Leaving Apple

[KurtF]

I want to apologize in advance for this post, as it is useless for most of the Cheetah 3D community, but I was facing a dilemma and I wanted to share how I solved it.

I've owned a few different computers over the years. I had a 400 Mhz Blueberry iMac back in the day. When that machine wasn't quite enough, I built my own computer with a Pentium processor and moved to Windows, where I stayed for many years. Ironically it was Cheetah 3D that made me want to get back into Macintosh and so I acquired a used Intel iMac from my local university (purchased from an auction web site at a greatly reduced price). Last year I bought a 4K Pocket Cinema camera and wanted to run Davinci Resolve as my video editing software, which required more horsepower than my aging iMac could muster. Thus began my dilemma.

Buying a new Mac Pro, or even an iMac Pro, was off the table, too expensive. I looked into buying a new iMac, or even a Mac Mini, and possibly upgrading the ram myself. But Apple has notoriously made their machines very difficult for the end user to upgrade. Still it was a consideration. I also looked into buying a used iMac or Mini, but all the machines I saw on Craig's List were i5 processors. Davinci Resolve requires an i7 processor minimum, and an i9 is reccomended. If I did go the used machine route, or even a new machine, I would still have to purchase an external GPU box that could be connected to the main device via Thunderbolt, as Davinci makes heavy use of the GPU for image processing. I even briefly considered a Hackintosh, but when Hackintoshing you're stuck with previous generation hardware that is known to work. Newer chips and motherboard configurations are untested and you're on your own. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. So no matter what I did I would be paying too much, about $2000, for a system (i7 processor) that was minimum for what I was hoping for.

Then I remembered that Davinci runs on Linux. I did some checking on the Davinci forums and discovered the ELEMENTARY O.S. It is described by reviewers as the most Macintosh like of all the Linux distributions. It's based on Ubuntu and emphasizes being lite, fast, and privacy focused. I decided to sacrifice my Samsung Series 7 slate PC (with it's i5 processor and Wacom digitizer) to experiment. I loaded up the Elementary O.S. and I loved it. Wonderful performance, beautiful looks, everything working about as I expected. Based on that experiment I decided to take a leap of faith and build my new system. I did go a little overboard, but for $2500 I wound up with:
a 10 core, 20 thread i9 processor, a motherboard with 2 Thunderbolt ports, 64 GBytes of Ram (expandable to 128), 4 internal drives including an NVME drive for the O.S. and Programs, an SSD as a scratch disk for Davinci Resolve, a 1 Terabyte Seagate drive for local document storage, and an LG Optical drive that reads and writes C.D.'s, D.V.D.'s, and Blu-Rays. I also have an Nvidia RTX 2070 card with 8 GBytes of Video Ram, and an 850 watt, Modular power supply.

Installing Elementary was not as smooth as my first experience, but once I had the Nvidia drivers sorted out the machine has been a dream. I'm running Resolve, learning Blender, and all has been well. My new computer is a 'Pro' machine without Apple's pro prices. When I was considering buying an Apple, I toyed with their on line store, and for 64 Gigs of Ram Apple charges $1000! I paid $325 for my 64 Gigs, quite a difference. A comparably spec'd machine to mine is easily $3600 or more.

So I am no longer with the Apple camp. I certainly hope their new Custom, System on a Chip machines are successful. Who knows they might be very powerful, use less energy, and may be even Cheaper (though I doubt it). I'll pop in now and again to see how the Cheetah community is doing, and when the dust settles in Apple Land, maybe, just maybe, the good Doctor will consider porting Cheetah 3D to Linux (not going to happen I know). But if it does, I'll be the first in line with the purchase price to buy it and put it on my new machine.

Thanks all.

 

[KurtF]

I got an error when posting this and foolishly posted two more times before catching it. Please delete the duplicates. Thanks.

 

[Jeanny]

We are going to miss you KurtF
I hope apple changes so you will be able to come back.
Glad you are still gong to pop in now and then.

All the Best to You
Granny Jeanny

 

[Hasdrubal]

Hi Kurt

In my country I'd have to pay for a 64 gig i9 imac over 4500 $.

