Seeking advice as I'm a dinosaur with computers. Son has just commenced an animation course. He was originally told that he didn't need a laptop as he could access college computers. But now his lecturer has said that he needs one for homework, assignments, etc.He needs to run "MAYA" and "Mudbox" . I googled maya up and it said system requirements : microsoft windows 7 (sp1) and windows 10 Professional ; Apple mac OS x 10.10.5 and 10.11.x; 16 gb ram; 4 GB free disk space. The requirements for Mudbox were similar, a bit less RAM and disk space. The recommendations for a suitable graphics card got very technical so I don't know, but being animation maybe it should be a good one? The teacher told my son to just get a cheap laptop but , I don't want to get something that is inadequate and causes grief.
Cheers for any guidance.
Laptop for Animation Course
Comments
What is your budget? The Lenovo scrimshaw suggested is pretty good for the price.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/292507However for animation work I would recommend desktops if your son doesn't need to take it to school.
Or you can get this beast:
http://www.affordablelaptops.com.au/contents/en-us/d612_meta…$1,379.00
15.6" FHD 1920x1080 IPS , i7-7700HQ GTX 1050 2GB graphics, 8GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM, 240GB M.2 SSDYou have to supply your own Windows.
I think stick to a desktop. Otherwise the Lenovo X1 Yoga is on a good price right now and perfect for uni, only issue is it doesn't have dedicated graphics. You don't need it for photoshop/video editing and very light gaming, but I dont know what animation requires. The E470 should cover him though, but it will be heavier.
Thanks for the good advice fellas.
One thing to watch out for is high resolution screens. Although they look nice, many programs just arent suitable for scaling behind FHD (1920 x 1080). If you can, stick to one of these screens instead of the higher resolutions. It also saves on crucial juice, which is in high demand for students.
…that's not really a problem nowadays. It's 2017! Autodesk added 4k support to the latest version of their software, so you can have up to 3840 × 2160 and it'll still work as intended.
and blender? well, they can do this with their UI & buttons, and it's pretty darn cool:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/KkJTk.gifEngineering programs don't scale. Maybe animation ones do given their use, but true engineering ones (CFD, CAD) are still a bit old.
Thanks all. Bought the E470.
There's a very good option on the front page right now. Lenovo Thinkpad E470.
Abit heavy @ 1.9 KGs but not lacking in computing power requirements.
For heavy work, animation students usually have access to a much powerful desktop at the campus which they use to render their final projects.
Which is why not much emphasis is put on having a powerful laptop. Complicated renders take anything from a few hours to a whole day to complete, and it's not something someone does on a portable device.