Another option between an iMac and Mac Pro would be to get a quad - you just configure a MacPro and downgrade the to quad cores (saves $500).  The render times are simply related to the number of cores you have working - so the more the merrier.

Operation though would be pretty much the same on any machine.  So, if you go off to sleep and render, it wouldn't really matter which machine you're using unless you're doing very large scenes. Or as in my case, I like to use very small render previews which run quickly with all 8-cores.  An iMac wouldn't really be much faster than what you already have though except that you could use Hyperview to render on both machines.

btw, 4G RAM should be adequate.  I have 16G as I also do music.

Also, the iMac is a cost-effective choice as it comes with a nice 24-inch monitor.  If you get a Mac Pro though, consider getting a DELL monitor instead.  I have a DELL 2408 which is half the price of an Apple and its really great.

Greg

 Gwenolye,

Nice gallery!  I like your work so here's some tips for you:

There are several ways you can save considerable amount of money buying a Mac Pro:

1. Get 2.8G instead of paying $1,600 more for 3.2G which is only 14% faster.

2) Buy RAM from third parties.  Apple want $3,500 for 16G RAM and I bought mine for $516 from memorytogo.com

3) Buy hard drives from 3rd parties (such as newegg.com) for substantial savings.

Get a friend to help you install RAM and drives - its really pretty simple though.

Greg

Quote - That makes sense. With dynamic population, it's populating and rendering. So, the time that you saved by not populating you're now spending on the rendering. There's no free lunch... :-)

In Vue 6 Infinite, population only uses one of my 8-cores; yet rendering uses all 8-cores.

With dynamic population in Vue 7, does it use all 8-cores for population as well?

 Yes Vue Infinite uses all 8 cores for rendering.  But for some operations such as ecosystem population, it only uses one core.

Hyperview doesn't work very well on the MacPro with OSX10.5.  It only renders to BMP and it doesn't seem to recognize older macs running OSX 10.4.  But, if you have older Macs, then you can use them to render from and then all is good and well.  Hopefully Vue will fix this in an update before Vue 7?  Its a "feature" that supposed to work.

 I hope Vue7 Ecosystem population will use all processors.  With Vue6 Infinite, each time I populate a large scene in my MacPro 8-Core I have to go get another cup of coffee and surf the internet for 10-15 minutes until my ecosystem populates as it only currently runs only on one processor.  For me, this is the biggest time-consuming bottle neck in Vue 6 Infinite that makes it inefficient to use in production work.

I'm getting really high-strung on caffeine and need a break.

 Glad to be of help.

Its nice to get a cookie for post.

And you can further optimize your renders by carefully adjusting your render quality settings (AA and sky quality settings in particular).  I just do lots of small tests at different settings to see where the best point of optimization is.  My rule of thumb is to nudge settings up as long as it looks better but if I can't see the difference, there's no point in going beyond.  When comparing, it helps to open both files in an image editor for A/B comparision so you can see the subtle difference in details.

 I have been rendering some very large files (7957 x 3850) using 4 Macs and 1 PC.  I have found that depending upon the complexitiy of the scene, some machines can lock up if they don't have enough RAM.  I've reduced tile size (from 256 to 128) and they all seem to be rendering OK now.  But finding a good tiles size thats most efficient is tricky as if its too small, the time it takes to send and receive from machines becomes inefficient and slow machines perform equally with fast ones.  So you want a tile size that keeps the machines busy more than the time they spend sending files back and forth. 

However, another problem I notice is that when all tiles are done rendering, with a very large scene, it can take longer to compile all of the tiles that it did to render them!  In these cases, it seems faster for me to render on a single 8-core machine as the compile time is extremely fast.  I haven't timed out comparisons though so I'd be curious to hear the experience of others too.

Equally, with very small files, it doesn't make sense to render across multiple machines as it becomes inefficient - unless you just want them cued for batch rendering during the night.

And again, Mac Intels don't work well as the Master for batch render distribution (but do work well for rendering) - I must use my Mac G5 for batch render distribution for all machines and all file types to be recognized.  E-on should fix the huge bug!  Is this on the list to fix?

 Hmm.... glad that worked but...

Looks like Multi-pass is really your best ticket.  It allows you to select from among all the objects which ones you want in the alpha.  And it supports occlusion shadows as well.  Saves as multi-layer psd with alpha.   I guess you need PS or else need to render separate files?  A bit of a hassle at first but it seems pretty clear and flexible.

Remember the Fifth Element?  "Multi-pass, multi-pass..."

Did you check "render only selected objects" in the render options?

Could you temporarily delete the other objects just to render the alpha of the object you want?
(as long as you don't need shadow silhouettes of the other objects on your desired object).

Sorry I can't test this now as I have a scene open I'm working on.....

 Not all functions of vue use all the cores though.  Fortunately, rendering does.  However, populating eco-systems doesn't (this is where I often get tripped on the 10-minute beach ball).

TIP - For those without lots of cores, carefully adjusted render settings can get you almost as much additional mileage efficiency as lots of CPU cores.  Model without textures and atmospheres, test small sizes, and nudge render quality settings up slowly as you go.

 I just got a MacPro 8-core and cannot load the main Vue file I've been working on in my G5.  Same Vue 6.5 build 292711.  It loads fine on the G5 but not on the MacPro (hangs and crashes) - so the problem is that Vue functions differently on different machines.  
 
Solution (kludge): I've had to rebuild the file by saving objects and importing them. Unfortunately, I can't load the atmosphere which is hard to recreate - it seems this may be the cause of why the file can't load on the MacPro.  I don't believe this is a content license issue as the atmosphere content is not protected the way objects are is it?
 
Also, Hypervue works very very poorly on my MacPro 8-core. It only renders with other Intel machines and sometimes does not render with itself.  It "sees" all machines (IPs recognized) but won't start rendering on the older G5 machines.  Of course, all cows are up-to-date and I've restarted the machines before attempting to render.

When I run Hypervue from the G5, it works with all machines.  So there is something clearly broken with Hyperview on the new Intel Macs.  Plus, Hypervue doesn't refresh and needs a manual nudge between batch renders which is really inconvenient if you're trying to render a bunch throughout the night. - I believe this is a known problem although I'm not sure the one above is.

 Nice useful tip!  This will really come in handy.  Thanks Gary (and Catherine?)

But why doesn't the paint brush populate as thickly as the normal eco populate?

And it would be really cool if those cubes could be locked to the camera and there was a way to update the eco population area during animation frames....but I suppose this isn't possible?

Maybe a nice idea for Vue 7?

Thanks for the perspective guys.  Being a new MODO users, I was just wondering what advantages this might have for a proficient MODO user and whether it would add to my capabilities or be redundant?  If its simply more tools to learn, then a fatter toobox just adds to my challenges.  OTOH, if it does something different or better, then that would be a reason to take on a bigger challenge.

I started out with Hex (never got a handle on it), then Cararra (OK, but clunky interface) and then MODO which seems the smoothest and easiest for me.  Dan Ablan's video tutorials really help me the most I think.

 Contact info for Philippe is at the bottom of his website although I'm sure he'd appreciate only serious offers.

http://www.belino.net/

For MODO users....

What does this let you do that you can't do in MODO?

How do you integrate it into your workflow?  As a modeller?  Or painting UVs?

Is it a useful addition to MODO or a replacement?