Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=139113&Start=1&Sectionid=6&WhatsNew=Yes

Hello Everybody: I'm finaly posting my first Carrara image which I think it's worth showing to everybody. (I'm including a link to the gallery and a small thumbnail). There's still some work to do with the lighting, fog and the atmosphere but you get the idea... But besides showing it to you I would like to ask you something about Carrara's performance (slowing down), whick I think was discussed earlier in a message. I'm experiencing some slowdown with the scene I posted. When I modeled the first robot everything was fine. Then I added the second one and things began to slow down, the I added the ship an the terrain and you can begin to guess... The whole scene is 800k (which I don't think it's to big, but I may be wrong) I'm reusing robot parts with master objects so the scene wouldn't be so complicated and about 4 different shaders at the most, some of them by Litst, by the way ( Real world Carrara Metals, thanks!). I'm using an IMac G3/ 400 mhz, 256 ram I'm planning on buying the new iMac g4 /800 mhz, 750ram I guess my question is that if I would see some improvement on speed with the new computer or is Carrara not very good at handling polygons. I want to make some animations with these two guys but it's going to get pretty ugly when I start adding furniture, fogs, and other robots to the scenes. What do you guys think? Does somebody have similar computer configurations? Thanks in advance

Hi, Really cool image. I also suffered serious slowdown problems last week. What seemed to fix my problem was creating an extension set just for carrara with the minimum number of extensions needed to run it. I also use a mac, though a G3 powerbook (the pismo) not an imac. My problem may have been a little different though, because my computer would slow down the longer carrara was running, even if I was working on something very simple. Turning off most of the eyecandy in the preferences also helped, but it was the extension thing that really put an end to the problem (for now anyway, knock on wood). Cheers, Max

hi velarde,

like max suggested, running carrara with only the extensions you absolutely need is a good way to get more speed out of your computer.

my question for you is, does the slow down you speak of pertain to the rendering time, or the fluidness of the interactive render? (the Gouraud live preview)

if the slow down is in the interactive render, then my guess is that it is the number of objects (polygons) in proportion to your ram and processor speed.

however, if the slow down is in just the render, there are many things you can do.

i would recommend buying "digital lighting and rendering" by jeremy birn.

it has many tips for speeding up renderings, as well as just achieving a better image. you won't regret the buy.

-scott

The slow down is in the modeling room. When I want to move the camera and all the objects. I work everyting in wireframe (or even boxes) 'cause I know that the live preview is kind of slow with many objects. The rendering process itself is kind of slow. But I expect that beacuse I have a lot of reflections in my scene. I turned the number of reflections to 4 (instead of the default 8) and I think that helps . Does anybody work with a G4? what is your opiniion of Carrara's speed there. Thanks for the tip on the book. I'll check it out in Amazon

velarde, about the G4... my girlfriend has one, but i'm reluctant to load C onto it because i might never be able to work on my 266 Mhz G3 again. actually, i'm going to use her computer when i render my animation that i'm working on. i'm hoping that it is far faster. i'll let you know. about your rendering speed... i've noticed in my work that procedural textures that get too complicated slow down my render time even more than a hi-res texture map. i tend to use procedurals mainly for things like terrain - because they don't repeat, or gnarled trees - since the procedural textures are 3-D and go through strange objects instead of stretching. you might want to play with making procedurals into t-maps by rendering them on a flat surface and using the rendering as a t-map. all suggestions of course. i hope they help. by the way, that book is really good. better to get it now before you get too involved in animating. you will probably learn tons. -scott

Velarde, I am still a beginner with Carrara, but I know Macs and troubleshoot Macs and PC's as a business. Your iMacs configuration should be OK. Couple questions: 1. How much memory have you allocated to Carrara? You have 256MB ram, give as much as you can to Carrara, taking the systems needs into consideration. 2. Reboot your system and when the desktop appears, choose About this computer in the Apple Menu, how much memory is the Mac OS using, and how much is free? 3. What is your virtual memory setting? It should be 1MB over your RAM. This is the default setting in the memory control panel. If you changed this you may want to click the default button to reset it to the recommended specs. Some people will say that VM actually slows done your system. It does for some applications, but having it set to the default can actually increase performance, as the OS will use less memory and programs will require less to run. However when you add more ram to or above 1GB, the OS will disable VM. 4. What kinds of other hardware do you have installed that requires a system extension. Basically anything that you intall, softwarre or hardware that requires a system extension, will take performance away from your system. Take iTunes as an example, it installs several extensions that are not necessary to use the core program, but add bells and whistles like MP3 Player support or automatic lookup of track names. You can disable quite alot of extensions and still use the software without being penalized in system performance. Of you want, save your extension sets to a file, using the extensions manager and I will be happy to look at them and tell you which ones are not needed. I can also make notes on ones that are required for specific hardware to function. You can email them to paulg256@hotmail.com Wow, this is a long message. Bottom line is you should not have to disable regular system extensions to regain performance. A lot of times an extension conflicts with another one or a program and causes problems. I use the same extension set day in and day out with no problems. Regards, Paul

Oops, one more thing. The new iMacs are Fab, but if you can afford to, consider one of the new G4 towers instead. I use a G4 450DP and love it. I have no problems with performance in most apps under OS9.x. and since it is a dual Processor I get a major speed boost in photoshop, and anything in OSX. the iMac is a consumer level system. The G4 towers are pro level and have a faster Bus speed, Faster Ram, Faster Ethernet port, Faster Video, Faster HardDisk & Access, and very expandable. Like I said I love the new iMacs (My wife owns a flower power one!) but for the most bang for your buck, especially for graphics related work, the G4 tower is the best choice. Ciao, Paul

Thanks to everybody for the advise: I went to Amazon and bought the Lighting book + a texturing book (from the same author) + a character posing and animating book. They look pretty good and I guess I really should read them before I really start my project. Which, if it pays off I'll get a g4 with a bigger monitor, but for now its just an iMac for me : ) The g4 processor and superdrive look pretty good compared to my old computer, anyway... I hope I'll be able to show you the animations later Thanks again. P.D. from reading the other messages I found out what was wrong with my picture...! My shadows were noy working correctly because of the the terrain I was using. Great forum Fernando

I have been away from the forum for awhile and you may have received all the info you need but here is a little more. I use a G3 300mhz at home and a G4 450mhz at work, both towers. As far as work in Carrara there is a marginal difference between the two but render times are noticeably faster on the G4. I did have slow down problems with large files on my G3 at home untill I stuffed it full of ram and let Carrara use all it could besides the operating system. Nothing beats lots of ram. By the way, very cool image. memaci