motion graphic artist needs advise

[helvetica237]

I've used this forum as one of my main sources of information as I try to decide how to upgrade my hardware so I thank all of you posters. My head is now spinning as I go back and forth between buying a refurb or a nMP. Even considered PC for awhile but I'm really trying to avoid it.

I do motion graphics using after effects and C4d. I am on a mp1,1 and it's held up very well. Thus some brand loyalty.

I guess a big question I have is, now i'm hearing I will need to upgrade my software too, something I can't afford to do and have concerns about upgrading all my plug ins. Is this true. does the nMP only support after effects cloud? Is the C4D included with that bare bones? Perhaps these are questions for the adobe forums, but I was hoping to get some insight into all this from someone that has had to upgrade their hardware.

As a side note, why the heck is it so hard to find all this stuff out. I'm a professional that needs to do research on forums?! None of the manufacturers (apple,adobe,maxon) offer any information outside of hard specs and marketing.

 

[handsome pete]

I've used this forum as one of my main sources of information as I try to decide how to upgrade my hardware so I thank all of you posters. My head is now spinning as I go back and forth between buying a refurb or a nMP. Even considered PC for awhile but I'm really trying to avoid it.

I do motion graphics using after effects and C4d. I am on a mp1,1 and it's held up very well. Thus some brand loyalty.

I guess a big question I have is, now i'm hearing I will need to upgrade my software too, something I can't afford to do and have concerns about upgrading all my plug ins. Is this true. does the nMP only support after effects cloud? Is the C4D included with that bare bones? Perhaps these are questions for the adobe forums, but I was hoping to get some insight into all this from someone that has had to upgrade their hardware.

As a side note, why the heck is it so hard to find all this stuff out. I'm a professional that needs to do research on forums?! None of the manufacturers (apple,adobe,maxon) offer any information outside of hard specs and marketing.

I'll try to help, though I would assume Maxon or Adobe forums will be able to verify this all better. First off, what versions of C4D and Adobe CS are you running? The nMP will run on Mavericks, so that is likely the issue of any software incompatibility. CS6 should work. Earlier versions might be questionable from what I see on a quick Google search, but I've also seen success with CS3-CS5.

As for C4D, I'm not sure. I would think the same would apply as the Adobe apps. And as far as I know, the C4D that comes with After Effects is called C4D lite and is a fairly basic version of the software. So if you do heavy C4D work, it's most certainly not an equivalent to what you're using now.

 

[sebisebman]

As far as i know CS4 lite is only included in the Creative Cloud - so my guess is that he has a full Version of C4D. C4D will make use of all your CPU Power - so no need to worry about that. I am talking about the CPU not the GPU! Right now C4D doesn't support the second graphics card, that's why we see so poor performance Ratings in Cinebench when it comes to OpenGL performance. OSX doesn't have anything like Crossfire or SLI as Windows offers. But this is an OS Problem and not necessarily an application problem. If a Software wants to access both graphics cards it has to be build into the software - like Apple did with FCPX 10.1.

The Adobe Products are suffering from the same problem. If i remember correctly right now no Adobe Product is using the nMP to it's full extend. They aren't using the graphics cards at all (besides displaying) My guess would be that CC Owners will get a performance Update quite soon (well - whatever soon is...) but i doubt it that there will be some kind of upgrade for CS6.

If your Software runs on Mavericks it will run on an nMP. It just might not be using the full potential of the nMP.

Hope that helps...

 

[Tim Allen]

I'm no expert but I am on C4D R12 and CS5 AE and haven't had any issue what so ever on my nMP. I can't vouch for any of the plug-ins but so far so good.

 

[sebisebman]

On a side note (which i just learned today):
If you work with a lot of physics in C4D you might not want the biggest 12-core machine:
physics is calculated on a single processor in order to avoid miscalculations and result-deviations (don't ask me why...) So a high single core performance would be what you are looking for and single core performance is pretty much based on clock speed.

For your application i guess the 8-core would be the highest core count i would buy.

 

[helvetica237]

thanks for the responses. It sounds like I should go with a rMB and wait until the software is ready for nMP.

 

[echoout]

Fellow motion designer here. You simply need the fastest and most of everything! Wish I was kidding. I personally rely on CUDA too much to not have nVidia GPUs. I will say that there's a lot to be said for higher clock speeds on a day-to-day basis. You feel it all of the time, not just when rendering.