Greetings, Vue Community (sorry about the double posts, i have deleted them).

I want to purchase Vue/Mover to work with it and Poser in close cooperation for an ambitious animation project. It consists of three foci: Characters in dialogue in static interior and exterior settings; flyover of certain California terrain generated with help of DEM; Exterior cityscape of part of Los Angeles.

I have lots of experience in Poser, but none in Vue.

May I ask the forum for response and opinions on the following:

1. I desire the global illumination/radiosity/HDRI functionallity of 5 (and that is why I have initially rejected the idea of Vue4Pro with Mover), but am worried I will be held back in render speed because it is not "Pro". When will 5 pro be out, and can I do the Mover5 net render with Vue5 non-pro (even if at lower speed) while I await Vue5Pro?

2. Is Mover5 included with Vue5 new purchase at $249?

3. I have two Macs with dual processor, a G4 and a G5. Can I make them take up a total of 4 render nodes? I assume the two processors in one machine each would render a different frame? (I want independant frames, of course, in TIFF or TGA) And is this scheme efficient, or do the two ongoing renders on one machine impede each other?

4. On a dual-processor G5 1.8 with lotsa RAM, can I be modeling/creating/Posering and also have it be a node on the renderfarm?

5. I also have two pretty good single processor PCs. Does a cross-platform renderfarm situation with Mover5 work?

6. Vue apparently comes on a dual-purpose Mac/PC CD. I assume my license at $249 is intended to grant one 'seat.' However, is it permitted to sometimes work on one computer, sometimes on the other, and the project files are okay on either platform? I am not trying to abuse license, (I can buy another seat if necessary) just want to know what flexibility I have inside the license, and also if Mac Vue files and PC Vue files are transparently identical.

7. Is Vue functional for modeling buildings and interior spaces? Or do artists normally work in Truespace or Wings or ? and import that type of model into Vue?

Really appreciate this forum and hope to be a contributor during the process of this project.

Thank you,
::::: Opera :::::
John Donohue
Pasadena, CA

Message edited on: 11/18/2004 13:48

LOL operaguy. I can only answer 3 questions for you this time :(. 1. All E-on has said is end of year, beyond that we have no idea. Vue5 will be incorporated into Vue5Pro, so the Pro version will have all of Vue5 capabilities & then some. With the added lighting & the changing of the render engine all together, I would not anticipate that the Pro version will be "sped" up, as raytracing and other lighting affects the render time. 2. NO. Mover is NOT included. 7. Modeling can be done....but not to the extent one can model in WIngs/Shade etc. I have seen some fantastic modeling recently in the gallery-a guitar to be specific using Vue boolean objects & the metablobs. It all depends on the level of detail you are looking for.

1. Nope. But both the Cows and VuePro are multiprocessor aware, so they would use multiple threads in the rendering. The way the HyperVue network render system works, the actual Vue application functions as the controller. It handles file transmission, scene set-up and frame specifics. When it is doing this, it can't render, so you need a Cow on the controller system. I haven't tried to run multiple Cows on one system, but i suspect things are coded so that only one can run within an OS environment at a time. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.... 4) With sufficient memory and a roomy swapfile, yes. RenderCows are designed to run in the background, so other things can be going on. Probably the most problematic of the lot you mentioned would be Poser. It hasn't got the greatest memory management, and textures can eat RAM like a 4 year old goes through animal cookies. 5) Yes! The Cows talk to HyperVue through TCP/IP protocols. The easiest way to do a home rendergarden is to name each computer something unique, and have add it to the render queue by name. Much quicker than by TCP/IP addy (the 4 boxes in my garden are betsy, bossie, elsie and rose. Good Cow names... :P ). And the Cows are much more forgiving regarding resources that Vue itself is; the GUI and viewports really eat resources. The strongest box in my garden (currently) is an XP-2500+ on a Gigabyte K7 board with 1.25 gigs of DDR-266. The weakest that was once in it was an original Athlon 700 (the Sega cartridge), and 384 megs of PC-100 SDRAM. It was slow, but it was stable (running Win2kPro SP2). 6) So far as I have heard, if the content libraries match each other, you can transfer scenes from one platform version to another. As for a dual install...usually such liscences are worded as to indicate you can only have one version active at any one time; personally, I wouldn't think E-on would have a problem with having say a laptop install to create as you go, and a Mac install at home to do the rendering while you create the next scene. But that is only my opinion...

