Ib Koford-Larsen 1960 Rocking Armchair 1

Ib Koford-Larsen 1960 Rocking Armchair 2

Ib Koford-Larsen 1960 Armchair

Ib Koford-Larsen 1960 Armchair

Designed by Ib Koford-Larsen (Denmark, 1960) / 3ds max 2009-onwards / Vray 1.5 – 2.0

Copied many times, this is the original Rocking Armchair design from Ib Koford-Larsen. Welded steel structure and sheepskin seat balanced against a teak backrest. Includes Standard Armchair version.

Flickr Slideshow

11.49 €

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Designed by Arne Vodder (Denmark, 1926 – 2009) / 3ds max 2009-onwards / Vray 1.5 – 2.0

Free from any sharp edges, this beautifully crafted dining chair makes the interior adapt a mid century feel. Complete with Black leather and Rosewood finish.

11.49 €

Song of round-up 1. Enjoy!

Found this really useful bit of info on reflectivity of Vray materials. I will be testing these.

I needed to find out how to weld metal together so I used the method below from Onno Van Braam

How to rig a lamp. He makes this sound and look easy, but it’s not. I think there is a big learning curve to this.

I followed this fur and hair tutorial from Pixela-3d on Ronen Bekerman’s blog in the hope of making some sheep’s wool for a chair I am modeling. I will post the results when I succeed.

The free plants library for the non scientists who use ExLevel’s Grow FX.

In case you missed them, the excellent State of the Art Academy workshop minuets via James Shaw’s Blog.

Studio Aiko. Always ahead of the rest.

A different way.

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Ib Koford-Larsen 1960 Rocking Armchair 1

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Designed by Johan Petter Johansson (Sweden, 1853 – 1943) / 3ds max 2009-onwards / Vray 1.5 – 2.0

This versatile and adjustable form can be utilised as a floor, ceiling or wall lamp. Johan’s last invention was this ridgid surface mounted lamp which pivots and spins a telescopic arm to reach out into any space.

Fully poseable

11.49 €

I like the quiet. I like the feeling of a silent room, a library or a book shop, it helps me concentrate, be creative, makes me feel at ease. My home office is nice and quiet, until I hit the power button on my PC.

Two 120mm CPU fans spinning up, trying to keep the processor cool. Two 120mm Silverstone case fans drawing air out of the top of the case, two 90mm fans at the back doing the same, this all adds up to an annoying air rushing white noise that seems to overpower any other noises and the heat from overnight renders, even in winter, is uncomfortable.

I thought if I can slow them down then at least there would be an improvement. As a test I decided to disconnect all the fans except for the CPU fans. I measured the temperature of the CPU and the GPU using a program called core temp, and Easy Tune 6. Observing what the temperatures were on a normal day all fans connected, then disconnected, I found the following;

All Fans blowing, idle cpu, GPU 50c, CPU 45-55c
All Fans disconnected, idle cpu, GPU 55-65, CPU 55-60!

So, it looked like switching my fans off or slowing them down was not really going to solve the problem. In the end I would probably shorten the life of the CPU. Air cooling my CPU under 100% load, rises to around 65 – 75c, which is normal in a 22c office, I think?

I started searching the internet for other people’s experience of this and came across water cooling solutions. First thought was that water cooling was high maintenance, cumbersome, expensive and risky. It seems over the years that water cooling has become very popular and accessible. There are now a few companies providing low cost, low maintenance ‘kits’.

The kit I chose is from a company called ‘EKWB’, they produce a number of different kits complete with very straight forward, easy to follow instructions.

The EK-KIT H30 – Supreme HF 240 is supplied with a dual sized radiator allowing for more cooling power, and a graphics card loop at a later stage. It also includes a highly recommended Nickel CPU cooling block.

Inside the kit there is a CPU block, sits on top of your CPU, just like the traditional air cooling method, the difference being the block is designed to allow water to flow through the top of the sealed block, water in, water out at 800 litres an hour. Many times more efficient than air cooling.

A reservoir which essentially banks water, this allows for over a litre of fluid in your system.

A silent but powerful pump which can move 800 litres an hour.

A dual sized radiator. Water flows through the radiator just as it does in a car, which is cooled by four 120mm fans, two pushing air in and two pulling air out. They only need to rotate at a very minimum rpm which, when using silent fans and a speed controller is basically silent. 9db as opposed to 19db beforehand.

A set of tubes, 2m (which I only got 1m of from EK) and tube fittings. These connect the tubes to each component in the kit.

400ml of concentrate cooling fluid, which is added to a litre of bottled water. I bought 1 litre of non concentrate coolant which ended up down the sink. Explained later.

Fitting the kit was relatively easy. I had to strip down my system, remove the mainboard and remove the air cooled CPU block. I replaced this with the EK CPU block in the exact same way, and mounted it to my mainboard. You need to mount the reservoir as high as you can inside the case, which was very easy in my Silverstone TJ07. The kit includes all the necessary mounting accessories and screws needed. I mounted the fans to the radiator which simply rests at the bottom of the case, and mounted the pump on the shelf above. Then, all you have to do is connect all the pipes and follow the filling instructions. Mine is setup in the same way as the diagram below.

