The Asus ROG STRIX and Me

Some years ago, around the time Bitcoin was “invented,” I discovered path-based animation. I loved The Sims and sacrificed many hours at the EA altar, first on PlayStation, then on computer. I modded my game heavily, then became a content creator myself. I mastered SimPE, was a regular at Mod the Sims, and soon graduated from Milkshape to 3DS Max. I learned how to rig characters, make conforming clothing, and write basic animation code.

Then I discovered iClone. Back then, physics engines were revolutionary. But they could be extremely temperamental. I managed to make a few animated shorts and had produced half of a very sophisticated (by standards ten years ago) “movie” when my trusty Asus gaming machine bit the dust the first time. I lost nearly everything, including the audio files recorded for me by some truly talented voice actors like Eric Phillips, Cherie Julander, and Christopher Escalante. (Just Google them. You will be impressed--hell, I still am.) I was so disgusted and discouraged by that horrible setback that I walked away from 3D modeling and animation for years.

Since then, I started a rescue, published a couple of books, and joined Steemit. Occasionally, something would remind me about my past as a machinima director and 3D animator, and some measure of wistfulness always accompanied the memory. But I’m a writer now. No time for such foolishness. Oh, the excuses I made to pretend like it didn't matter. It was fun, but I have more important things to focus on these days.

Yeah, right!

By chance, I happened to see several renders of today’s contemporary path-based technology, and my jaw hit the floor. Holy moly! I couldn’t tell the difference between those images and a photograph! The detail! The clarity! The lighting! I had to learn more about this. Time-waster or not, I had to know how the 3D artists of 2018 were creating such remarkable renders that they made the 3D artists of 2008 look like chumps.

Then it hit me—if I could figure the mechanics of this out myself, I knew exactly how to apply my skills toward the future of Steemhouse Publishing, a very real publishing house we have started over at The Writers’ Block. So I bought iClone 7, fired up 3DS max after years of non-use, and went to work. I started with something simple: an animated gif of the 3D blocks designed for our logo by @GMuxx. I added a cutesy little feather and applied some morphs to get a much classier end result than I’d ever gotten using iClone 5.

The gif turned out so good that I thought an animated sequence for future Steemhouse posts would be just as wonderful. But could I produce photorealistic results like the ones I was seeing pop up around the Web? I did more research, bought some additional programs and plugins, and found an Iray render package that claimed to have photorealistic presets that even dummies could use. I loaded it all up on my handy-dandy little laptop that came courtesy of @anarcho-andrei when my Asus bit the dust for the second time, and proceeded to nearly kill it right down to the motherboard.

Aaack! The noises it made! The shimmering, flickering lines across the display! That couldn’t be normal! It promptly shut itself down and refused to power back up until I promised to uninstall all that RAM-eating garbage that also seemed likely to bork its processor.

My little laptop did survive. But I knew the score. One more bout of that, and I could look for smoke to rise from its innards. But what was I to do? I wasn’t broke—I’d been saving SBD and Steem to cash out for repairs to the rescue facility and didn’t want to dip too deeply into that. Nothing short of 16 gb of RAM and a GeForce 1050 would run all the programs I needed to run. . .many of them simultaneously. Plus, I needed it to not take three days and sixteen minutes to render a single frame. “Cheap” was not going to be an option if I was serious about getting serious with this 3D animation stuff.

Thanks to two benefactors who agree that cutting-edge 3D animation will make a great marketing tool, I was able to purchase a new Asus ROG STRIX with the necessary specs. And oooh, what a sexy little machine it is. It blazes through a high def Iray render without breaking a sweat.

It arrived this past Monday and I had the presence of mind to get some unboxing photos. I am so pleased with this laptop. Asus ROG (Republic of Gamers) has a thing or two figured out about delivering a sweet product. Brushed metal finish on the casing, backlit soft-touch keyboard, and a display that’s so crisp I can see the individual fibers in the fabric of Iray clothing at full resolution.

I’m sure I’ll be making quite a few posts about the work I do with this machine. I’ve already played around with rendering the Steemhouse spokesmodel with photorealistic settings and I’m quite pleased with the result. She is fully rigged and can be animated. We have a wonderful voice picked out for her. I have a gorgeous scene under construction for the Steemhouse gif and a plan to incorporate our logo. There are many ways I could continue to customize our spokesmodel, but I’m so happy with the base package—even the dress—that I see little need. I may change the fabric or the color of it, but the physics properties and its performance under animation are just fantastic.

If there’s a takeaway from this post, it’s that Steemit has reawakened talents in me and made things possible that I wouldn’t have dared to dream six months ago. This community brings out the best in people who are willing to give the effort. How thrilling it is for me to revive the skills and experience I gained in 3D modeling and animation a decade ago and use it in such a profound way. THANK YOU to the two benefactors who made this laptop possible for me to purchase and use for the publishing house as well as Steemit and The Writers’ Block. Your generosity has legs, and it will carry us far, far into the future.