Subject: Re: Shorter help message?
From: "J. David Johnson" <[email-masked]>
To: Justin Barrett <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 17:28:26 -0500 (EST)

On Sun, 26 Feb 1995, Justin Barrett wrote:

> I hope this doesn't sound like one big complaint.  It's more of a plea for
> suggestions and counsel.  What can I do?  Where do I start?  Where can I
> get the $$$ to do it?

You need at least $2000.   That should buy you a used 2000 (I've seen 'em 
for $200), an accellerator ('030 $600), 16 megs of ram $500, Lightwave 
3.5 StandAlone $500 and a hard drive $200 for a 400-500 med (hopefully your 
accelerator has a scsci controller).

This is a basic system and relies on someone else single-framing them or 
digitally puttin' you anims to tape.  The nice thing is that you can 
later add a par card and output 'em yourself (by taking to a production 
comapany)

Getting started in animation isn't a low cost deal (that is a relative to 
whomever is reading this, I consider $2000 extremely low...)

I guess if I were in your shoes, I would go to a computer store who 
offers a financing company with 90 days same as cash. (some offer 12 
months!) And try to purchase the fastest Pentium system you can get.  
Even a 60 will do (just make sure to get one with the updated chip) but 
75, 90 or 100 mhz would be better.  Make sure it has 16 megs of ram and 
at least a half gig hard drive (again a 1 gig would be nicer)  and buy 
the Lightwave 3.5 Stand Alone ASAP!  Although you may not use it now, you 
will save a couple hundred bucks on the 4.0 NT version of Lightwave.   
Then when you grow your business a little, you may buy a 4000 or 2000 
toaster system with par or Flyer to output you animations and then have 
the StandAlone to run on it...

You still looking at $3000 or more.  (a 60mhz pentium w/ 16 megs, video 
card, hard drive etc, can be gotten for around $2000 to $2200)

There isn't really a less expensive way other than buying an accerator 
for your 500, then a hard drive, then ram... (It just isn't a good idea 
to sink that much money in a 500...)  and you'd still be lookin' at $2000...

It's not easy making choices like these, but the most important thing is 
to clearly dictate what you need to do th job..  Then put together 
several di\fferent option packages that will do that job and weigh the 
advantages/disadvantages to each system.

In either case... unless you have tens of thousands of dollars, learn to 
be patient, as we all must wait for the render light to finish ;)

J. David - Video GT