I don't get these threads and questions anymore.....
With bootcamp there should be no question... get a mac and have the best of both worlds.....!
With bootcamp there should be no question... get a mac and have the best of both worlds.....!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
3D Modeling and Animation, Mac or PC?
- Thread starter Maccho
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Why? To buy a mac only to have it bootcamped most of the time is basically a really good way of wasting money. That's not the best of both worlds - it's the best of neither.
For the price of a Mac Pro (the ONLY Mac even worth considering for 3D work) - you could build a good Windows workstation AND a small home render farm.
There's no contest.
Seriously. £1900 for the cheapest Mac Pro, with one 2.66ghz Quad Core chip, 3gb Ram, 640gb HDD and a Geforce 150!
I could pull together a machine with a Nehalem running at 4ghz, 12 Gb Ram, 300gb Raptor system disk, a couple of terrabytes of render storage, and a Quadro FX 4800. THAT is a workstation. You could cut corners and build a few £300 quad core render nodes to go with it. THAT is a way to boost productivity, believe me.
You've just got to weight up the pro and cons. Get a list of all the software you want to use then se if its available on a Mac. Then decide if you want a Mac or not... Bootcamps annoying for me. I just use Google Sketchup and bunkspeed hypershot on my mac both compatible and really good results. Depends on what software and what you want to model really.
I'm a 3D artist working on a Mac. Support for 3D apps on the Mac is getting better and better. A few things my experience with both mac/pc 3D apps is saying:
- PC is better for hardcore 3D... If you are really going to setup an animation pipeline. More tools available... XSI, Max, Fusion, sculpting tools like Mudbox/ZBrush runs better on PC. Especially XSI is missing grrrrr!
- PC counterparts of multiplatform 3D apps like Maya, ZBrush and Mudbox run a lot better on PC and has more support... for plugins for example. I have used Maya for years and the Mac version is getting better each time. Mudbox 2009 Mac grrrrr, it doesn't even sculpt properly @100000 polys on my new unibody MBP.
- Modo is very good on the Mac! If I use Modo on a fulltime basis I would certainly choose Mac.
Why I still want to use a Mac inspite of the disadvantages listed above? Obvious reasons... Expose, Time machine, Path Finder, better workflow. Prefer CS4 on Mac. Mail. Safari. Less s h i tty OS stuff.
3D on the Mac can be done, but on the PC it is much better, no question about it. But support on the Mac is growing! Just look at Houdini.
- PC is better for hardcore 3D... If you are really going to setup an animation pipeline. More tools available... XSI, Max, Fusion, sculpting tools like Mudbox/ZBrush runs better on PC. Especially XSI is missing grrrrr!
- PC counterparts of multiplatform 3D apps like Maya, ZBrush and Mudbox run a lot better on PC and has more support... for plugins for example. I have used Maya for years and the Mac version is getting better each time. Mudbox 2009 Mac grrrrr, it doesn't even sculpt properly @100000 polys on my new unibody MBP.
- Modo is very good on the Mac! If I use Modo on a fulltime basis I would certainly choose Mac.
Why I still want to use a Mac inspite of the disadvantages listed above? Obvious reasons... Expose, Time machine, Path Finder, better workflow. Prefer CS4 on Mac. Mail. Safari. Less s h i tty OS stuff.
3D on the Mac can be done, but on the PC it is much better, no question about it. But support on the Mac is growing! Just look at Houdini.
Oh please, don't exaggerate so much. You can use Macbook Pros and iMacs for 3D, they're not nearly as fast as a Mac Pro, but they can handle 3d without much problems.
That is, if you can cope with Windows.
Use XP, its been running for the longest time on Windows with minimal bugs. Im not saying its the best to run on Virtual but goin going with my extensive use of Maya, XP is much more stable. Now as far as After Effects, all your renders will be sequential using TIFF, TGA or SGI. Id suggest IFF but they dont seem to work on AE. As long as your renders are using the above formats, you can bring them into AE easily. Make sure you use 3 digit (or more) number padding e.g. renderOutput.sgi.001.
AE tends to get weird if you dont. Good luck, I make my living on both apps
Lets make this simple
I do 3D work for a living and at present there is NO new apple product that is really suitable for heavy 3D. Apple no longer sells a quadro (or a fire gl/pro) gpu option (although that might change with a new release later) which is specifically designed for 3D workflow - this is more to do with speed of working, not speed of rendering.
Therefore any of the current line up can work in 3D programs, albeit they will go at different speeds depending on the gpu and cpu and the rendering times will be relative to the cpu performance.