Dale, Thank you for taking the time to give such a careful reply. 3) Dale said: "Nope [I can't have two cows on one computer]. But both the Cows and VuePro are multiprocessor aware, so they would use multiple threads in the rendering. The way the HyperVue network render system works, the actual Vue application functions as the controller. It handles file transmission, scene set-up and frame specifics. When it is doing this, it can't render, so you need a Cow on the controller system. I haven't tried to run multiple Cows on one system, but i suspect things are coded so that only one can run within an OS environment at a time. I could be wrong, but I doubt it...." So, my two dual processor Macs can NOT process two different frames at the same time, but since VUE/Mover is multprocessor aware, they will be efficient (fast) at processing the one frame they are rendering at a given time. Is that accurate? I am glad to hear I can go cross-platform. I think I will leave one computer completely off farm production, for surfing, emailing, Posering, modeling etc. I guess one of the three would be the controller and also render as a cow, right, and the other two just be nice contented cows? I just realized I have a functioning Mac 7200 accellerated to G3, I wonder if I could get milk outta that old thing. So, if you had the following three computers on a farm, which one would you run as the master? Mac G5 Dual 1.8MHz 2.5/GIG/RAM 250GB/SATA/HD+80GB/HD Mac G4 Dual 400MHz 1/GIG/RAM 80GB/HD PC Athlon2800 1/GB/RAM 80GB/HD Again, thanks for your reply ::::: Opera :::::

dlk30341, Thank you for your reply. I want to ask a more complex question about Vue4Pro vs Vue5, but will do so in a new thread. ::::: Opera :::::

"So, my two dual processor Macs can NOT process two different frames at the same time, but since VUE/Mover is multprocessor aware, they will be efficient (fast) at processing the one frame they are rendering at a given time. Is that accurate?" That is my understanding. I don't have Macs, so there may be something in the OS coding that allows it; a Mac person would have to verify. Windows doesn't permit it, though. And Vue The cow would run multiple threads, instead of a single thread, so yes, it would be a faster frame render. "I am glad to hear I can go cross-platform. I think I will leave one computer completely off farm production, for surfing, emailing, Posering, modeling etc. I guess one of the three would be the controller and also render as a cow, right, and the other two just be nice contented cows?" Oh Good Lord yes...unless you're immune to Net addiction or have a lot of projects you need to do elsewhere. And that is how it would work. The only thing you need to be aware of is that Vue is sensitive to both system resources and packet collision. On my set up, I can't start all 5 cows rendering at the same time; either system resources bottom out and Vue CTD's, or there is collision in the data transmission to the renderboxes, and again a CTD. An easy work around is to just start the main Cow, wait until it is rendering frame 0, then start the next, and repeat. Hm. You -might- want to set up the G5 as the main box, and then test it. With that much RAM and a dual processor, it may be that you could do other things on one processor, and let Vue run on the second. It would only run one thread, but it would keep the strongest box available. I haven't played with dual processors (yet), so there are issues there I can't address from experience. Probably I would use the G5 as the master; it has the most physical ram, and that would allow Vue to distribute larger scenes for render. The Cows use the swapfile to store resources, so they can run on a much smaller memory footprint than Vue does. Basically, the Cow is nothing but the Vue-specific version render engine with a TCPIP front end and minimal file handling ability. It depends on HyperVue to pass it all the resources and data it needs, then chews it up and spits out the results. So the system with the greatest resources should be the controller, as it has to keep track of what it's sent out... Oh, one thing to keep in mind. If you do set up a second computer to create content on for rendering, be =sure= that your installation drive letter and file structure matches in the content department. One guy local tried that with a different app, and didn't take into account that his laptop only had a C: drive, and all his stuff was on E: with a totally different file tree structure. Just about drove him insane.... "I just realized I have a functioning Mac 7200 accellerated to G3, I wonder if I could get milk outta that old thing." If the OS supports running the Cow, probably so. Mac people? This stuff is kinda addictive, isn't it? :P

