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JR Trek
- Thread starter JR TREK
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That gets the Crossfield/J.Hayes roughed out. There are plenty of details to add but I'm ready to move on to texturing. I've had to switch over to the EEVEE renderer since my pre-GPU computer can only do so much with Cycles. I looked at computer components today and holy cow, $1600 for a video card?! Well there are cheaper options but we'll push the old rig a little further. I'm sure this is a terrible time to be spending any money. Feels like the whole thing could fall apart at any moment.
$1600? Wow, what video card are you looking at? Also, did you factor in upgrading your power supply to match the extra power draw of the new video card?
$1600 is actually pretty reasonable for a top-end graphics card. I spent about that much in 2018 for each of the RTX-2080Ti cards I put in my current workstation. Five years later, $1600 will get you an RTX-4090 with 3.7 times the speed and more than twice the memory of the RTX-2080Ti.
Oh yeah, I figured it would be a top-end card at $1600. There could be extra costs like upgrading the power supply to handle a top-end card. Back in 2019 I upgraded from a 2060 Super to a 3080 12GB and had to get a new 850W power supply.
@JR TREK - Also I would add that upgrading to any Nvidia RTX 2xxx series or above with 8GB or more memory will be night and day faster than doing a CPU render in Blender. Going to GPU for rendering is probably the single biggest productivity boost to your 3D rendering.
@JR TREK - Also I would add that upgrading to any Nvidia RTX 2xxx series or above with 8GB or more memory will be night and day faster than doing a CPU render in Blender. Going to GPU for rendering is probably the single biggest productivity boost to your 3D rendering.
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I'm factoring in the cost of an entirely new rig. Mine is probably 15 years old now. I doubt anything currently made will work with it, other than hard drives. But am I really going to spend a few grand to make hobby art? Makes more sense just to walk away?
You apparently have gotten along without a discrete GPU this entire time so you can always continue to just use your CPU for rendering. If you are in the US, for *under* $1,000 you can get a decent pre-built gaming rig (11th gen i5 CPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, RTX 3060 12GB or 16GB VRAM) that will give you the ability to use GPU rendering and it will be way faster than CPU rendering. You do not need to spend a few grand on a computer.
FWIW, the only reason I upgraded from a 2060 Super to a 3080 (plus new PSU) was to play VR flight sims. The 2060 Super was already night and day fast for GPU rendering purposes.
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Yeah, I haven’t upgraded my workstation either. Dual RTX-2080Ti is still pretty fast, and besides, most rendering jobs run overnight anyway. If instead of taking 8 hours and finishing at 9 AM it only takes two hours and ends at 3 AM, from my point of view it’ll still be finished when I wake up. 
The thing about computers is that I like to build them to last - and I've still got three old towers sitting around, taking up space. I can't bring myself to dispose of them.
I have to agree though that a sub $1000 would be fine, and way better than what I currently have. But my current machine does everything I need well, except for rendering in Cycles.
I have to agree though that a sub $1000 would be fine, and way better than what I currently have. But my current machine does everything I need well, except for rendering in Cycles.
Thanks, Death Ray! I pulled that one up a couple days ago - kinda sad how lo-rez the textures are, but the Picard BoP is about the same (or lower).
I kind of understand that. I built my previous workhorse computer (now secondary) as an i5 2500K back in 2012. I did my Lightwave rendering on that until 2019 when I built a new computer (my main) with a Ryzen 1700x (now 3700x). Still, even with CPU upgrades it doesn't hold a candle to a GPU render.
So, another idea is for around $300 get a 12GB 3060 and try it in your main computer and see if it helps with your hobby.
Been such a long time since I've done 3D, I almost forgot about UV unwrapping -
Well, the spore drive is "done."
Now, what is the right way to texture this?
I've considered doing this as a game model, like the Starglider, but I never did anything more with that than import it into Unity.
How many textures should I try to cram this into? One 4k texture? I'm pretty sure that won't give clean panel lines when putting the camera next to the hull. i don't know how big the textures people are using are to get those shots, but I wonder if it is a practical production size?
Well, the spore drive is "done."
Now, what is the right way to texture this?
I've considered doing this as a game model, like the Starglider, but I never did anything more with that than import it into Unity.
How many textures should I try to cram this into? One 4k texture? I'm pretty sure that won't give clean panel lines when putting the camera next to the hull. i don't know how big the textures people are using are to get those shots, but I wonder if it is a practical production size?
I'd have to look up what my motherboard is. I tried a "newer" card from that time period, but it didn't work. I don't know what the issue is though - I bought it used and it could be totally dead. Seller did the worst packaging job I've ever seen.
I think it's a hit or miss with used cards. A friend of mine years ago bought a used GTX 1070 and had no issues but it could've been a bad card as well depending on how hard it was used. Yeah, definitely check your motherboard and see what it can support.
UVs are mostly done, beginning to texture . . .
Looks like Newegg has changed their site to only show orders going back 10 years. Now I've got no idea what my motherboard is.
Working on the bridge layout. There's a ton of space beneath the bridge windows and I wonder if it would be used this way. Visually though I think the windows are the size they need to be, so we'll make excuses on the bridge size. NX-01 did have that room behind the bridge with a big console table in it, which I assume is a secondary engineering station. Having a transporter room on the bridge is strange, but IIRC the DS9 runabouts had a transporter towards the rear of the cockpit. The bridge may be a giant escape pod too. The rest of the crew may have to suit up and jump out the cargo bay door. The bridge module could then beam them aboard. If they turned off the gravity, they might be able to hold the whole crew on the bridge.
I thought about adding a turbo lift, but I wonder if this ship needs one -
The cargo bays take up most of the rear of the ship. It's not a big walk to anywhere, except from the front of the cargo bay to the rear, or from the bridge to a warp nacelle. i don't think they'd spend interior volume on a turbo lift system here.
UV looks good!
If you're running Windows 10 or 11 you could run System Information to get the motherboard info.
if it was good enough for the F-111 it’s good enough for your bonny starship!
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