I have to render a scene in a server room… but I don’t have any elements that will serve.
Okay, the tiled floor is easy enough - a plane primitive with a repeating “white square with black edge” texture is close enough. But that doesn’t help for the server racks, the servers, the tape drive arrays, the mainframes, the network-attached storage devices, the power and cooling devices…
I have a budget for this, but I also have a deadline, so I can’t wait around for somebody to make something for me. What’s out there and available for (or importable into) Daz Studio right now?
The stuff at Daz3D looks like a movie-producer’s idea of a computer room, alas. The “Electronic Testgear” at least looks realistic, but it doesn’t fit into this render. (adds to wishlist) The “Dystopian Console” might work as a security station, but modern server farms don’t have anywhere near that many consoles in them. Not even in the operators’ room.
Zincster ... Does anybody know what happened to Zincster? He had a lot of good stuff…
The “Dystopian Console” might work as a security station, but modern server farms don’t have anywhere near that many consoles in them. Not even in the operators’ room.
The Dystopian Console has a big server type thing.
It’s free, so you can dowload it and check it out. You don’t have to use the monitors.
Also, keep in mind many people don’t know exactly what a server room looks like. People tend to suspend disbelief in many situations. As long as you are entertaining them.
I have to render a scene in a server room… but I don’t have any elements that will serve.
Okay, the tiled floor is easy enough - a plane primitive with a repeating “white square with black edge” texture is close enough. But that doesn’t help for the server racks, the servers, the tape drive arrays, the mainframes, the network-attached storage devices, the power and cooling devices…
I have a budget for this, but I also have a deadline, so I can’t wait around for somebody to make something for me. What’s out there and available for (or importable into) Daz Studio right now?
There’s servers, and then there’s servers.
The setup I was sysadmin for - two IBM DS8100 Electronic Storage Subsystems - 30 inches deep, 60 inches wide, 72 inches tall. Two doors on the front and back. Weight, about 1.7 tons each. 21 and 28 Terabytes fiber-attach storage. And the only detail was the flush-mount latch on the left-hand door (front and back). The power and fiber connections all under the floor and only visible from a mouse-high point of view.
One IBM 3584 tape storage subsystem. 30 inches deep, 60 inches wide, 60 inches tall; 14 internal LTO tape drives, 400+ tape cartridges. Same description as the Disk systems, except that the ends had 14 inch wide 48 inch tall glass windows in them - that looked opaque unless you had your face against them.
4 IBM T42 rack units with assorted RS-6000 computers in them, Racks 72 inches tall, 25 inches wide, 30 inches deep, all edge to edge with blank panels on the ends - and doors front and back. Just the occasional glimmer of green LED through the grills on the doors. All network switches, fiber switches, and interconnections run under the floor or internal within the racks. Nothing to see when the doors are closed. Open the front door and you get black filler panels and black RS-6000 front panels with some LED displays.
Two Hardware Management Consoles - black PCs with LCD screens running an old version of Red-Hat Linux.
In other words - state of the art server room and absolutely nothing to see except black cabinets - and two grey cabinets which were the power distribution from the UPS (basically big boxes of circuit breakers, only visible if the doors were open. And all doors kept closed unless a system was being worked on.
And our Windows servers were just as dull - black Dell systems in black racks with front and rear doors.
Computers have been dull and boring to look at for the last 15 years.
I have to render a scene in a server room… but I don’t have any elements that will serve.
Okay, the tiled floor is easy enough - a plane primitive with a repeating “white square with black edge” texture is close enough. But that doesn’t help for the server racks, the servers, the tape drive arrays, the mainframes, the network-attached storage devices, the power and cooling devices…
I have a budget for this, but I also have a deadline, so I can’t wait around for somebody to make something for me. What’s out there and available for (or importable into) Daz Studio right now?
There’s servers, and then there’s servers.
The setup I was sysadmin for - two IBM DS8100 Electronic Storage Subsystems - 30 inches deep, 60 inches wide, 72 inches tall. Two doors on the front and back. Weight, about 1.7 tons each. 21 and 28 Terabytes fiber-attach storage. And the only detail was the flush-mount latch on the left-hand door (front and back). The power and fiber connections all under the floor and only visible from a mouse-high point of view.
One IBM 3584 tape storage subsystem. 30 inches deep, 60 inches wide, 60 inches tall; 14 internal LTO tape drives, 400+ tape cartridges. Same description as the Disk systems, except that the ends had 14 inch wide 48 inch tall glass windows in them - that looked opaque unless you had your face against them.
4 IBM T42 rack units with assorted RS-6000 computers in them, Racks 72 inches tall, 25 inches wide, 30 inches deep, all edge to edge with blank panels on the ends - and doors front and back. Just the occasional glimmer of green LED through the grills on the doors. All network switches, fiber switches, and interconnections run under the floor or internal within the racks. Nothing to see when the doors are closed. Open the front door and you get black filler panels and black RS-6000 front panels with some LED displays.
Two Hardware Management Consoles - black PCs with LCD screens running an old version of Red-Hat Linux.
In other words - state of the art server room and absolutely nothing to see except black cabinets - and two grey cabinets which were the power distribution from the UPS (basically big boxes of circuit breakers, only visible if the doors were open. And all doors kept closed unless a system was being worked on.
And our Windows servers were just as dull - black Dell systems in black racks with front and rear doors.
Computers have been dull and boring to look at for the last 15 years.
I have mostly Gandalf Enclosed Racks (Blue and Black) - Duplex units. When the doors are closed one doesn’t see much. And those doors better stay shut as the ventilation is floor to ceiling. Open Bottom, mesh top. Standard 72” tall, 25” deep. My switches and patch panels are exposed and kind of messy looking, but pretty much all Panduit panels lend themselves to messy looks. They work though.
Even when the doors are open, all of the servers have locked front plexyglass access protection. Not much to see other than black rectangles, with a single power led and a couple of green drive access LED’s. All of the cables run to the center channel. Not much to see in the server racks at all. There are a few Tape Backup Library units, but again, the mechanisms are all self enclosed with barrel locks on the front panels. Except for the 80 Tape Units which are floor sitters, the rest look like 4U or 5U servers. One can only tell they are TBUs by the Exabyte logos on the front and they are charcoal gray instead of black.
Also, keep in mind many people don’t know exactly what a server room looks like. People tend to suspend disbelief in many situations. As long as you are entertaining them.
True in general, but not in the specific - the client for this one is part of the IT department. (As it is, they’re going to wonder why the databank in the image wasn’t built by Hitachi…)
Also, keep in mind many people don’t know exactly what a server room looks like. People tend to suspend disbelief in many situations. As long as you are entertaining them.
True in general, but not in the specific - the client for this one is part of the IT department. (As it is, they’re going to wonder why the databank in the image wasn’t built by Hitachi…)
If they are going to want to be that specific, then a primitive cubes with “Real Photos” as the textures would be your best bet.
Also, keep in mind many people don’t know exactly what a server room looks like. People tend to suspend disbelief in many situations. As long as you are entertaining them.
True in general, but not in the specific - the client for this one is part of the IT department. (As it is, they’re going to wonder why the databank in the image wasn’t built by Hitachi…)
If they are going to want to be that specific, then a primitive cubes with “Real Photos” as the textures would be your best bet.
Kendall
Considering the lack of decent photos on the Hitachi website, that would require taking a camera into the computer room, which they won’t let me do. (If they were allowed to take photos, they wouldn’t need a render.) <sigh>