The license (in user manuals) actually states that your copy of Vue can only be on one hard disk at a time. I did a lot of reading up and ended up buying a couple more copies of Vue 4 and another copy of Vue 4 Pro (and will do so with Vue 5 Pro) in order to have Vue 4 on my 2 larger machines and notebook, and Pro on one machine and one notebook.

Dale, thank you for the REALLY valuable information. It is so great to have these pioneers who are out there ahead of you contributing the wisdom which almost certainly was developed by grief! I hope I can pay it forward with my own gained wisdom with this project. Can't discuss content at this time, but will be able to show results afterwards. ::::: Opera :::::

Heh. Yeah, 'Grief'is a good, subtle word.... :P If you do a setup on a laptop, and you use lots of seperate drives (and it runs Windows) on your non portable units, you might want to look into a copy of Partition Magic. I've used this during the last 3 rebuilds of my main system to fix the drive letter assignments when I've had to wait until Win2k was installed to load drivers for part of my hard drive cluster (don't use raid yet...just a lot of drives, with critical stuff mirrored across two physical drives), or the smart media reader and CD-R and DVD burners decided they want certain letters. Partition Magic runs as a Win native app, and lets you create partitions, add or subtract from them, and reassign drive letter designations. It's been an invaluable tool when I've upgraded; I just keep a cheat sheet of what my major apps are, and which virtual drives they are on. If I have to migrate the drive, I know what the former idenitification was, and can make sure the drive identity matches (with a Poser runtime pushing 30 gigs of content, this is not a convienence. It's a neccessity and a lifesaver). The app (or the Mac equivalent) would make it easy to create new partitions and assign the correct drive letter to it. I learned long ago that the best thing is to have lots of discrete hard drives, and install nothing on C: except the OS and things like codecs that =have= to be there. Internet apps go on a seperate drive (which in itself defeats about half of the script kiddie nonsense, as it assumes it will be in C: with direct access to the root through something like Outlook). And if the OS faw down go boom, at least my data is still safe. I quit counting the number of people I had to explain that by using the default, when Windows blew, it took their pictures and letters with it... Oh! If you are going to be using Windows in your renderboxes, then head over to litepc.com, the home of 98lite and 2kXPlite. This is a utility that is so worth the minimal cost for Windows users. The guy who created it, Shane Brooks, did so in rejection of IE and the MS claims that it couldn't be removed without breaking the OS. They Lie. 2kXPlite has about 150+ features and apps that you can remove from the named OS, with a corresponding decrease in the OS memory footprint. For a renderbox you don't need things like IE, Outlook, Java, the Windows scripting host, games, Media Player, etc. The NT version runs as an application (where 98lite acts as an installer controller; you can get 98SE down to around 80megs of hard drive space if you wanted to), and give you an option to turn file protection on and off as you see fit. So you can make anything you don't need go away, and get rid of the cache files that XP and 2k hide to re-install that anything. My garden boxes are pretty stripped down, and run without a hitch. For XP this is a real gain, and it lets you strip all the dancing puppies and talking paperclips out of the system and saving that memory for something more important.