So in the next time I'll go a similar route, as probably many others do, only with a few differences (wish you had written sooner. I'd had a tip or two).

Only one thing: I'd keep the Mac for normal work where it suffices you, so while your new computer is crunching on some renders you can work happily without a problem (or read, or whatever). I even plan to model on the imac as long as possible (and I'll keep Cheetah around, of course). The reason for this is, I can't go the Linux way (which has anyway some disadvantages with all those different distributions which aren't all above suspicion by the way). The reason is Adobe, which I still have to use for my work.

About the coming Apple silicone: It's a fair bet that it will cost less to produce those things, but that Apple will increase the prices as much as possible. Their policy seems more and more to shut 3rd parties out (for example you can't find a shop anymore that sells a mac for less then Apple themselves. Up to this year some sold it with cheaper memory; not possible anymore here around). Today I saw a headline that says that the iphone 12 is specially made so it can't be repaired by 3rd party anymore. As much as possible is smoldered, so it can't be changed anyway later on. At least not by us ourselves. So they got greedier and greedier.

They seem pretty cocksure about performance, though, but till something in the line of a mac pro will be available it's at least 2 years. Other firms (one of them nvidia) have plans to create something similiar in the near future. So I hope that Apple's price strategy will backfire and that they will have more reasonable prices in 2 or 3 years, who knows. Because I'd like to keep something like an iMac for "normal" work; only 3d-stuff and some part of image editing needs an insane amount of memory, a strong cpu and nvidia gpus.

But anyway. Good luck and have fun with your new system.

 

[Roger]

Don't know if this is of interest, but stumbled across this video from someone running Mac OS virtually on a Linux box - at impressive speeds too.

 

[Daemoc]

Apple simply does not care about us small fry.

As much as I absolutely despise Apple for their pricing and service practices I still love my new iMac. Outside of that, Final Cut and Cheetah are the only two reasons I am still with Apple.

I know I am going to have to make the switch to Linux soon, but losing Cheetah is going to hurt the most. I have been forcing myself to use Blender as well and as much as I hate it, after my current Mac dies I will be making the switch myself.

 

[Hasdrubal]

I have been forcing myself to use Blender as well and as much as I hate it, after my current Mac dies I will be making the switch myself.

There is other software out there than blender, some of it (at least for "indie versions") not that much more expensive anymore than Cheetah, like 3dsmax, which isn't available for macos (actually, that's windows only, no linux). And gorilla renderer could be worth a look ... (so one would only need a modeling solution).

With blender I have just two problems: 1. I don't like to work in it, 2. it's free.

(How can 2nd be a problem? It's starting to be good enough and being well enough financed (they have a budget most developers just can dream of) that it could destroy all competition. Which is a bad thing in my book)

 

[Hasdrubal]

(now everyone of this threads has some comment ...).

Bad side: Not legal, probably older hardware only, something that Apple is well aware off and certainly can stop in the near future ... (I'm sure Kurt knew beforehand of Hackintoshes ...).

(because of the server error all this messages were seperated into 3 different threads. So this answer is aimed at Roger's comment)

 

[misoversaturated]

Yep, same here.

I was always hoping Cheetah3D's Falcon would get upgraded to at least having the basic specs (SSS, volumetrics, live preview) other renderers had years ago but in the meantime Apple moved out of my affordability window.
So I have a fast PC now and render there with Cycles, LuxCore or Octane, all for free in Blender with RTX support.
No Problems with Windows 10 and I even tried Elementary OS too but failed with the nVidia drivers.

There's still my 2013 MacBook including Cheetah3D but when this gets replaced in two years it won't be an Apple machine any more.
So I'm now in the PWFCAAM camp (persons who formerly could afford a Mac) and not even really sad about it.

(Also I would love to see Cheetah3D on Linux!!)

