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Kelleytoons
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Kelleytoons
Posted 6 Years Ago
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: 9 hours ago
Posts: 9.1K,
Visits: 21.7K
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You did download (or maybe it comes on it) the MSI desktop management software, right? That improves the screen considerably (I was amazed by how much). It's for fine tuning the entire gaming experience (I like setting the color combinations on the keys). That said, my vision is pretty piss poor for ANY laptop, which is why I always run 150% enlargement in Windows. Doing that iClone looks fine on it (although it does look better hooked to my new external Dell monitor). It's interesting how software makers cripple their demos. Anima won't let you run two instances, which is a bummer, but you can run the "free" version (or the "lite" version, whichever you want to call it). But you can't use more than one custom character (I think -- some kind of limitation like that). Why they don't just cripple the output is beyond me (beyond the 4 second output cripple, that is) because then I could use it on my laptop and set up my scenes but then use my desktop version to export. But NO, they want me to buy another license for that even though I can't possible USE another license at the same time. More and more I admire Blender...
Alienware Aurora R12, Win 10, i9-119000KF, 3.5GHz CPU, 128GB RAM, RTX 3090 (24GB), Samsung 960 Pro 4TB M-2 SSD, TB+ Disk space Mike "ex-genius" Kelley
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justaviking
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justaviking
Posted 6 Years Ago
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: Last Month
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Visits: 26.5K
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Thanks for the tip on the MSI Desktop Management stuff. I'll have to give it a whirl. On some web pages I notice the black text nearly turns red while scrolling. But more than that is the viewing angles. Unless you are looking straight-on, you get color shifts. Why-oh-why do they still make laptops with substandard screens? I got my wife a 10.4-inch tablet for Christmas, and you can view that thing from nearly any angle and it still looks fine. But a very powerful laptop that costs 4x as much has a problem that should have been abolished at least 4 years ago. The laptop is already a bit of an unnecessary indulgence, so spending another $400 just to get a similarly spec'd laptop with a better screen is out of the question. It's getting late here (for me), but I'll explore screen-improving stuff tomorrow and let you know how it works for me. (KT - Was it the "True Color" stuff you used, or something else that helped? In what way did you notice an improvement?) P.S. There were some great suggestions by an owner in a "User Review" where he suggested a series of adjustments to the voltage and clock speeds. They would result in a *minor* drop in performance, but the laptop will run a lot cooler, and also quieter since the fan will spin less. I will explore them, too. P.P.S. In case anyone is curious, I got this laptop (on sale) and am nearing the end of my return window. I'm leaning toward keeping it, but it sure would be nice to run iClone on it, just for comfort sake, before committing to keeping it. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-gs-series-stealth-pro-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-1tb-hdd-256gb-ssd-aluminum-black/5712735.p?skuId=5712735
iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity... Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual monitors. Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD
Edited
6 Years Ago by
justaviking
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Kelleytoons
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Kelleytoons
Posted 6 Years Ago
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: 9 hours ago
Posts: 9.1K,
Visits: 21.7K
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You must be a lot more critical than I am, Dennis -- I can't see any problem with the viewing angle on the MSI laptop (or any laptop, for that matter). A laptop is just that, meant to sit in your lap. How could you need any more of a viewing angle than, say around 85-105 degrees? Unless you have a VERY wide lap (but I doubt anyone's lap is wider than mine <g> . Past that and you're talking external monitors. Indeed, there are many laptops designed NOT to be viewed past that -- because you really don't want some stranger looking at what you're doing when you're out and about. You can even buy an external screen device that maximizes this effect (but I suspect you already know that). However - perhaps you got a bad one? Did you compare the one you have in hand to the store demo? I do know that happens sometimes. I never had it happen to me (even when I was buying them for the group) but given you're in the return period perhaps you had better make sure. Does your wife also think it's a bad screen (when in doubt, ask the wife :> . If she says it's bad, I'd be inclined to take her advice (wives know best. Sigh. I'm really missing mine right now). Anyway, the MSI software is a whole suite of things you should have gotten *some* kind of notification for. I can't remember offhand now if it's pre-installed or not, but you can't miss it. It allows you to set not only the display but the keyboard lighting (coloring), different clock speeds for games and such (so you can run it cooler if you want), etc. etc. If you can't find it let me know and I'll look (I'm at the opposite end of the house right now and just woke up so I'm a bit more lazy than I normally am. Which is a lot). I think iClone will run on that laptop for you just fine, but you really should check it out yourself. Do you have iClone 6 around? Can you not run it to get an idea? Not *quite* the same, but pretty similar.