Dale that is astounding, priceless information. Yikes and thank you. I am going to take your advice wholesale concerning naming of drives and will install Partition Magic. The equiv does exist in the mac world. Hope you don't mind me contacting you when it is time to really assemble things, for closer questions. What do you mean by "Internet Apps?" I already follow that philosophy about nothing on C: but the OS, if possible, and carry the same convention on Mac. I wish Apple would ship the G5 with a small small footprint 20GB or so drive for the OS and leave its two bays open for the 250GB SATA drives so you could do RAID etc. internal with the OS safely on its own drive. They insist on putting a pedestrian 80GB in one bay. You can't buy a G5 without it. I have three underutilized Macs. I'm hoping the Vue4Pro renderfarm implementation for OSX is excellent. That way, life will be easy...the complex stuff on the G5 and the messy stuff on my stand-alone P4 PC. If the cross-platform scheme really does work, I can add two or more low-cost PCs as cows, and expect very little from them except to be cows. Cows is cows. ::::: Opera :::::

YOu're welcome! Hey, I like to show of- er, pass on wisdom... ;P By 'Internet apps' I'm referring to browser and mailnews readers. I militantly hate Outlook; I have spent entirely too much time trying to fix things done to friend's computers that this one POS app was directly responsible for allowing in. I use Eudora for my e-mail, Agent for my news reader, and Opera for my browser (no P2P for me; I don't trust anyone with access to any part of my system...FTP is just fine for fine transfers IMHO). I put those on D:, which keeps them away from easy access to the boot sector of C:. And since they aren't the apps being touted as supported by many of the ISP's (of course they follow the net standards, so they don't =need= support), the script kiddies rarely go after them. And not being integrated into the OS, it's generally harder to use them as attack portals anyway. (This conversation always reminds me of when my wife and I got cable internet. The 'techie' came out to install our NIC's for us. We already had them in and configured. Then the techie went to set up our service....and sat there. And sat there. We were both running 98lite sleek at the time, so there was no IE, no Outlook, and no way to get to his canned config files that I would bet a penny would have caused more trouble than they were worth. -We- had to talk -him- through doing the setup by IP address...and for a few months, we had shell access. He spent probably 45 minutes on a 5 minute job, but he was -starting- to understand before he left...and was amazed at the fact that there were two Win 98 boxes in the same location that were stable.... >:) ). And any way I can help, ask. If I don't know something, I'll say so.... ;)

Exactly what networking software do people deploy for a small render farm, five or fewer nodes including the master? 1) if all Windows, can you just use the simple peer to peer built into XPHome? And what would the hardware need to be? Ethernet from peer to peer plus an inexpensive hub? Or do you even need a hub? 2) at what point do you need something serious like Win2K Server? ::::: shudder ::::: 3) what about for a mixed network of Macs and PCs? ::::: Opera ::::: (networking novice)

1&2). All I use is a 5 port Linksys switch to connect my 4 renderboxes together. I do feed the line off of that into my home router, but that is more because it had an extra port handy. With just about all of the distributed rendering apps, they have at least some ability to control things by using the OS networking substructure. The top end apps (which I haven't messed with as of yet) -may- require a legitimate client-server framework to function in, but from what I've seen, such a 'real' network is there more because you have several artists using multiple workstations, and it is just easier on all concerned to have one server with a hellatious RAID array, and keep all the resources to be used there. That way everyone has access to the same material, and you don't lose time passing things back and forth on disks and sticks. If you did serious video handling, you would also want at least the RAID array, and might prefer to have a server that is more for consolidation than anything else. Now someone building a 200 node renderfarm would need a client server setup, just to allow them to control the 200 other computers from one location. At the level of a 5 node garden, a KVM switch does that just fine. 3). As long as there is a remote render application for the OS in question, and said app uses something standard like TCP/IP to talk to the controller application, there is no technical reason -not- to mix the boxes. At our level, it's probably safe to say that one of the main driving factors is cost; if a couple of Macs are handy and will do the job, then there really isn't a good reason to spend the cash to build Windows boxes, unless the Macs are simply too slow for your needs.