 

[Martin]

Hi Kurt,
I'm sorry to hear that but I can absolutely understand you. The level of greediness Apple achieved can't be defended anymore. If you compare a AMD Threadripper Pro workstation with a Mac Pro you can just shake your head. Apple offers midrange performance for an extreme premium price. So I will stay with my trashcan MacPro for as long as I can. That's how to kill the 3D market on the Mac. Thanks Apple.

Apples interest in the 3D market is pretty close to zero anyways. They told me that more than once so I have doubts that that situation will improve in the near future. Developing 3D software for the Mac is no fun anymore.

When I switched to the Mac more than twenty years ago I never thought that I would return but last year I purchased a Windows PC by myself. Just for my hobby but anyways.

Since Cheetah3D is so deeply integrated in macOS there will be probably never a port. I just can't handle that workload by myself. I'm already struggling with the OpenGL->Metal switch. So Cheetah3D is pretty much locked to the Mac platform forever. Too sad.

So back into my coding cave and continue the OpenGL->Metal switch.

Bye
Martin

 

[KurtF]

@Jeanny - thank you for the kind words. 3D creation is a wonderful hobby and travels across platforms and software.

@Hasdrubal - wow, $4500! Yikes! and I thought my cost was high. Too bad about Adobe, once they went subscription I moved away from them, but I'm not using their stuff for work, for people that must use them, there's not many other routes.

@Roger - interesting, Macintosh via Virtual Machine. Thank you for bringing that up, I will keep it in mind.

@Daemoc - you're right about Apple. They dropped the word "Computer" from their name and currently make more money from their phones and watches and other status toys. I'm the type of customer who falls through the cracks. I need more computer than a basic iMac or Mac Mini, but am not a working professional who can justify a top of the line system.

@misoversaturated - too bad about the Nvidia drivers, they did cause me a bit of trouble, but I finally got them sorted out. Elementary O.S. has been fantastic and I highly reccomend it to anyone looking for a Windows / Macintosh alternative.

@Martin - too bad about the direction Apple has taken. Coding should be something you enjoy, not something that, as you said, is no longer fun. Also to bad about being locked to one O.S. but I understand that the work level would double or triple at least, to try and support multiple O.S.'s. I sent an e-mail to 'Flying Meat' about their Acorn image editing software but they responded they are a Macintosh only shop, obviously many developers are keen on Apple. I just hope that once the dust settles that you enjoy a long stretch of time where you can just add features and fix bugs without having to deal with Apple constantly changing things on you. Best of luck.

 

[Radian]

The Apple - Nvidia situation drove me mad. I bought also a pc aside of my iMac and Mac mini. Really enjoy working on it with Blender. Got a RTX 3080 and I can model my mesh rendered real time. So you cannot compare cheetah 3D with Blender. It's 2 different worlds. Cheetah is one of the best apps for intuitive modeling but lacks many features. I don't complain, Martin has doen a wonderful job (alone!) creating this. He should get a medal. I love Cheetah for little projects or modeling first and use it in Blender later. I think that's the focus of this app.

 

[CpH]

One More Thing, to keep in mind however is the fact that Apple's new GPU Tile Based Deferred Rendering (TBDR) will require a fraction of the RAM-Memory & raw 2D/3D rendering processing power that's required in current GPU Tech offered by Intel/NVidia/AMD to accomplish the same heavy lifting and frame rates we're accustomed to. Truth be told I wouldn't be so quick to ditch and jump ship before seeing what and how Apple Silicon high-end workstations have to offer because the long term benefits may far outweigh the future offerings of the competition. @Martin Cheetah3D's stable performance and truly adaptable internal components capabilities are going to be unimaginable on Apple Metal2 Silicon GPUs especially when combined with other workflows like Unity3D for game development/AR/VR/ML or other tech just to name a few (plus lower the electric bill cost of overnight rendering workloads ). Good bye large cheap high maintenance hot boxes that will cost more than Macs over the long run. The future performance boost and savings of Macs will stem from macOS software improvements similar to how iOS apps have benefitted undeniably over the years versus the constant and stale hardware spec chasing upgrades we used to do with CAD & gaming PCs. Saving my coins for the next level of Apple Silicon GPU innovation that's certainly coming will be one of the best decisions I'll make since switching from DSL to Cable internet.

