GazzaMataz

Well it has been two days with my PC on with no spontaneous restarts since I disconnected the Reset Jumper. I won't hold my breath but if this is what has caused the problem I will be amazed… Doesn't quite explain why my computer would not boot at all until I replaced the thermal past but there's nothing weirder than computer problems!

If you want any tips on rigging and animating the horse I can give you a bit of guidance since I have been doing this sort of thing for years. I can seem to see the model? Where is the link?

Thanks for the reply Mash! I have updated the BIOS and it didn’t make any difference. Unplugging the reset switch doesn’t sound that silly since when the machine spontaneously reboots it is almost like it is sparking out and then back on again. Some else suggested this so I will give it a try. I am intending on using the machine as a render node in the mean time so if it does conk out occasionally it won’t hurt. My Mac mini is fine for modelling and animating on but yhe rendering is pants.

OK. When the problem first started I cleaned all the insides of the computer and fans using compressed air and a hoover - so no dust. Next I checked the power supply and Scan sent me a replacement since it was under warranty. So it’s not the PSU. Then I tested each of the four memory chips on their own in the appropriate slots and still got the same problem. I have two identical GPUs so I tested with each one individually and in different slots - same problem, so I doubt it was either GPU. I also had all drives apart from the OS one disconnected during all tests. The machine also rebooted when just running in BIOS so it’s not Windows either and I did update the BIOS. The computer then developed the problem of not booting up at all and the warning light was stuck on the CPU. So I took the cooler off and removed the CPU which looked fine and then applied new thermal paste and put it back together again and it worked fine… for a while… Now it is rebooting just occasionally so that is why I suspect the motherboard. It is tempting to buy a second hand mobo to see if stability comes back but I am thinking why throw money at a seven year old system but it renders real fast and I can use it as a render machine. I would love to know what the problem is.

I’m still dithering on buying a new PC since I am sure I can fix my wobbly Threadripper PC. I have asked on a lot of forums about what could be causing the fault but nothing seems to work. Can anyone here suggest a place where I might get a solution? Or am I flogging a dead horse. The machine makes a very faint noise when it reboots. I am pretty certain it is the motherboard, a circuit on it?

Glad to see some nice character work done in C4D! I was beginning to think I was one of the only ones who uses C4D for characters. Merry Christmas and happy holidays peeps 😀

Funny you should say that Mash. Four years ago when I bought my two RTX 2800ti GPUs I bought one of them there power gadgets that you plug into to show how much power was being used - it was nowhere near the 250w for each GPU when under load. So it's another bit of Apple marketing 😉 I bought a 1600w PSU since I was planning on installing four GPUs but nowadays that has all changed and the power of say a 4080 is the equivalent of four 2080ti so I might invest in one single GPU. Probably a 4090 when the 5090 come out since the prices might drop.

I am well aware of the slack GPU power of Mac Studios, I have been looking at the Ultra with 76 cores which scores the same as a single RTX2800ti (like I have) in Cinebench and is vintage 2018 - or is that 2017? It's still reasonable I suppose. I don't take too much notice of Cinebench scores since when I rendered a project on mine on my PC it was taking 25 frames per second (2x RTX 2800ti) compared to my M2 Pro which was taking 50 secs. Other projects varied… But when you think about it if you shell out £1,800 for a RTX 4090 and realise that it can use up to 750w of power that's quite demanding. Those Mac Studios are quite power efficient in comparison. Think I will always have a PC and a Mac but with comparable performance, especially now that xRefs works over Team Render I can have a mini render farm going - happy days!

Thanks for the reply Hrvoje. I should have realised that the components for motherboards are made in the same factories but just branded differently… Think I will go with the one that I liked. I think it is the CPU that is the thing I am dithering over the 7950 is about 35% faster on the multi core front but the same as the 7900 on the single core. My Mac mini Pro is also the same as those two on the single core front and don't I know it compared to my Threadripper. Not that I use multi core much these days - he says…

Hi All At the moment I am running an ageing Threadripper 1920x with two RTX 2800ti GPUs using primarily C4D and Adobe Creative Suite. Recently, it developed the habit of spontaneously re-booting for no reason. I tried all the usual tricks checking each individual RAM stick, changing the PSU and switching the GPUs to no avail. I investigated further by taking a look at the CPU, removing it and putting it back and since doing that it seems to be behaving??? So I temporarily switched to my Mac mini M2 Pro which I only bought as a secondary computer. But it is faster than my Threadripper except at GPU rendering. I was thinking of switching to Mac since I liked the silence and the lower power consumption but looking at the GPU results on even the faster Mac Studios they are disappointing. I don't think Apple will be releasing a new Mac Studio any time soon so I am thinking it is time to buy new PC components. So in short I was looking at a Ryzen 9 7950x or 9 7900x which would give me a lot faster single core and multicore performance, the single core is more appealing since I do a lot of animation. This I was thinking of plugging into a MSI AMD MPG X670E Carbon WIFI DDR5 ATX motherboard because I like all the USB ports. Anyone got any recommendations? I would keep the RTX 2800ti GPUS for the moment possibly upgrading to an RTX 4080 next spring which would also give me twice the speed. Looking forwards to peoples suggestions and I hope that I have posted this in the right place.

