Lots of time and effort I’ve been putting in with Kim Lee to bring more exciting stuff to the group. Please be sure to attend the next event in August if you can. We have some special announcements and probably the best eye candy yet. We have Jesse Holmes to present some great topics. Vray is always welcome and this whole cloud rendering thing is going to be interesting. Hell I have no idea what this cloud is but if I can render my fancy shit to it then I want to know.

Thanks to all of those who’ve been getting involved. The gallery is looking great. Let’s get the NY Minutes to the same level. Don’t be shy share your max tips & tricks!

Visit the site often leading up the the next event to see what we are doing.

Stay Involved!

Keep an eye out for our survey which should be up on the main page before the weekend and we look forward to everyone’s input. For local members who attend the events and hence have access to the private area, feel free to continue this discussion there.

On the site you have many ways to involved directly with what we are doing online. You can submit local 3dsmax news, gallery images, hell even submit a New York Minute.

Those that have been attending Events we appreciate it. As you know during the Events we announce things that you only get for showing up in the flesh or in our world SSS-Skin.

Remember this is only the beginning of what is to come!

Recently on April 11th, 2012, almost 6 years from the release of version 1.0, Sitni Sati is proud to announce availability of the FumeFX 3.0 for Autodesk’s 3ds max platform.  I must say after having worked on several feature films using FumeFX the updates in version 3 are absolutely amazing.  I’d like to discuss some of my favorite new features and why.  Please join in on the discussion if you’ve been using FumeFX.

To most people that have used or played with FumeFX this new version on the surface might not seam like a lot of the value but let’s try to take a closer look.  Here is a list of the new big features in version 3:  Effectors, Render Warps, N-Sim, & Preview Window updated (GPU).  These 4 new features alone are my favorites.  Certainly there are a few other improvements with FumeFX like the ability to see the noise pattern, simple source texture emission, colored smoke (not looking forward to the hundreds of crappy sims on utube that will pop up on this feature).  So yes there are more features or gems that you will find with FumeFX 3.

Let’s start off with the my first favorite, the preview window.  There is a new GPU version that you can use to display your simulation with full shadows & illumination unlike before along with geometry included in simulation.  Having this ability is certainly nice to have but for me the biggest part of the update to the preview window is the fact that I can preview multiple grids at the same time.  I would have killed for this feature while working on Final Destination 5.  Another very good addition is the Render Warps.  I would almost suspect this is slightly taken from the guys at Thinkbox.  They’ve had the ability to warp “PRT’s” with modifiers for a long time and its a great feature.  You can do this sort of thing in Maya particles but let’s not go there.  Instead of going back to tweak a fume simulation just to move a section of the sim a little bit to the left, to the right, etc. or whatever the art direct is telling you.  Now you can just throw on an FFD box and ghetto animate it for a few frames done.  I’ve used warped particles with PRTS before in production and now having that ability in fume is going to be sweet.

OK now for anyone that has every had to simulate a shit ton of grids you know “N-Sim” is going to be your friend.  The last update in FumeFX had a way of sort of doing this but just really didn’t work out as expect and you ended up just doing the brute force method and having a bunch of grids overlapping.  I’m stilling waiting on my FumeFX 3 license to show up just so I can do a massive smoke trail to test out the new “N-Sim” method.  Now for anyone that has been doing a lot of advanced work with FumeFX “Effectors” are a big deal.  This is not for the max user that just creates a grid and hits “Sim” and posts to Facebook or UTube and tells everyone they know FumeFX.  Effectors are going to really change the game.  This is going to separate the users that open up Allan McKay files and post them to the internet as simulations they’ve cooked up.  When you have a vfx supervisor giving you feeedback on a FumeFX sim and you really need to dial it in, Effectors are going to really be a big player.  I can’t wait to get my hands dirty with Effectors.

So for all the FumeFX users out there please give me a shout out for your favorite new features and why.

Regardless of your situation, even if you need to get a single workstation, its obvious the situation can be complex. Do I build a machine? (for those of us accustom to it or those who are ready to take the leap into geekdom) or do I buy one and have the peace of mind that should come with support. While I have no problems building a machine, and for the record have been doing so for the last 25 years since the days of the 386 chips, the reality is, I just don’t have the time to , nor do I frankly want to, have to support and troubleshoot my machines when they inevitably have software or hardware problems down the road.  Just because I know I can, doesn’t mean I should.

Then add the lovely state of our economy.  Unless your very fortunate, everyone seems to be feeling the pinch to some degree or another.  Some obviously worse than others, but the bottom line is, money for this kind of purchase was always tight BEFORE the recession, so now, well do the math.

Both Joe and I are exploring some interesting options for hardware, not only for our own personal needs, but also to help eventually present our recommendations to the members of the group who are in the market for some silicon and blinking lights.  I’m interested to hear what you all think about general hardware issues such as:

Do I buy or build?  If I buy, usually for the support,  do I go Big conglomerate (like HP,Dell,Boxx,etc) or do I look for a more localized and hopefully more personal company?  What are our sweet spots in terms of price point?  How many of us are REALLY willing or able to spend upwards of $5k on a single machine?  maybe more than I would guess, maybe not.

How much power do we really need in a laptop?  and what kind of power?  CPU? or GPU cores (CUDA).

I’m going out on a limb on this next one as I’m really not a baseball fan, but like the Yankees or Red Sox thing, What are our group members’ leanings in terms of Nvidia vs ATI?

Well I think that should be enough to stir up the pot a bit.  Lets hear what you guys have to say.

Post your thoughts here and if you haven’t already done so, take our 1 multiple choice question survey from the link on the main page.

So what does everyone think?