Edit: Swapped the TBDR & GPU link from blog to video, enjoy!

 

[Hasdrubal]

CpH, what you write certainly is true, but as I wrote before, it's roughly 2 years until we can expect professional performance from this new tech. The problem is, that some of us need new hardware now. Like in "now". Some of us simply can't wait that long. And it's questionable if those shiny new things will be affordable then. Looking at the pricing now, I have my doubts.

In the end, I can only speak for myself. Frankly, I'd still prefer a mac over a windows machine (Linux sadly is out of the question for myself), especially because Microsoft's business model has me and my personal data as merchandise. I don't want to go down that road, and actually I don't. For office stuff, writing, modeling, most of 2d etc. my actual Mac is enough and for all those things I'll use it as long as possible. When the time comes to fully replace it, hopefully it will be a Mac. But for the work that needs raw processing power, I exactly have the same Problem as Kurt stated in the beginning: Should I shell out a lot of money for something that simply doesn't fit my needs while at the same time I can get more raw power for half the price with a pc? Or invest even more for a top notch mac pro (which still isn't as fast as the rig I intend to get) when I'm not even sure that all software I work with really will run on it without problems or not as fast as it could because the developers who don't get free help from Apple will not be ready for the new system (yeah, with rosetta 2 almost anything should work, but such things come at the price of performance and it's not a 100 % sure that it really will work out). And the actual situation of the economy, losing customers because of Covid and it's fallout, put such a thing rather out of my league, because I can't be sure of what business I'll get in the near future and if customers will be able to pay. Already now a lot of businesses are in trouble while in our country the next lockdown is around the corner because roughly half the population is too stupid to behave halfway reasonable in the midst of a pandemic and show a lack of empathy to the sorrow and even lost of lives of others as long as it doesn't hit themselves.

Another thing is simply: I don't want to support Apple's greedy price policy. Nope, they will not get my money, which is my only way to tell them that they should put more reasonable price tags on their stuff. Hopefully they'll get the message as lots of people just do the same.

Apple doesn't care for pro users, not really, nor do intel (which is going downhill anyway), nvidia or amd. Without the gamer market who demand fast machines we would all have to cope with rendering for hours instead of minutes. Because there wouldn't be much invention, much pressure to develop better hardware without them (at the same time the gamers buy away what I need for my living because the new processors are here around already out of stock before they are available).

So, in my case, if I will ever be able to buy that new tech, I have to get a pc now (and then it's far from a sure thing if it really will be Apple or something from other tech firms like nvidia who work on similiar solutions).

You know, jumping ship doesn't mean we can't get back on board in the future.

 

[CpH]

CpH, what you write certainly is true, but as I wrote before, it's roughly 2 years until we can expect professional performance from this new tech. The problem is, that some of us need new hardware now. Like in "now". Some of us simply can't wait that long. And it's questionable if those shiny new things will be affordable then. Looking at the pricing now, I have my doubts.

In the end, I can only speak for myself. Frankly, I'd still prefer a mac over a windows machine (Linux sadly is out of the question for myself), especially because Microsoft's business model has me and my personal data as merchandise. I don't want to go down that road, and actually I don't. For office stuff, writing, modeling, most of 2d etc. my actual Mac is enough and for all those things I'll use it as long as possible. When the time comes to fully replace it, hopefully it will be a Mac. But for the work that needs raw processing power, I exactly have the same Problem as Kurt stated in the beginning: Should I shell out a lot of money for something that simply doesn't fit my needs while at the same time I can get more raw power for half the price with a pc? Or invest even more for a top notch mac pro (which still isn't as fast as the rig I intend to get) when I'm not even sure that all software I work with really will run on it without problems or not as fast as it could because the developers who don't get free help from Apple will not be ready for the new system (yeah, with rosetta 2 almost anything should work, but such things come at the price of performance and it's not a 100 % sure that it really will work out). And the actual situation of the economy, losing customers because of Covid and it's fallout, put such a thing rather out of my league, because I can't be sure of what business I'll get in the near future and if customers will be able to pay. Already now a lot of businesses are in trouble while in our country the next lockdown is around the corner because roughly half the population is too stupid to behave halfway reasonable in the midst of a pandemic and show a lack of empathy to the sorrow and even lost of lives of others as long as it doesn't hit themselves.

