SGI: Computer Graphics

I picked up a freebie Indigo2 the other week, which it turned out was in its original shipping box. Written on the box was 32MB and 1GB, so I wasn't necessarily expecting a lot (the previous owner had never tried running it since they acquired it), but still a cool machine to have in comparison to all the Indys I've goofed around with over the years. I mainly opted for it because the other choice was a teal I2, and personally I can't stand SGI teal

Turned out that the box was misleading, and it's an ex-Cray machine with 195MHz R10k, 384MB, a pair of 4GB drives, and the Max Impact graphics set with the TRAM option. Oh, and the feet (damn, those machines look even better stood up on their sides!). Anyway, no complaints from me...

Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) Cray did everything via NFS mounts, so there's a bazillion mount points and not much else on the disks beyond the stock OS. So, to the point: obviously it would be nice to be able to show off the 3D capabilities - does anyone have any suggestions for available software that would stress the hardware a bit?

thanks!

julesr wrote: does anyone have any suggestions for available software that would stress the hardware a bit?

suggestions, sure, have a look at http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/Catalog_of ... X_software

as far as "available" goes that could be a problem. oh and welcome here btw

Thanks - I'll take a look. It's not really obvious what purpose this machine served - it has a link to wingz and photoshop (but both on remote NFS mounted drives, not on local disk) on the desktop, but the system spec seems like overkill in both those cases. I suppose Cray being Cray maybe they'd just acquire the best systems they could even if they didn't need them

J.

I would look for Houdini Master, SoftImage 4.0, Lightwave 5.6, and Maya 6.5... they should all work on that machine.

julesr wrote: I suppose Cray being Cray maybe they'd just acquire the best systems they could even if they didn't need them

isn't that what 98% of all home users do?

robespierre wrote: I would look for Houdini Master, SoftImage 4.0, Lightwave 5.6, and Maya 6.5... they should all work on that machine.

i'd recommend an older softimage and no maya. maya is so fat it even ran sluggish on an r12000 octane. older versions is the keyword here; prisms, wavefront, poweranimator, gig3d etc.. these were made for the indigo

maybe blender too

foetz wrote:

robespierre wrote: I would look for Houdini Master, SoftImage 4.0, Lightwave 5.6, and Maya 6.5... they should all work on that machine.

i'd recommend an older softimage and no maya. maya is so fat it even ran sluggish on an r12000 octane. older versions is the keyword here; prisms, wavefront, poweranimator, gig3d etc.. these were made for the indigo

So,
PRISMS -> Houdini,
PowerAnimator -> Maya.
Anything else to look at?

gig3d you meant ElectroGIG 3DGO.

Wavefront - isn't it a company name?

dukzcry wrote: So,
PRISMS -> Houdini,
PowerAnimator -> Maya.
Anything else to look at?

gig3d you meant ElectroGIG 3DGO.

Wavefront - isn't it a company name?

have a look at my reviews if you're interested in the details

foetz wrote: have a look at my reviews if you're interested in the details

Thanks! I will.

robespierre wrote: I would look for Houdini Master, SoftImage 4.0, Lightwave 5.6, and Maya 6.5... they should all work on that machine.

Lightwave runs like a rocket. Not sure why it isn't more popular ?

hamei wrote:

robespierre wrote: I would look for Houdini Master, SoftImage 4.0, Lightwave 5.6, and Maya 6.5... they should all work on that machine.

Lightwave runs like a rocket. Not sure why it isn't more popular ?

lightwave's modeler is great if you're fine with just polys. the renderer is neat, too. the rest however can't compete with the big names

i ran lightwave back in the amiga days after i used imagine, and it ran rather okay on amiga
and it runs even better on my sgi O2 r5200 300 mhz
and it is my main 3d app on my workstation today, ofcause in a newer version then the 5,6 for irix
so ofcause i would defenetly recoment lightwave

Speaking of Lightwave, they used it for pretty much all the special effects in Battlestar Galactica: Razor, they said in the DVD commentary that they knew Maya `would have been better` (I'm paraphrasing) but they `didn't have time.` Anyway, if you've ever seen Razor, it turned out very well. We've got Lightwave at work but I've never used it. Maya users are all too familiar with how it eats up time...