What Kind of Laptop Should You Buy in 2022?

What kind of laptop should I buy?" is a question that we are often asked at Bucks New University. 

Computer specifications change regularly and much depends on exactly what you want to use your laptop for.  But let's say you want to buy a laptop capable of running Autodesk Maya, for computer animation and to render out your shots.

What sort of laptop should you buy, and how much do you need to spend? BNU Animation Master's graduate Amedeo Beretta offers some advice to our students.

The Best Tablets for Animation

What Kind of Tablet Should our Students Buy? This is a question we often get asked at BNU, especially for those animators working remotely on their own hardware. 

Nowadays there are many different kinds of tablets available, and cheaper versions than the traditional Wacom brand. 

What Kind of Laptop Should Our Students Buy?

"What kind of laptop should I buy?" is a question that we are often asked at Bucks New University, both by our undergraduate students who want the flexibility to be able to work from home and - of course - by our online students, who will need a laptop of their own to complete the course.

It's a tricky question to answer, because computer specifications change all the time and - of course - it all depends on exactly what you want to use your laptop for.

But, let's say you want to buy a decent laptop capable of running Autodesk Maya, for computer animation and to render out your shots.  What sort of laptop should you buy, and how much do you need to spend? MA Animation student Amedeo Beretta offers some advice to other students at Bucks.

What Kind of Laptop Should Our Students Buy?

laptop computer - will travel

"What kind of laptop should I buy?" is a question that gets asked whenever we start a new class of Masters' students at Bucks.

Our online MA in animation is a purely distance learning course, and that means that our students have to provide their own hardware and software.
The main software we use, Autodesk Maya, can be downloaded for free from the Autodesk education site.

Big Hardware Upgrade for Bucks Animation Resources

The New Lenovo Animation Workstation at Bucks!

As the Animation Courses at Bucks continue to grow, the University is keen to nurture our talented students and make sure they have the best kit to work on.

Working with out new IT partner, Lenovo, we are re-equipping our Animation Studios with high end ThinkStations.  These will be specified to meet the Autodesk requirements and will include dual screens to allow our students to experience a professional environment. We will now be able to set up poses on one screen and adjust curves on the other.  We can have a model on one screen and set up materials or edit UV's on the other screen. Any aspiring 3D Artist should consider a dual screen set up as it makes many processes far more efficient and enjoyable.

We are also setting up a dedicated Render Farm on a new local network specifically for the Animation courses!

Free Laptops are Here!

Lenovo ThinkPad - coming soon

Free laptops have arrived at last for our first year Animation & VFX students.  Everyone gets a brand new Lenovo ThinkPad T540P, with a 2.5Ghz i7 processor,  4Gb of Memory, and a 500Gb hard drive. It also has a full HD screen and a dedicated games card - very useful for high poly applications like Mudbox and ZBrush. These laptops should be well able to cope with pretty much anything our students throw at them for the next three years. It means our animators will be able to work from home, on the train, in the library - anywhere they find themselves wanting to get on with their studies.

What is the best platform for animation in Maya - a Mac or a PC?

 

One question we get asked a lot at Bucks is this: "What should I use for animation - a PC or a Mac?" The good news is - you can use either one. The bad news is - you should really use a PC. Here at Bucks our classrooms have both PCs and Macs, but in general we recommend our students use a PC for several reasons.

Firstly and most importantly, the vast majority of animation and visual effects houses work on PCs. Secondly, a number of free (and very useful) Maya plug-ins will only work on a PC. In particular, the Parent Master plugin, which is seriously useful for attaching and un-attaching objects in Maya, does not work on the Mac. Finally, audio playback in Maya can be troublesome on a Mac. All in all, the PC wins because it is a broad-backed platform that will help prepare you for a successful career in the animation and visual effects industry.