Any 3D/animation artists here?
- Thread starter Tilltech
- Start date
There aren't any easy answers here. It really depends on your software setup, down to which plugins you have and which renderer you're using. Base specs (4-thread based with mid-tier GPUs) would let you open and edit most basic scenes, but when you start going into physics/dynamics or plugins or complex shaders or large-array scripting or renderers or even simple "large project file" things like a billion triangles you'd need to find out what hardware do they tax on harder.
But in general:
If you need more info for speccing a PC for 3D production I'm afraid this forum isn't the best place to find lots of people who do this for a living.
EDIT: I wonder if LTT ever needs a 3D artist, lol.
But in general:
- more RAM gets you more "table-space" for your 3D package. 16GB is considered base. 32GB would be better if your scene demands it, but any larger than that you'd have to look into serious workstation setups.
- more CPU threads benefit parts that works on CPU power. If the renderer or physics engine etc etc are coded for the CPU, the GPU would just be updating the viewport or waiting for the CPU to finish the particular time-frame
- ditto GPU. Also more RAM on the GPU lets it hold/process larger models.
- I'm not going into the Quadro vs GeForce thing, because Really It Depends + Can of Worms + GTX is enough for most individuals
All of this is to say: what programs and plugins are you using?
If you need more info for speccing a PC for 3D production I'm afraid this forum isn't the best place to find lots of people who do this for a living.
EDIT: I wonder if LTT ever needs a 3D artist, lol.
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Maya, Unreal Engine 4, 3D Coat, and some other auxiliary programs like Affinity Photo and Designer, but these are the main ones.
- Maya: viewport 2.0 editing favours GPU. Maya Bullet favours a stronger OpenCL performance setup. Maya Software Render and Mental Ray favours CPU. Octane Render favours GPU. etc etc etc
- I'll just say this to generalise (people can disagree with this): Anything recent will do. Spend more on CPU first, then anything GTX 1060 6GB or above. It's less cost-effective to upgrade a CPU than a GPU within the year or two.
- As mentioned: 16GB RAM will open most simple scenes; 32GB will get you through some more-involved projects (especially when you have Maya and a Game Engine open at the same time)
- Unreal Engine 4: (disclaimer: not a game coder) do with what you have first. Keep in mind you might end up making a game that runs only on high-end hardware. Remember to optimise your games
- 3D Coat: more GPU VRAM, in general
- Affinity Photo and Designer: you'd already do fine if your PC is specced out for Maya
VegetableStu basically covered everything...
Few points I know:
- Maya supports Direct 3D and since you use Unreal Engine 4, you will definitely go gaming GPU instead of a Quadro...
- CPU is more demanded when you do rendering (except if you do GPU rendering which is still rare I think), and the render speed is basically reciprocal to your CPU frequency x cores. If you don't do renderings a lot, maybe you don't need a monster CPU...
Few points I know:
- Maya supports Direct 3D and since you use Unreal Engine 4, you will definitely go gaming GPU instead of a Quadro...
- CPU is more demanded when you do rendering (except if you do GPU rendering which is still rare I think), and the render speed is basically reciprocal to your CPU frequency x cores. If you don't do renderings a lot, maybe you don't need a monster CPU...
Fellow 3D artist here.
I'm using 32gb ddr4 ram, always nice to have that space.
R5 1600 slightly overclocked is a price to performance dream, I use blender3D primarily and having that open with adobe aftereffects, illustrator, substance painter, unity, and photoshop all at the same time with no stuttering is awesome, and this is coming from a 6700k. Plus having the extra cores is nice for rendering physics animations since I can't use my gpu to do complex math renders.
I use a 1080 for gpu, it really makes the viewport "smoothness" and experience a huge difference, coming from a 970. That and gpu rendering speed is nice to have. I could probably not notice a difference with a 1070, but I got my 1080 for a really good price.
the new 12 threaded i7 will for sure beat out the 1600, not by a huge margin, but its almost double the price (i got my cpu for 185). If I were you I would just get 1600, or even the 1700.
I'm using 32gb ddr4 ram, always nice to have that space.
R5 1600 slightly overclocked is a price to performance dream, I use blender3D primarily and having that open with adobe aftereffects, illustrator, substance painter, unity, and photoshop all at the same time with no stuttering is awesome, and this is coming from a 6700k. Plus having the extra cores is nice for rendering physics animations since I can't use my gpu to do complex math renders.
I use a 1080 for gpu, it really makes the viewport "smoothness" and experience a huge difference, coming from a 970. That and gpu rendering speed is nice to have. I could probably not notice a difference with a 1070, but I got my 1080 for a really good price.
the new 12 threaded i7 will for sure beat out the 1600, not by a huge margin, but its almost double the price (i got my cpu for 185). If I were you I would just get 1600, or even the 1700.
Blender has various system requirements listed here: https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/
As for rendering engines, it depends on the engine and how it is being used.
As for rendering engines, it depends on the engine and how it is being used.
I don't think op is using blender? Though I prefer it to Maya any day.
They never said what they were using or intended to use so we are just throwing in our advice and opinions. I would be awesome if they used Krita as well.
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Third post in the thread...
My 1 1/2 cents...
If I were to be building a (consumer parts oriented) workstation right now, I would go for a 6-core / 12-thread i7-8700K (Coffee Lake) CPU, 32GB of 3200 / 14 RAM, a 1TB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD, & a GTX 1080 Ti GPU...
Throw it all in a NCASE M1 chassis with a custom water-cooling loop on the CPU & GPU...
That should cover you for the next few years...!
Just interface preference. I understand the click pie wheel of maya is fundamentally easier to navigate, but I think because I'm somewhat of a gamer that I really enjoy the hotkey interface of blender, it makes my workflow much faster.
That and I don't want to spend money on expensive render engines, cycles + denoiser is amazing looks good enough for me. Though I hope one day to move completely to cinema4d with octane render, I like octane caustics much better.
I remember first seeing Maya on SGI O2 workstations at Siggraph in the late 1990's, back when SGI was still SGI & alias|wavefront was the developer for Maya...
3D workstations & 3D software has become SO much more inexpensive since then...!
3D workstations & 3D software has become SO much more inexpensive since then...!
Let's not forget the usability improvements in the later versions such as the Q menu.
Well, benchmark results came out for new coffee lake cpus... The performance increase imo is incredible, but only if you overclock it.
I'm shocked the i-5 8600k has about the same multi-core performance as my 1600, which has double the threads... but has much faster single core performance, should be good for 3d viewport performance and ui speed.
I'm shocked the i-5 8600k has about the same multi-core performance as my 1600, which has double the threads... but has much faster single core performance, should be good for 3d viewport performance and ui speed.
Yes, it looks like even the cheap, lower-end Coffee Lakes perform better than the previously best-buy Ryzens..
The 8700k results are borderline workstation-grade, while offering the best gaming performance.