Another thing is simply: I don't want to support Apple's greedy price policy. Nope, they will not get my money, which is my only way to tell them that they should put more reasonable price tags on their stuff. Hopefully they'll get the message as lots of people just do the same.

Apple doesn't care for pro users, not really, nor do intel (which is going downhill anyway), nvidia or amd. Without the gamer market who demand fast machines we would all have to cope with rendering for hours instead of minutes. Because there wouldn't be much invention, much pressure to develop better hardware without them (at the same time the gamers buy away what I need for my living because the new processors are here around already out of stock before they are available).

So, in my case, if I will ever be able to buy that new tech, I have to get a pc now (and then it's far from a sure thing if it really will be Apple or something from other tech firms like nvidia who work on similiar solutions).

You know, jumping ship doesn't mean we can't get back on board in the future.

Can’t argue with your need for capable hardware not now but right now requirement. I certainly believe you speak truth to this topic and as much as I myself would’ve considered an external render server capability if I were in your situation I can truly identify with the concept to have full control over my workflow environment. I understand that my aforementioned situation is for the ideal approach based completely on a future workflow that currently does not exist (until starting November 10th). Time & Money controls every Right Now decision, you have my respect and blessings.

 

[Daemoc]

My 2017 13" Macbook Pro was a huge wake up call. That laptop was a disaster. It's easier to justify the expense if the hardware lasts 10+ years like my old 2009 Macbook and 2010 iMac. Sadly that does not seem to be the case anymore. I just hope my new iMac holds up better than that 2017 MBPro.

Unfortunately Windows is just as bad. It will not be long before they go full blown spyware. You may have the option to opt-out of the extremely obnoxious bits for a monthly fee. I use Windows on my gaming rig, but I am migrating to Linux for work once my Mac dies.

There is other software out there than blender, some of it (at least for "indie versions") not that much more expensive anymore than Cheetah, like 3dsmax...

I used 3DSMax back when it was owned by Discrete. It was a good piece of kit. Softimage XSI was my jam though. XSI was the best out there IMHO. Then Autodesk bought and subsequently killed it. Not only did they kill it, they also killed the activation servers so we could not use what we already had. Anything Autodesk is a no-go for me.

I am currently using a cross platform (mac/win) polygon modeler called Silo 2. I picked it up on a Steam sale a while back. It is a one trick pony, but it does that one trick very well. I like it a lot. My plan is to do all of the modeling/UV's in Silo and everything else in Cheetah\Blender. Cheetah for now, then Blender once this Mac dies.

Gone are the days of relying on a single software package to do everything. I am going to diversify my tools going forward. I may have more links to break, but when they do I do not lose everything. Just parts.

 

[Hasdrubal]

@CpH
Renderfarms can be quite expensive if you'll find a little detail that has to be corrected because you couldn't see it in the smaller preview renders. That alone would prevent me from simply relying on it. The main reason is, though, that I'd like to create more complex scenes, want faster texture baking and create my materials faster (not much waiting for preview renders). Further I'd like to include animations in my repertoire instead of still only (for which I'd need some exercise which would come in quite pricey. So I really need a good computer for that. The price difference between a capable machine and a really good one is too small if you think AMD ... Those things are crazy fast and cheap in contrast to anything intel offers (Intel I'd want to avoid anyway at the moment). Even for 2d I could sometimes need a bit more power (dense vectors imported into photoshop can be a nightmare).

@Daemoc
Windows is already full blown spyware. They stated that from the beginning, but even the enterprise solution has some elements that phone home (and that's not okay). That's the reason why I simply want to restrict it's use to graphics (i. e. Modo and Adobe). For some stuff as fluid animation or so maybe even blender (I hate that thing) and maybe sculpting (I have zbrush on the mac, but that's a bit hardware hungry and I can't justify a windows licence at the moment for a once a year more complex sculpt. For most small sculpts Modo is enough where you just create some additional details). And a few other tools, that are windows only.