I ran into teething problems with my installation. When I first filled the reservoir with 1 litre of EK coolant (non concentrate, sold separately) I found I could not remove any air from the system. The fluid seemed to be very frothy, filled with millions of small bubbles that would not clear. As the system had air in it, the pump was very loud, with trickling and popping sounds. I tried to clear the system of air but to no avail. The only way I managed to get the system running perfectly was to empty it, wash out the coolant with plenty of bottled water and refill it with 1 litre of the same water using the ’400ml concentrate’ coolant that came with the kit. This then worked perfectly first time. I don’t know whether the 1 ltr non concentrate coolant was to blame, or if I made an error the first time trapping air.

Also, it’s imperative you prepare to drill holes, which I have not done yet. Ideally the pump needs mounting to the PC case itself using the soundproofed mounting kit provided. I ended up placing the pump on top of sound proofing material, which is actually very good, but is not very aesthetically pleasing. There is literally zero evidence of a pump at work.

INTEL CORE i7 920 Bloomfield. 2.8 Ghz. NO OVERCLOCK

AIR COOLING RESULTS

IDLE.  37c

2 HOUR RENDERING IN STUDIO MAX. 73c

WATER COOLING RESULTS. FANS AT MINIMUM RPM

IDLE. 30c

2 HOUR RENDERING IN STUDIO MAX. 49c. An improvement of 24c!

So, my now near silent system has gained an extra 24c improvement over the old Air-cooled system when rendering.

3.4Ghz Overclock

INTEL CORE i7 920 Bloomfield. 3.4 OVERCLOCK. FANS MINIMUM

IDLE. 40c

2 HOUR RENDERING IN STUDIO MAX. 63c.

INTEL CORE i7 920 Bloomfield. 3.4 OVERCLOCK. FANS MAXIMUM

The same over-clocking amount but results with fans at maximum rpm. The noise is higher now but still at tolerable levels compared to the old Air cooling.

IDLE. 38c. Dropped 4c from fans running at minimum.

2 HOUR RENDERING IN STUDIO MAX. 60c. Again, a 4c improvement.

The result above show, that even with over-clocking included we have still improved the CPU temperature by 13c. Thats 13c lower than an under-clocked CPU speed cooled by air!

I have yet to over-clock over 4Ghz, but have seen numerous users with this setup pushing beyond that with temperatures still below idle stock air temperatures.

I purchased my EK Watercooling kit from Overclockers.co.uk for £138, which was significantly cheaper than the prices stated on the EK website. There are other kits from different manufacturers on there as well.

Conclusion.This is definitely the most significant leap forward I have made with my system. I am now running my system with a 3.2 over-clock full time, which has improved startup times, production, rendering times and most important for me, a quieter system. I control the speed of all the fans in my system using an Akasa 6 speed fan controller, which is essential for a water cooling system.

Another obvious improvement is the temperature of the CPU. As you can see from the temperature comparison above of my old Air-cooled system vs the new Water-cooled system, the CPU is now running much cooler, it has opened a greater opportunity for a safe and reliable over-clocking.

Now, of course there is a risk element attached to running this kind of system, at the end of the day, water and electricity do not mix. If there is a failure of the water-cooling system overnight while my machine is rendering then it’s curtains! It would be a new Main-board and probably a new graphics card if the CPU block failed. There has been reports of cooling systems failing, there are a couple on youtube, but these are generally because of users ignoring their systems, couplings, not resetting and replacing coolant every 6 months or so.

System
Silverstone TJ07 case
EK-KIT H30 – Supreme HF 240
Intel Core i7 920 Bloomfield
Intel 120gb 320 series SSD
Western Digital Velociraptor 400gb 10,000rpm
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
Gigabyte EX58 UDP
12Gb Corsair DDR3 memory
750W TX Corsair
Akasa 6 speed fan controller (recommend a fan controller that can do more if available)

Here are some pictures of my water cooling system the pump still needs to be mounted correctly.

I would like to add that my setup has no aspirations to be aesthetically pleasing whatsoever, that’s why I don’t have any neon, windows, or wires hidden away. dh.

Images provided by EKWB.

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Designed by Sam Hecht (United Kingdom, 1969 – Present) / 3ds max 2009-onwards / Vray 1.5 – 2.0

The Enchord table has a sliding lower surface, perfect for designers to control clutter from the working surface above. With a minimal design, the aesthetically pleasing Enchord desk and cabinet are a great addition to any interior.

The 3D Model was created in 3ds Max 2009, complete with Vray materials and accompanying Enchord Cabinet. Model is 100% accurate to original piece. Model is ready to import straight into your architectural scenes, ready to render using Vray set to the 2.2 Gamma workflow and hdri illuminated scenes. Model has all ID materials assigned in two sections to allow for easy material adjustments.

11.49 €
14.99 € (with Studio)

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Restoration Hardware’s Vintage Toledo Antiqued Metal / 3ds max 2009-onwards / Vray 1.5 – 2.0

I love scratched old furniture that looks the business in modern interiors, so I made tge reproduction of a vintage barstool, complete with height adjustable wooden seat. Detailed for both Visualisation and close-up camera work. A first in a series of iconic and vintage furniture models in development.

7.49 €

Here you will find downloadable assets for your scenes, from various different category’s including, iconic furniture, vehicles, materials and maps, foliage, and more.

I will also be creating cgi tutorials, modeling techniques, and a series of quick tips.

So in the next few weeks I will be uploading new models for your scenes, tutorials and quick tips, small scenes, including how to make them, and news articles. I will also be creating a monthly newsletter to keep you up to date, to let you know whats new.

Thanks for visiting,

DH