Cyberdemon

Any career is what you make of it. The current economy is nowhere near as bad as it was 2 years ago. If you look at ID hirings on Coroflot there are a lot of opportunities out there, when 2 years ago the amount of job postings was probably 1/10th. Design differentation is key to companies survival even in times of economic turbulence. As far as transferring, my two biggest concerns would be there. 1: Linearity and expectations. You may switch programs, grow accustomed to a certain style and level of expectations, then transfer back and realize you are not at the same level you'd be expected to be, which would reflect poorly on your grades. 2: Acceptance of credits - I would be VERY careful with your assumption that you could transfer, then transfer back and have all your credits carry over. Unless you have clearly confirmed each and every class with your dean, I would completely expect SCAD to only honor certain courses which they feel meet their standards, and you may end up requiring additional years of studies to transfer back. Not wanting to accept debt is certainly a good idea, but my suggestion would either be to stick with it, or transfer and graduate from UH. I have seen some great graduates from UH in the past few years, so it indicates their program is growing in strength. Ultimately your portfolio and your skills as a designer is what an employer is hiring. Not your degree and not your GPA. If your portfolio suffers because you've been jumping around, it will reflect poorly on you. But if you can actually transfer credits and make it work, by all means go for it. However you should be very clear in understanding that probably isn't the case - and even if admissions say they will accept classes now, 2 years from now their curriculum requirements may change and you may be out more money then you were previously.

Cash, They added the multiply option to Sketchbook as of the 2011 release. This avoids the need for transparency since you can put your sketch on a layer and set it to multiply the same way you would in Photoshop.

Polishing out scratches in the tool should not be a big deal - and if the tool is damaged, that should fall on the responsibility of the tool maker. If they screwed it up they need to fix it. Generally the tool is cleaned up after it is cut and prior to texturing.

The thing is you really can't get a very good understanding of the texture without seeing a physical sample. That picture is of the sample plaque I am talking about. You may be able to get one for free (it is just a big 8x11 sheet of plastic) but you have to ask. Without seeing them in person it'll be very hard to really understand the differences between the texture ranges and how big the texture actually is. I think the 11005-11010 range is where you want to be, but like I mentioned they are actually created with different processes (media blasting vs acid etching) so the end result and longterm tool durability is different.

If your tooling vendor isn't willing to give you the most basic information (like where they plan on shipping your tool for texture) that's a problem - even if you're doing a small run. Most places use Mold tech standards even if they aren't mold tech. VDI (and I had to google this because I did not know) stands for Verein Deutscher Ingenieure which is just German for German Association of Engineers, who apparently invented the standard. But it is a different process compared to Moldtech or similar acid etched texures. MT11005-MT11010 are probably in the range of what you want but they are actually created using different processes. You can try to reach out to mold tech directly, if they have a factory near you it's worth a trip to understand better and try to pick a proper texture plaque.

It's possible to self teach yourself almost anything, but I would not expect to ever be able to land a job doing design professionally without a degree. There is so much more that an ID education entails then just being able to draw a picture of something that looks nice. ID education covers how to effectively research issues and test solutions, the human factors and ergonomics of design, CAD (which Maya is not), manufacturing and materials, physical prototyping, and most importantly provides a controlled environment in which you can design, test, and receive feedback in a way that allows your designs to move forward. To do all of that in a vaccuum by yourself, even with online courses, DVD's and internet sites is very difficult. It's not to say you can't design things without it - I designed and prototyped bike parts before ever going to college, but they were rather simple (and not terribly well designed). So I'm sure if you were passionate about something you could make some stuff and figure out ways to sell it, but I wouldn't expect to be able to go land a gig in a design firm with no formal education. If you are near a university, it can't hurt to prepare yourself for a year and then sign up for classes the following fall.