Actually I thought about Silo, but didn't want to recommend it to you because this is a competitor for Cheetah. Thought you'd find it yourself . That's around for many years and it is very capable.

That part about using different software certainly is true, but, say 15 years ago, it was even more so. Today I don't want to learn too many tools, because I really dig Modo and I can't say that I already know all possibilities there out of memory (sometimes I model something rather traditionally in half an hour and see then a video where the same thing is done with a tool I wasn't fully aware of in 1 minute). When I was deciding which software I use, I wanted something that can run on Mac, Windows and Linux (and for network rendering I can use it legally on all computers I can lay my hands on at the same time). So I do concentrate on that a bit for a while (but vfx isn't it's forte, so if I'll need something like that, I want to be able to use Blender or preferably some other tool, depending on the way the things will develop for myself). The renderer, even the new one, isn't the fastest, but I like the visual quality very much which for me is the most important thing.

I already stated what I don't like about Blender, but another thing is the render quality of cycles. It just doesn't do it for me (Cheetah's renderer has it's short comings with refraction and sss and so on, but what it does well, it does imho visually more appealing than cycles). So if you want to use blender, then you should look into Octance. That's professional quality for free as a blender plugin. Or you could buy vray which isn't expensive and the result (for my eyes) visually more attractive. Octane and Vray with an nvidia card ... whooooooooom - and you have your result.

If you don't want to ditch blender you could use a standalone renderer. Windows only is the before mentioned Guerilla renderer (I actually wrote Gorilla before), which is a very capable, professional software ... 1 seat is for free, commercial usage allowed, fully featured, but to make sure, a studio doesn't use it, a permanent internet connection is necessary. But you want to look into it. Yes, you do.

Another renderer that actually changed the (small) 3d world back in 2004 or 2005 is maxwell renderer. There comes all the "physically based ..." from. With some 500 bucks for a permanent (node-locked) license it comes at a price, but imho it produces still some of the best quality you can get out of a renderer (that may change between now and the time you have to change your iMac). Check out the gallery (you'll find some pictures from ikea for example). And you'll understand why I always had it on my radar. The standalone version works with anything, Silo included.

Even more expensive is keyshot (some 1000 bucks, twice as much for the animation capable version, both permanent) but that's the easiest renderer I ever saw, no fiddling around with the render properties (the only thing that comes close to it is Modo's new renderer). The material system of course is a bit more complex than just hitting a button. Very beautiful results.

 

[CpH]

Even for 2d I could sometimes need a bit more power (dense vectors imported into photoshop can be a nightmare).

The Affinity suite (Photo, Designer, Publisher) by Serif kicks Adobe subscription to the curb, IMHO its been an absolute blessing in my workflow in every way as far as core features are concerned and the faster advanced functionality with its multipurpose toolsets has saved me time & money that paid for itself in under half the time it takes to accomplish similar task with Photoshop & Illustrator in the past couple of years I’ve had it. Of course Adobe still is king for projects requiring overwhelming complexity as far as extensive features or specific plugins, however variable data is the only feature I’ve truly missed out of the entire Adobe suite upon my switch to Affinity. Affinity is a better compliment to Cheetah3D in my workflow and also saves an incredible amount of drive space too. I actually have Cheetah3D to thank for my shift in mindset because utilizing it over the years set me on a path to research and find replacements for all other apps that were not built with similar thoughtfulness, UX simplicity, small footprint app size, fast launch, easy on the eyes UI, do more with less approach toolsets, etc., perhaps I’m getting too old or something but I’ve come to value such attention to details like that because I felt that I was reaching the limits of my own memory utilizing other over bloated tools but it helped me realize that just because an app may offer an abundant toolset for anything imaginable (I’m looking at you Houdini and Blender) doesn’t mean I’ll have the time to actually find those buried toolsets and remember how to use them for every possible situation imaginable. So as a result I’ve managed to cut drive space utilization in half over a period of time were as the vast majority appear to be obsessed with doing the opposite.

