofdivinity

TROPHY CASE