Nerd Rant: Working Remotely

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Suffering through German autumn part two: Manu & Mo finally got the heaters running and aren't freezing anymore. Fantasizing about working from some warm and sandy beach, they discuss the pitfalls of and solutions for working remotely.

[@nicolasberger3838]

One interesting option, when talking about the problem of huge sim/cache files, are renderfarms like GridMarket, which allow you to run your sim/cache directly on their server (you have a special "gridmarket filecache" node/ROP provided), so you don't need to upload your 500gb flip cache before rendering, it is already there. It is a workflow that can help a lot when working remotely (if using renderfarms for rendering)

[@aeko]

I'm surprised you guys didn't discuss Teradici. Simon Holmedal swears by it at Panoply.

[@MortenKvale]

Parsec is fantastic for remote vfx work! :D

[@Nevalkar_]

Notion is standalone as well. I have been use it for a while. Is a great product. Congrats for the videos, quite useful!

[@axe_fx]

I just recruited a team of 20+ people as part of a startup here, and I have to say is that free Discord is just too awesome compared to Slack. Our main problem now is a collaborative task board. We are thinking Trello since its free/ priced models are really good for small teams.

[@abstractwaves6166]

check clickup

[@axe_fx]

@@abstractwaves6166 haha are you sponsored? their ads are everywhere

[@abstractwaves6166]

@@axe_fx haha of course not, I'm using it with my client and i find it a lot practical

[@patrickarrington1898]

would be curious to hear opinions on Teradici and AWS Virutal machines that can adaptively scale

[@tronotrond]

We use AWS and Teradici. It works really well, and have many advantages! Especially for scale. I love the fact that I can boot up a workstation with multiple GPUs or a very powerful server for simulations etc. on demand. AWS, Teradici and Deadline is a very good combo that gives a lot of flexibility. I would say AWS' own Nice DCV just feels slightly snappier and faster than Teradici, but we haven't found a way to implement that with our custom setup. You do have AWS Nimble studio that uses Nice, but it has some drawbacks with being a more boxed-in system, and it seems it only have the option to save the user data folder on exit. So in other words, software and other things installed by the user, will be wiped on the next boot.

[@gyurics.balazs.workflows1846]

Very actual subject. Covid for sure accelerated the arrival of such tools. Unfortunately tablet pen pleasure sensitivity do not goes true remote clients in most cases, also sometimes it is a bit laggy if you are reaching out a master server and not just sharing your work with your team that was made on your home WS. I had to realize that remote workflows that are running true external servers are beneficial due to NDA contracts for CGI companies to client direction, so the above mentioned issues are real even under 1GB + connection. And as I mentioned above when you have to run all the tools in the pipeline on an external server lag arrives, the steam is mostly down sampled, FPS is limited (if someone is sensitive to low FPS steaming 8-12 hours / day work front of a laggy 30FPS steam of the used tool's viewports can lead to fatigue) So these kind of remote workflows still needs a few years to unfold into a level where it can provide the same working experience as working on our own workstations. From the other side, remote works where you can use your own WS and remote tools are used just for sharing results, communication and QA is a much better solution VS traveling 2 hours/ day back and forth and knowing that some portion of your work is made just to maintain your office desk with all it's overhead costs. Due to remote tools: Jira is nice and simple chat and task management tool, Notion is offering way too much due to management aspect that can escalate quickly if it is not in the right hands :) I mean; it is more like a perfect platform for management/branding/marketing, but it can turn into a confusing daydreaming about theoretical pipelines that seems valid due to the well organized structure of Notion that never in this life can be implanted to reality. I like the most tools that have project and screen share options, but unfortunately tools as ShotGrid / Shotgun are way too expensive.

[@SBaldo8]

I've been using Parsec for the last 3 months and it's amazing. I chose the LG gram 17 to have a big screen but actually very portable laptop, long battery life and lightest 17inch available (1kg)

[@SBaldo8]

And with Parsec paid version (90 euros a year) you can use h265 encoding that will use less bandwidth (like 1mbps for a 1440p stream) and 4:4:4 colors. I had a great experience remotely accessing my home PC even from my phone's 4g connection

[@milad_savar]

Hope after the covid , working Remotely be exist in studio for Artist

[@baldoski]

Don't go basecamp, we use it at work and I can only say: it's a crap.

[@TheXZ111]

56k modem, I can do this all day

[@bass_journey]

Just before the pandemic I bought in 2019, a Dell G7, 17 inches, with 2070 rtx, 32 gb i7 etc by £1500 on Black Friday. Maybe I had a gut feeling that something would happen. Long story short, I was stranded in South America, for a couple of months, but managed to work really well with this laptop. It's a bit plasticky but much cheaper than Razor. It's heavy too. I also have an external Logitech small wireless keyboard and mouse and a Laptop support that makes it taller. After that, I decided to go Nomadic, I have been to 12 countries, and I can work fine with it. I normally connect to an external monitor when possible. Regarding file transfer, Dropbox has an option to send files like Wetrasnfer. You have to right-click and find the option.

[@collger]

big desktop，big monitor，big keyboard，big room，big chair. the bigger the healthier.

[@wfqtube]

hi ，thank you for your share ,and i am very intersting for you live system, i want to know how you building it ,haha ,my poor english

[@jamaljamalwaziat1002]

Haha if u come to marakach come and visit us man. u are welcome . U are really great

[@metaturnal]

I'm surprised we don't have a subscription based service for computers yet. Maybe the internet speed isn't there yet but I imagine there could be a service where your PC is simply an interface to a server, like a render farm but everything all the hardware for gaming and software is done elsewhere ,so people wouldn't have to upgrade their expensive hardwsre every few years..

[@bass_journey]

There are some companies working on that already. I was offered a similar service recently, but specialised in video editing solutions. The Foundry also wanted to run a service like that a couple of years ago, but it didn't go ahead. I am sure in less than 3 years it will be a possible solution.