Textures are standardized because there are typically only a few places that do texturing, though there are several different processes. Mold-Tech is typically the global standard and they have the 11000 series of textures which is fairly common, but they have a whole range from very faint to very coarse. These textures are applied after the tooling is cut, typically by an acid etching process. There are also a series of VDI textures which are actually done by modifying the EDM which is used to cut your tool, but those textures have some unique complexity which may or may not make them appropriate for use. (If a modification needs to be done after your initial tool is cut, the texture will not match properly). I would speak to your tooling vendor, ask them to find out who their preferred texture vendor is, and see if they can provide you with sample plaques (these are standard, but sometimes hard to get a hold of). But if you are in China, it may be as easy as taking a trip to the factory that will do the tooling.

While I have not gone through their program, I have visited RIT several times (marrying an RIT alum) and seen much of their alumni work and they have a very solid program. I would say it is similar to many of the other "tech" focused programs (vs art focused programs) where there is a strong focus on all the basic skills, but also applying them to functional, real world products. Rochester is also a nice city, despite the bitter cold and some areas that certainly may not be as nice as others, there is a lot of culture, a great musical scene, etc. As long as you can deal with the cold and are willing to learn some sign language (Rochester is one of the largest deaf communities in the US, as the National Technical Institute for the Deaf is part of RIT) it's a nice place to live.

Very nice result. I'm guessing the environment fades to black at the top?

Looking at the gallery on the C4D site - you should definitely be able to get the result you want out of C4D. Maxwell is better at some physical characteristics, but if they can do stuff like this: http://www.maxon.net...ds/pics/199.jpg From C4D - your glass shouldn't be an issue. If you haven't gotten there yet you just need to spend time tweaking and make sure your ray tracing bounce/max limit settings are cranked.

Keep in mind soft modding was primarily around desktop cards - so it doesn't help if you're trying to use it on a laptop. A modern Geforce card is plenty capable for most applications. And if you need the dedicated workstation support you're stuck forking over the cash for a workstation. If you want to be more budget minded look for a refurbished Dell machine on their outlet site.

For rendering pure glass you need to make sure your shader has the correct properties, your raytracing parameters are set very high (to allow for an accurate calculation of all of the internal reflections) and that your lighting and environment setup mimics what you would see in a photo studio. If you don't have the proper environment, and you are trying to create a rendering, you won't get the right reflections. C4D should be OK, but if you are primarily doing glass you may be better with a rendering engine that is better based in physical properties of materials like Maxwell.

There is a lot of art in properly selecting the right materials. ABS, PC, PC-ABS, and lots of other variants might be totally appropriate, or there may be other materials that work good for a base material. For the overmold - the biggest thing to consider is making sure your compound plays nice with the first. If you don't get the correct bonding (either chemical or mechanical) then the overmolded rubber can usually peel right off - especially in rugged environments where the tool will see a lot of sweat, grease, dirt, grime, etc.

Here is the thing: I can put an M5 badge on a base model BMW 5 series, but that does not turn it into a M5. At a time long ago, soft modding worked because Nvidia did not put any type of hardware locks on their boards, which truly enabled the cheap Geforce part to function like a Quadro. Years ago (following the 8000 series of cards which is already 4+ generations old) Nvidia locked these parts down. Nvidia also changed their driver architecture...what used to be "Quadro Drivers" and "Geforce" drivers are now just "Verde" drivers which support ALL Nvidia devices. Because of this driver change, you can not softmod any cards made in basically the last 4 years. The good news, is with the exception of some Quadro only functionality like Realview, a modern 550GT or similar Nvidia GPU will still be very powerful even in CAD applications. Also - Windows 32 bit does not support 8 gigs of ram. This is not an "Artificial" limit imposed by Microsoft. Windows may now tell you that it SEES 8 gigs of ram, but this is a fundamental function of the way computers operate (2^32 is the maximum amount of memory addresses, which means you will NEVER access more than 4 gigs of ram on a 32 bit OS) even if your Windows properties says it sees 8 gigs installed.

When you say "Touch screen" are you speaking about just the touch panel (the part that detects your finger as an input) or the entire display? The new Motorola RAZR is ~7mm thick - so if you look at the teardown you can see the display + touch panel is probably right around 2mm thick. AMOLED displays have the benefit of being very very thin.