CelticBomber wrote:A stylus and digital pad let's an artist draw freehand digitally. Think of it an an electronic pen and paper. Not a necessity with your budget. You might also want to think of a raid 1 (mirrored drives) storage setup if you were building this for real.
$1500 budget for a graphic arts machine? Better off getting them some water colors and lots of paper. I could spend that on just the graphics card! Good luck getting any Mac at that price and having cash left over for software. You might have to go PC (which is just as good as a Mac these days for Graphics.) A software suite will run you from $150 to $300 at the bottom end if you are rendering and animating. Do you have to include a 3d printer in your budget? Who is teaching this course? I'd like to have a talk with them.
Yeah, some of the same questions I had as I just started looking into it. I think her system guidelines and grading rubric (WTF - this stupid rubric thing classes are doing now) is rather out dated. She references using vendors such as Newegg, TigerDirect and Micro Center as resources. Seems so 2010. Those are places I'd typically go to get an older refurbished setup. Maybe that's her idea, budget conscience for an entry level machine.
Talked to my niece and she says 4k Retina type display for true and vivid colors is a must. She said that she does most of her work on a tablet. It's portable and can review designs with her clients and stores the files on the cloud. It also allows her to mirror what she's working with on the tablet screen to any desktop screen. Her stuff isn't animation, mostly ad copy stuff, book cover artwork things like that. But she also has a desk top because the Adobe mobile stuff doesn't have the tools you really need.
$1500 will get you something that might work for all the stuff the prof is asking but it ain't gonna do any of it well. I could come up with something for the budget she's given and then explain this isn't really enough for a great system but I'm not sure she'd be open to a modern day reality check. I'm not looking for a debate, I'm looking for a grade.
I think I'll just do the $800 family scenario: general web surfing, email, video streaming, household finances, basic word processing. The software part there would be cheap: email and browsers are free, open source LibreOffice... Hardware: a $300-400 laptop for portability, upgrade to 8 GB RAM, 256 SSD or 320 HDD (if storage space for fluffy's pictures is an issue use one of the many free cloud storage options), ink jet printer, 24" display when stationed at home, full sized keyboard and mouse when stationed at home. Internet connection: broadband and in home WiFi (this stuff is bundled with your TV so I won't count it for the computer budget).
I'm "reinventing" myself and going back to school for another more marketable degree. Going for IT network stuff and this class is one of the entry level IT classes - the core classes are yet to come. The degree won't be too far off since a most of the math, statistics, physics, general education stuff transferred over from my previous schooling. Besides, my current employer has a benefit with a 3rd party that covers full tuition costs and books for select programs I'd be stupid to not take advantage of it.