[Originally posted on 10/02/18 by Jamie Gwilliam]
AMD continues its support of nurturing talent and knowledge within the Autodesk® 3ds Max® community by supporting a key user group in London.
A user group has always been one of the best ways to informally learn from the experience of others, particularly when using software you repeatedly rely on. This ethos remains at the heart of the 3ds London User group, and since its inception over 14 years ago the user group has gone from strength to strength.
From the beginning, the monthly meetup in central London has hosted presentations from many of the UK’s top studios working in architectural visualisation, visual effects, animation, games, architecture and immersive design, as well as most leading software brands in the M&E (Media & Entertainment) and AEC (Architecture, Engineering & Construction) industries.
For those not aware of this unofficial Autodesk® 3ds Max® focused meetup, the gathering attracts an average of 200 attendees all eager to share tips and tricks over a drink. This central London gathering occurs on the first Wednesday of every month allowing users to discuss ideas, technical methods and behind-the-scenes of key projects, whilst enjoying a relaxed and friendly traditional pub atmosphere near the iconic British Museum. Whilst traditional presentations form the backbone of the meetups, what drives people to keep attending is the wealth of knowledge and experience shared within the venues cellar bar.
Although the user group has moved around London in previous years it’s kept a strong following of some of the UK’s biggest brands and studios. The ethos of the user group is to be free to attend and for all abilities. This attitude has kept the sharing of information freely flowing while nurturing new talent within the local community (although it’s not usual for attendees to travel for a number of hours to attend.).
This ‘open to all’ principle is one that is close to AMDs own philosophy by helping to ensure users are not locked into proprietary methods. With it comes some challenges for the user group though, to keep serving its 1300 registered members, the user group needed support. With sponsorships already from a number of local companies, AMD has now become the technology partner of the user group, ensuring the community continues to expand and be supported during its bright future.
“As organizers of 3ds London, we’re thrilled to have the backing and support of AMD as a technology partner. This will allow us to build the best 3D meetup for our community while maintaining the friendly casual atmosphere everyone enjoys.”
– Simon Moir, 3ds London co-organiser.
It is not unusual to see AMD supporting the wider advancements of an industry, and recently became headline sponsor for the 2018 Annual CGarchitect awards, an online competition showcasing the best Architectural Visualisation talent in the world. You can read more about this here and explore the amazing winners’ work.
This commitment from AMD to supporting talent is echoed in the partnership of localised user groups like 3ds London. The ability to do so is of course driven by its hardware adoption and AMD has recently seen a renewed vibrancy within the community of 3D professionals, whether it’s from its ground-breaking CPU offerings like AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ or its high-end GPUs, like the AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 graphics.
For rendering, the 32-core Ryzen™ Threadripper™ desktop processor is the World’s Most Powerful Desktop Processor1 offering blazing fast rendering speeds in industry standard plugins like Chaos Group V-Ray. Its professional range of GPUs continue to gain momentum with the launch of innovative technology like High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) which offers up three times4 more bandwidth per watt than typical GDDR5 memory, and 94% less surface area5 ., which is hugely important when using large project files and textures within tools like Autodesk® 3ds Max®.
You may also be interested in a latest report into AMDs drivers. This new report,2 from QA Consultants3, a Toronto-based software testing and quality assurance firm, has put six of AMD’s most popular cards to the test (high, medium and budget level cards) against the competitive equivalent. QA Consultants found AMD to have “the most stable driver in the industry.”
You can read more on this topic here.
“The AMD team has recognised the huge potential that 3ds London has to offer all 3D enthusiasts and professionals working in the industry. It’s a fantastic networking event and having AMD as a partner will mean we keep raising the bar for our members.”
– Nigel Hunt, 3ds London co-organiser and SiNi software CEO.
To become a member and be kept informed of the next speakers at the 3ds London User Group, please register with them directly. There is a wealth of information and big plans on being able to share more of this content online with you. Connect with the user group here. The next meetup planned for October features an impressive line-up of speakers, with the likes of RealtimeUK making a welcome return to the group. You can see a full list on the previous meetup page link.
For those reading this further afield, you may like to explore the following interview on a high-end London Arch Viz studio and the challenges they face on projects ranging from complex animations to unusual VR. More stories will be added over the next few months. Read the interview.
AMD is proud to support the 3ds London User Group and continue supporting great talent.
Make sure you go and say Hello at the next meetup.
Jamie Gwilliam is a Sr. Market Development Manager for AEC at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5
FOOTNOTES:
1- Testing by AMD Performance labs as of 6/26/2018 on the following system. PC manufacturers may vary configurations yielding different results. Results may vary based on driver versions used. Test configuration: AMD ‘Whitehaven’ X399 Socket sTR4 Motherboard + AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper 2990WX + Gigabyte X299 AORUS Gaming 9 + Core i9-7980XE. Both systems feature GeForce GTX 1080 (driver 24.21.13.9793), 4x8GB DDR4-3200, Windows 10 x64 Pro (RS3), Samsung 850 Pro SSD. "Power” defined as computational processing power as represented by the cinebench R15 processor benchmark The Core i9-7980XE achieved an average of 3335.2 points in the benchmark, while the Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX achieved an average of 5099.3, or (5099.3/3335.2=153%) 53% faster than the Intel Core i9-7980XE. RP2-1
2- “Graphics Driver Quality – Determination of Stability from Leading Market Vendors”- https://www.amd.com/system/files/documents/graphics-driver-quality.pdf
3- In May 2018, AMD commissioned QA Consultants to independently evaluate the stability of several of the latest graphics drivers from both AMD and NVIDIA.
4- Testing conducted by AMD engineering on the AMD Radeon™ R9 290X GPU vs. an HBM-based device. Data obtained through isolated direct measurement of GDDR5 and HBM power delivery rails at full memory utilization. Power e¬ciency calculated as GB/s of bandwidth delivered per watt of power consumed. AMD Radeon™ R9 290X (10.66 GB/s bandwidth per watt) and HBM-based device (35+ GB/s bandwidth per watt), AMD FX-8350, Gigabyte GA-990FX-UD5, 8GB DDR3-1866, Windows 8.1 x64 Professional, AMD Catalyst™ 15.20 Beta. HBM-1
5- Measurements conducted by AMD Engineering on 1GB GDDR5 (4x256MB ICs) @ 672mm2 vs. 1zGB HBM (1x4-Hi) @ 35mm2 . HBM-2
‘3ds London’ is a valued partner of AMD. All imagery is provided by permission of ‘3ds London’.. The information contained in this blog represents the view of AMD or the third-party presenter as of the date presented. AMD and/or the third-party presenters have no obligation to update any forward-looking content in the above presentations. AMD is not responsible for the content of any third-party presentations and does not necessarily endorse the comments made therein. GD-84
Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5
©2018 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, FirePro, Threadripper, Radeon and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies. GD-28