Alienware Aurora R12, Win 10, i9-119000KF, 3.5GHz CPU, 128GB RAM, RTX 3090 (24GB), Samsung 960 Pro 4TB M-2 SSD, TB+ Disk space Mike "ex-genius" Kelley
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justaviking
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justaviking
Posted 6 Years Ago
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: Last Month
Posts: 8.2K,
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@KT - I didn't think I was that critical of viewing angles, but it is something I've gradually become more "aware" of over time. My wife always calls me over to see something on her laptop, and if she's on the couch and I stand behind her, my viewing angle is different than hers, and thin text can be very hard to read until I get much more aligned with her head. If I move a laptop from my lap to a table, the screen needs to be tilted differently. If someone comes beside me to see something, one of us will have "funny colors" on the screen. To be fair, I spent quite a bit of time with the laptop last night, and once I'm settled into a position its okay. But as I said before, if you change your viewing angle (up/down or side-to-side) you can see a lot of color shift and change in brightness. But if you do the same thing of a television or a phone or a tablet, you don't have that problem. It seems that laptops in general continue to have this problem. If I bought a low-end computer that was only capable of browsing web pages, I wouldn't fuss so much. But when spending well over $1,000 for a laptop with a GTX 1060 in it, you'd think you get a better screen with it. Oh, to answer your question, the floor model at Best Buy exhibited the same screen issues, so I knew what I was getting before I even ordered it. It has some "Dragon Center" software (something like that), but I sort of skipped over that portion of the initial setup, since it seemed focused on gaming profiles and stuff like that. I'll revisit it tonight. A couple other random notes: - The battery life estimated jumps all over the place. After 30 minutes it said I had only 1h45m remaining, but 20 minutes later it was reporting 3h20m. I wasn't gaming, but it was possibly doing some windows updates or something. Not a problem, just interesting to see such wild swings when I wasn't doing anything heavy like rendering. - I'm getting used to the keybaord. It felt different at first, which is understandable. I felt like the letter "P" was crammed in, but I think I was just being over-conscious of things. I do wish the Home and End keys were not shared with the Page Up and Page Down keys. (You need to us Fn combo on them.) I tend to use all four of them quite a bit. Hitting the backspace key is very natural, and I've been known to need that once in a while, so that's nice. - Really glad it has a full numeric keypad - It is very lightweight. For the size and power, I find it to be suprisingly lightweight. ADDED... I'm not the only one to have these thought about the screen. From a some user reviews: CONS: -The screen on the "252" model is very low quality compared to the "228", "229" and "230" models. The viewing angles are poor and the colors are washed out. -The solid state drive is SATA instead of the NVme drives on the "228", "229", and "230" models. Although fast, this means 1/3 the read/write speeds, noticeable to those working heavily with audio/video. -Bloatware makes it slow at first, must delete unnecessary apps for optimal performance. -Battery life is lacking.
The screen on the "252" was difficult to look at for extended periods. If you're going to be using an external monitor often, this may not be an issue, but if you'll only be using the built in screen be sure to try it out at the store. Best Buy also sells similar models but with better screens and faster solid state drives for a bit more money. Overall, all of the GS63VR models offer great performance, but be aware of the differences in screens and solid state drives. The price for this model easily makes it the best bang for the buck--until you get it home and see how awful the display panel is. Apparently, MSI makes a special model of this laptop just for BestBuy, with a low-quality TN panel instead of the IPS panel found on other versions of the GS63. There was just no good tilt angle I could find that didn't wash out the blacks to dark grays, or blow out the bright colors. The various color settings in the MSI app were no real help. After struggling for three hours to get a usable picture, I gave up and returned it for an Alienware 13 R3. It's a real shame, too. The laptop was otherwise great. SSD boot times were fast, the GTX1060 churned out 60fps on Fallout 4, it was lightweight, and looked good without being ridiculously flashy. Plenty of ports, decent keyboard, although the speakers left a lot to be desired. But the useless screen killed all of the pluses for me. You shouldn't have to take a $1600 laptop straight to a repair shop and replace the stock screen with something usable before you take it home. If you can find one that doesn't have "-252" at the end of the model number, it's an excellent laptop. Unfortunately, since that's BestBuy's specific model, you won't find a different one there. (Also skip the "-001" model with the 6th Gen CPU. Last year's exclusive Best Buy model, same bad screen.) For about $400 more I could get nearly the same laptop, but with the faster SSD and a (theoritically) better screen. But I was already feeling guilty about buying something I don't really need, so at the higher price it was a non-starter.
iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity... Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual monitors. Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD
Edited
6 Years Ago by
justaviking
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Kelleytoons
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Kelleytoons
Posted 6 Years Ago
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: 9 hours ago
Posts: 9.1K,
Visits: 21.7K
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I think it is the Dragon center -- I'll check more in a bit (still cleaning house for the wife's return :> . Yeah, the weight is really the big deal with that laptop -- for a gaming laptop you normally have to get something MUCH heavier. At the time I thought I might be moving it around a bit (hospital room, then home, then possibly doctor's office :> but in the end I find I only put it one of two places so weight isn't that much of a factor. Speaking -- I always have the best intentions when I buy a laptop. I think to myself "This will be great that I can be productive when I'm waiting at the doctor's office" (when your my wife and my age you tend to do a lot of this <g> . But invariably I never take one, as it just seems SO much trouble and effort compared to just browsing or reading on my phone. Hell, even when I know I'll be hours at something (like taking my car to be serviced) I still just won't take the laptop. Now, if my iPad could run iClone then I'd take it -- hell, I'd even buy that oversized one they sell. But that won't happen in my lifetime. Sigh.
Alienware Aurora R12, Win 10, i9-119000KF, 3.5GHz CPU, 128GB RAM, RTX 3090 (24GB), Samsung 960 Pro 4TB M-2 SSD, TB+ Disk space Mike "ex-genius" Kelley
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justaviking
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justaviking
Posted 6 Years Ago
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: Last Month
Posts: 8.2K,
Visits: 26.5K
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@Tony - Was my "Workflow" reply the sort of answer you were looking for, or did I go off in the wrong direction? It was at the bottom of Page 12, and then got burried beneath other topics. https://forum.reallusion.com/FindPost358130.aspx
Laptop Update #1 - Trial installation.
The suggestion to install iC6 on the laptop was a good one. I had my son check his computer, and it turned out he has iC5 and iC6 installed on it, but much to my surprise, not iC7.
So, on the laptop, I deleted the dumb Trial Version of iC7 and installed my real version.
a - Still seems dumb that you have to register or activate the trail. It's already limited to a 30-day trial. More than that, the output and some functionality is limited (it is cripple-ware), so it is hard to imagine why someone would want to repeatedly install the trial over and over again anyway. b - Still seems dumb that the trial version is literally a different set of code than the full version. You should be able to install a Key to activate the trial and make it fully functional. Having to uninstall the trial, download another >1GB file, and install the real version is just plain silly, and irritating. c - Having installed the full version, it keeps asking me to register. Um, yeah, I have a licence key, so Reallusion and I already know each other, and I registered iC7 when I installed it on my desktop already. There should be a "Don't ask me again" option. d - When I "register," I wonder if I will get an email with my username AND PASSWORD in clear text, like they used to do.
Laptop Update #2 - Performance
After installing iC7 and the bonus content, I did a test using the "Loft Scene."
According to a Reallusion page, I should expect to get about 30 fps with a GTX 1060. Uh oh, I was limping along at 7. Not even close.
The reallusion numbers were realistic, though, since my GTX 1080 desktop got almost the exact same 50 fps they stated in their results. Go near the bottom of this page, and expand the "Show More" button and you will see a nice table of Performance Test Results. https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/download.html
What was wrong with my laptop, making me get less than 1/4 of the performance I should get?
This is both funny and shocking... Running on batter = 7 fps Plugged into wall = 20 fps
Yeah, that laptop severely throttles itself when running on batter power. There is probbly some performance setting I could change, but then I'd probably only get 5 to 10 minutes of battery life, LOL. I understand a dip in performance when on battery, but wow, a 3x difference was shocking.