Personally I would still buy a specifically windows machine (but I use windows only programs) as they offer better bang for buck in this area and I quite happily use 64bit vista (and I will upgrade to windows 7), xp 32bit (didn't bother with vista 32bit) has a considerable performance short fall over vista x64 on my rigs using the same software (obviously 32bit/64bit accordingly).
I do 3D work for a living and at present there is NO new apple product that is really suitable for heavy 3D. Apple no longer sells a quadro (or a fire gl/pro) gpu option (although that might change with a new release later) which is specifically designed for 3D workflow - this is more to do with speed of working, not speed of rendering.
Therefore any of the current line up can work in 3D programs, albeit they will go at different speeds depending on the gpu and cpu and the rendering times will be relative to the cpu performance.
Personally I would still buy a specifically windows machine (but I use windows only programs) as they offer better bang for buck in this area and I quite happily use 64bit vista (and I will upgrade to windows 7), xp 32bit (didn't bother with vista 32bit) has a considerable performance short fall over vista x64 on my rigs using the same software (obviously 32bit/64bit accordingly).
Lets make this simple
I do 3D work for a living and at present there is NO new apple product that is really suitable for heavy 3D. Apple no longer sells a quadro (or a fire gl/pro) gpu option (although that might change with a new release later) which is specifically designed for 3D workflow - this is more to do with speed of working, not speed of rendering.
Really?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_quadro_fx_4800_for_mac_us.html
Read my post again.
I know there are options, there used to be a quadro fx5600 iirc with the previous gen but you can not at present add a quadro to ANY of the new macs when you are buying from apple. You have to buy it and install it yourself (or tech guy).
And last time I checked you still couldn't buy the fx4800 for mac's anyways.
I know there are options, there used to be a quadro fx5600 iirc with the previous gen but you can not at present add a quadro to ANY of the new macs when you are buying from apple. You have to buy it and install it yourself (or tech guy).
And last time I checked you still couldn't buy the fx4800 for mac's anyways.
Read my post again.
I know there are options, there used to be a quadro fx5600 iirc with the previous gen but you can not at present add a quadro to ANY of the new macs when you are buying from apple. You have to buy it and install it yourself (or tech guy).
And last time I checked you still couldn't buy the fx4800 for mac's anyways.
Well, if you really want to use it, it isn't such a big hassle to buy it somewhere else, and I don't think its that difficult to install it either.
It sure isn't as easy as just configuring and getting, but hey, you do get the best OS with the best(?) professional GPU with a little work. That makes Mac Pros good for heavy 3D Work.
imo, the pc is the most efficient tool for 3d for two reasons:
1) hardware: choices and compatibility
2) software: choices and compatibility
by software i mean applications and drivers. os is not important. at least in my case, i spend all the time in the apps. as long as the os supports the hardware and software im good to go. and actually, pro software is extremely stable, coming from nt backgrounds as opposed to 9x based consumer software.
sure you can do it in a mac but youre limiting your options and paying more. its up to you to decide if its worth it.
one thing ive noticed about 3d: its the most hardware / os agnostic field. most of the debate is about software. but even then most people dont care. they all get the job done. it all comes down to individual preference
1) hardware: choices and compatibility
2) software: choices and compatibility
by software i mean applications and drivers. os is not important. at least in my case, i spend all the time in the apps. as long as the os supports the hardware and software im good to go. and actually, pro software is extremely stable, coming from nt backgrounds as opposed to 9x based consumer software.
sure you can do it in a mac but youre limiting your options and paying more. its up to you to decide if its worth it.
one thing ive noticed about 3d: its the most hardware / os agnostic field. most of the debate is about software. but even then most people dont care. they all get the job done. it all comes down to individual preference
I'm a college student and I'm getting ready to dip my toes in 3d rendering. I've been doing basic 2d stuff until now (Autocad...hate it) and occasionally do some SketchUp. I love my Mac and I really don't want a PC again so I've been checking out all the available Mac software.
I'm surprised only one person mentioned Modo because I thought that was a highly revered 3d program for the Mac. Their site has beautiful sample renders. I was planning on starting with this program but is there a reason many of you pros don't use it?
I'm surprised only one person mentioned Modo because I thought that was a highly revered 3d program for the Mac. Their site has beautiful sample renders. I was planning on starting with this program but is there a reason many of you pros don't use it?
Modo is really a great program, powerful and easy to use. However, it lacks a particle system and some other advanced features that other 3D apps have. Also, it's not really made for animation. Their new release 401 should introduce a bunch of great features:
http://www.luxology.com/modo/401.introduction/
Also, while the developers said that it's not their character animation release, some people have done this little thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pA92YhhzNM&feature=channel_page
BTW: A good, cheap program (100$) to start 3D is Cheetah3D. Very easy to use, you can do some quite nice stuff with it.