I’ve used Adobe Photoshop for well over 20 years of my career and used it religiously from its beginning as Aldus Super Paint. It wasn’t easy for me to switch from it and learn something new but I’m extremely proud I did so because the bloated features and cost for maintaining it, Illustrator and the rest of the suite simply headed in a direction that I fell out of love with over the years to say the least.

I’ve noticed a more, more, more, mentality within our computer graphics industry over the years and it honestly leaves me a little miffed by it. Some situations are totally understandable for particular complex development workflows but I’ve decided to stick with Apple because their direction is a contextual approach to solve this industry problem and it appears to me that apps developed on macOS & iOS reflects the mindset I’ve adopted to figure out how to get more done with less because it’s a sure thing that hardware will always cost more no matter if the cost are upfront luxury Apple tax or long term Microsoft/Linux software upgrade gotcha tax. Professional studios have been forcing this narrative for decades that have Indie users under a spell that they’ll need more, more, more, until eventually they’ll be the only ones left standing this capability. Hat’s off to apps like Affinity & Cheetah3D for providing the blue pill to the Indie user base cause without quality apps such as these it would become next to impossible to afford and maintain such a hobby nor profitable sole proprietor endeavor.

 

[Radian]

@CpH
Renderfarms can be quite expensive if you'll find a little detail that has to be corrected because you couldn't see it in the smaller preview renders. That alone would prevent me from simply relying on it. The main reason is, though, that I'd like to create more complex scenes, want faster texture baking and create my materials faster (not much waiting for preview renders). Further I'd like to include animations in my repertoire instead of still only (for which I'd need some exercise which would come in quite pricey. So I really need a good computer for that. The price difference between a capable machine and a really good one is too small if you think AMD ... Those things are crazy fast and cheap in contrast to anything intel offers (Intel I'd want to avoid anyway at the moment). Even for 2d I could sometimes need a bit more power (dense vectors imported into photoshop can be a nightmare).

@Daemoc
Windows is already full blown spyware. They stated that from the beginning, but even the enterprise solution has some elements that phone home (and that's not okay). That's the reason why I simply want to restrict it's use to graphics (i. e. Modo and Adobe). For some stuff as fluid animation or so maybe even blender (I hate that thing) and maybe sculpting (I have zbrush on the mac, but that's a bit hardware hungry and I can't justify a windows licence at the moment for a once a year more complex sculpt. For most small sculpts Modo is enough where you just create some additional details). And a few other tools, that are windows only.

Actually I thought about Silo, but didn't want to recommend it to you because this is a competitor for Cheetah. Thought you'd find it yourself . That's around for many years and it is very capable.

That part about using different software certainly is true, but, say 15 years ago, it was even more so. Today I don't want to learn too many tools, because I really dig Modo and I can't say that I already know all possibilities there out of memory (sometimes I model something rather traditionally in half an hour and see then a video where the same thing is done with a tool I wasn't fully aware of in 1 minute). When I was deciding which software I use, I wanted something that can run on Mac, Windows and Linux (and for network rendering I can use it legally on all computers I can lay my hands on at the same time). So I do concentrate on that a bit for a while (but vfx isn't it's forte, so if I'll need something like that, I want to be able to use Blender or preferably some other tool, depending on the way the things will develop for myself). The renderer, even the new one, isn't the fastest, but I like the visual quality very much which for me is the most important thing.

I already stated what I don't like about Blender, but another thing is the render quality of cycles. It just doesn't do it for me (Cheetah's renderer has it's short comings with refraction and sss and so on, but what it does well, it does imho visually more appealing than cycles). So if you want to use blender, then you should look into Octance. That's professional quality for free as a blender plugin. Or you could buy vray which isn't expensive and the result (for my eyes) visually more attractive. Octane and Vray with an nvidia card ... whooooooooom - and you have your result.