Cool! I wish I had discovered this a while back would have been very helpful. It's one of those little C4D nuggets innit 🙂

Mesh Checker? That's a new one on me… I looked for this and couldn't find it. Is it in C4D 2025? I am still on 2024…

OMG! I was wondering where my latest issue had gone… I never got no notification that it had ended? I loved getting this mag every month and the last two where very useful since I need a new PC. I have every issue ever printed sitting in my loft so that’s since 2000 and over 200 issues. Maybe they will become collectable one day 🤣

Well I spoke to Sebastian who is the software development manager at Maxon and he said that xRefs have been fixed in C4D which I suspected and am over joyed about 🙂 Also I got it slightly only on the Redshift licencing front I only have to buy another Redshift licence to get Team Render working full blast rather than another C4D or Maxon One subscription so that works out even better. Lastly I have also found that turning off CPU in the Compute Devices in the Redshift preferences on the Mac speeds up rendering a fraction too - happy about this. But dedicated GPUs are still gonna be faster in Redshift than any of the current Macs. I was hoping Apple where going to be releasing an M4 Studio this month but alas no… I guess I will have to repair my ailing PC at some point LOL. Hope the xRef fix helps others.

Well I spoke to Maxon again and I think I have solved the Team Render issue. What I didn't realise it that Cinema 4D only includes the CPU version of Redshift for use with Team Render which will be slower. The only way I can use the GPU version of Team Render is by either taking out a Maxon One subscription or another Cinema 4D subscription for my PC. Still doesn't explain why the xRef character rendered correctly in Team Render on both machines. I will have to conduct further tests on this since I have found a way for it to work I will be a very happy bunny since I use xRefs for character work on nearly every project that I do. BTW in my Redshift settings I do not have Hybrid Rendering enabled since it is turned off by default. But I do have all my compute devices turned on both my Mac and PC. I never normally touch any of the settings in the Redshift preferences. The only option I have tinkered with is the Bucket Rendering size which I change from the default 128 to 256 since it can shave off quite a few seconds on render times especially on my Mac mini M2 Pro.

I sent this through to Maxon support back at the beginning of October and the problem then was that I didn't have all the textures in the right place. When I sorted this out it worked as expected and I was seeing faster render speeds on my PC. Now I have done the update to 2024.5.1 it seems to have gone back to what it was before again (slower render times on my PC) even with all the textures present. What is good it that the character animation is now unaffected by Team render and renders fine on both machines. Another point that was interesting is that in Cinebench 2024 my PC scores 14,000 on the GPU score whereas my Mac mini M2 Pro hits 2,700 so in theory five times faster. But when I have tried a few scenes I am finding that my PC is only twice as fast as my Mac mini which I was actually quite pleased about. So on that note a base Mac Studio M2 Max should render my scene at the same speed as my PC and be quieter and use less juice. Please note I am not trying to start a PC/Mac war just looking at real world results 🙂

Hi All OK I wanted to try an experiment using Team Renderer using CPU rendering and GPU rendering with Redshift. I am using my Mac mini M2 Pro as the host machine with my Threadripper 1920x as the client. Now when I render using CPU rendering my Mac mini is as fast as my Threadripper - which I expected. But when I render the same scene setup with Redshift my PC is three times slower than my Mac mini and my Threadripper system sports TWO RTX 2800ti GPUs. This just doesn't make sense, the Threadripper system should be 2-3 times faster than my Mac mini. It seems that Redshift is the problem perhaps? And another very weird thing. When using Team Render and xRefs (in this case characters) normally one machine will render the animated character correctly and the other will not and render it in it's T-Pose. The only way to fix this is to make the xRef character editable. BUT! In this instance it rendered the animated character on both machines absolutely fine… I am completely mystified but hoping that I have discovered a way to render xRefs using Team Render. Anyone got any ideas on the Redshift rendering conundrum?

Has this been sorted?

Latest update with an extra character, sound and a few lights 😁 BB Catwalk PR HB v01.mp4

Worked out the spots - de-noising required and the patches are all to do with hair thickness. So a bit of tweaking here and there and it is now sort of sorted. Next, the control rig to tweak the animation 🙂

OK bit more fun wanted to see how the character looked moving. I am wondering if the hands and arms are too long? Also I seem to have a black patch on the tummy area - more investigation is needed! BTW the sampling was low on this so that is why I have the white spots… I think… BB Catwalk HB v03.mp4

Started on the hairdo and eyelashes today. Think it is an improvement?

Thanks for the tip Kingcoma and Vector (I did know about density/length) maps - I will give that a try but I think I have found another workaround using RS Principled Hair. It was hard work trying to find a tut that is up to date with the new Principled Hair and I have yet to find a way to give the hair colour based on an image map. I mean if I wanted to have giraffe or cheetah fur on the character it just don't work using the SURFACE setting. You used to be able to do that but now it doesn't seem to work. So what I have done is create two sets of hair one for the body and one for the belly using density maps. It's getting there but there must be an easier way.

OK been working on this project today UVing all the meshes and painting away with BodyPaint (why do I feel I am using something that is dated?) I haven't added the hair on this render but now I am wondering if I should? I will do it anyway and also try doing some sub-surface scattering on the skin. I am liking what I have done so far - much more appealing that the origonal I think?

Agh! I thought someone would look at it and say straight away that’s cos you didn’t do this or that…