Still not getting the 30 fps per the chart, but at least 20 fps is somewhat reasonable considering I'm on a laptop.
iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity... Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual monitors. Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD
Edited
6 Years Ago by
justaviking
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Kelleytoons
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Kelleytoons
Posted 6 Years Ago
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: 9 hours ago
Posts: 9.1K,
Visits: 21.7K
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I rarely (if ever) run on battery on any laptop (hasn't been a laptop made yet that can run on battery the programs *I* want to run :> so I never noticed this. But you should look at the Dragon software and I suspect it's right in there. Remember that laptop is configured by default for games (and, most likely those folks are indeed running on power. I've seen this firsthand -- even the kids with their laptops at the cafe plugin. And their "laptops" are larger than my desktop <g>. They drag these monster machines around, plug them in, and play away. Not my father's Oldsmobile :> .
Alienware Aurora R12, Win 10, i9-119000KF, 3.5GHz CPU, 128GB RAM, RTX 3090 (24GB), Samsung 960 Pro 4TB M-2 SSD, TB+ Disk space Mike "ex-genius" Kelley
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justaviking
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justaviking
Posted 6 Years Ago
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: Last Month
Posts: 8.2K,
Visits: 26.5K
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I was watching a "Unity" presentation from SIGGRAPH 2017. He demonstrated the ability to smooth "Look at" or "Tracking" camera movements. Yay! Quite some time ago I put in a request for iClone to have the ability to smooth out those types of automated camera movements. It is one of my pet peeves when I watch a video where the camera locks on to a character as he moves and jumps around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNFJXoMIFe4What he demonstrates at 11:30-12:40 is almost exactly what I put in my request. I supposed I should re-write my request now for iC7. (Also see 15:50 to 17:00 for a cool camera "blending" trick.) Somewhere around 2:50 he talks about "Compositing" going away. I thought that was a bit amusing since enhanced compositing has been touted as something great coming to iClone in 2018. I know, I know, there is still a need (at least for now), but the contrast caught my attention.
iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity... Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual monitors. Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD
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GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS
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GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS
Posted 6 Years Ago
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: 3 Years Ago
Posts: 1.2K,
Visits: 7.2K
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justaviking (3/21/2018)
I was watching a "Unity" presentation from SIGGRAPH 2017. He demonstrated the ability to smooth "Look at" or "Tracking" camera movements. Yay! Quite some time ago I put in a request for iClone to have the ability to smooth out those types of automated camera movements. It is one of my pet peeves when I watch a video where the camera locks on to a character as he moves and jumps around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNFJXoMIFe4What he demonstrates at 11:30-12:40 is almost exactly what I put in my request. I supposed I should re-write my request now for iC7. (Also see 15:50 to 17:00 for a cool camera "blending" trick.) Somewhere around 2:50 he talks about "Compositing" going away. I thought that was a bit amusing since enhanced compositing has been touted as something great coming to iClone in 2018. I know, I know, there is still a need (at least for now), but the contrast caught my attention. Yes, this is an interesting subject that I have on my own list of R&D to do for my TSP project and I believe this is already doable in iClone with the physics system. I've solved a similar problem with my astronaut rig for zero G inertial movements with an intermediate layer of physics "under" the pupeteering system, there is no reason it wouldn't work for a camera. The blending trick is already doable as well with clip transition. When the time comes I'll definitively post messages in the TSP thread with some tests and results.
-- guy rabiller | GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS "N.O.E." (Nations Of Earth) Sci-Fi TV Show, Showrunner.
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justaviking
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justaviking
Posted 6 Years Ago
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: Last Month
Posts: 8.2K,
Visits: 26.5K
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Wow!!!
This is a very amazing behind-the-scenes "animation" video. I've seem some "Planet of the Apes" videos before, but not this one until today.
The whole thing is amazing, but near the end, shortly after the 22-minute mark, they show how they go about animating the face. They already talked quite a bit about how the manually translate the "human" facial capture into "ape" animation, since you can't do a literal direct transference because things would look wrong. But here they talk more about that manual process.... First the eyes, eyebrows, then the jaw, then they start layering on more an more detail. Take a look that their curve editing track. Yipes!
iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity... Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual monitors. Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD
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