If you don't want to ditch blender you could use a standalone renderer. Windows only is the before mentioned Guerilla renderer (I actually wrote Gorilla before), which is a very capable, professional software ... 1 seat is for free, commercial usage allowed, fully featured, but to make sure, a studio doesn't use it, a permanent internet connection is necessary. But you want to look into it. Yes, you do.

Another renderer that actually changed the (small) 3d world back in 2004 or 2005 is maxwell renderer. There comes all the "physically based ..." from. With some 500 bucks for a permanent (node-locked) license it comes at a price, but imho it produces still some of the best quality you can get out of a renderer (that may change between now and the time you have to change your iMac). Check out the gallery (you'll find some pictures from ikea for example). And you'll understand why I always had it on my radar. The standalone version works with anything, Silo included.

Even more expensive is keyshot (some 1000 bucks, twice as much for the animation capable version, both permanent) but that's the easiest renderer I ever saw, no fiddling around with the render properties (the only thing that comes close to it is Modo's new renderer). The material system of course is a bit more complex than just hitting a button. Very beautiful results.

There is also a standalone AMD Radeon renderer for 3d software including Blender and it's pretty good. So you don't need nvidia cards (cuda) for Blender but you can use any Radeon card -> https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/radeon-prorender
And it's free ;-)

 

[Hasdrubal]

Affinity:
I am aware of these apps and even recommend them to others. For myself, workflow related, I have to stay with Adobe (grumbling and mumbling sometimes) for a while.

"more, more mentality":
I understand you, but I don't fully agree. For example, there is no "upgrade tax" that's windows / linux only (while the changes in MacOS will make it difficult to use some older software). Is new hardware more expensive than it was years ago? No, in the contrary. It's actually cheaper as soon as you look away from Apple. Their prices don't have to do anything with what that hardware actually costs - it's what they can get.

And it isn't the graphic industry (directly) that's responsible for all those tech firms to produce faster and better processors, gpus etc. each year: It's the game industry and the gamers who want more immersion, photo-real quality that's sometimes downright creepy. As I said before: Without them we wouldn't have such tech at our hands because for 2d it's simply not really needed, 3d is a market too small to invest that much in development. For me it's simply this: With my actual hardware I can't produce what I want and - more important - to compete.

Hardware and software got cheaper, now with a tendency to get very expensive at the high end market. Which is ok with me. To be honest, I don't really care if a render takes 30 seconds or 10 minutes. I do care if that same render takes 2 hours, though. For a reasonable amount (see KurtF's example) we can get a reasonably professional rig, something with what small time potatoes like me still can compete.

@Radian:
Nope, it isn't a standalone renderer, it's actually quite integrated into blender, C4d and Modo, while a real standalone renderer would work with anything. It's not really developed anymore at the moment, not production ready, and I don't know if it ever will be. Too much "can't do".

It started years ago and was very promising (still is in a way) and the big advantage is simply this: It works with AMD cards and Nvidia. I do hope they will develop it much further, with the side-effect that it could be integrated into Cheetah.

But even if it was production ready and Blender only: I HATE Blender. I probably can tolerate it for special things that I need a few times a year tops (like fluid sim), but to work daily in it would make me want to change my plans to something not 3d related.

By the way, AMD denoising exists, but quality wise it's far behind Nvidia Optics, other Nvidia related denoisers (Maxwell doesn't use optics but something of their own nvidia only) and even Intel denoiser which sometimes gives better results than Nvidia Optics.

Another by the way: I belong to that minority who doesn't think it's that good an idea to outsource everything to the expensive GPUs, so, all in all, I prefer CPU rendering over GPU rendering. The actual development is going back from the overpriced gpus to something like Apple Silicone, meaning there simply will not be a GPU anymore in the near future.

For the moment Intel embree is a compromise. It's not as fast as optics, but it shows that cpu rendering is far from dead.

For the moment I'd prefer an nvidia card, the new 3070 roughly as fast as the 2080ti for a fraction of the cost (some 550 bucks there around), but the coming AMD gpus will be faster (which is outside of 3d of no interest for me); as I have to wait a bit for the availabilty of cpus, I've not fully decided what I will do. Certainly no high-end gpu.