User requirements
- A user account with administrator privileges, and experience administrating Mac OS X. Some procedures may require using the Terminal (command line).
- No experience with Autodesk Visual Effects and Finishing software is required to perform the installation.
System requirements
The latest hardware and software requirements for Smoke are here: http://www.autodesk.com/smoke-systemrequirements.
To get your Mac's current configuration, select About This Mac from the Apple menu at the top left of the screen, and then choose More Info.
The Smoke installation includes an Autodesk Qualification Report generator. To see the report for your machine, after installation, go to Applications > Autodesk > Smoke Common Utilities > System Checker.
Hardware & drivers
- Consult Apple and third party documentation on the the installation of any cards or peripherals. Before installing Smoke, install or upgrade the drivers for your hardware devices. You can update some of the drivers, such as the NVIDIA graphics card driver, through the Apple Software Update utility. To get drivers that are not installed by the Software Update utility (such as the AJA Kona video card driver, or the Wacom pen tablet driver), refer to the Web site of your hardware device vendor.
- Do not update your operating system or hardware drivers to versions other than the ones recommended by Autodesk. Ignore any driver updates offered by the Apple Software Update utility, including QuickTime, unless instructed otherwise by Autodesk.
Media storage
- The Mac OS Extended Journaled (HFS+) file system is recommended for your system drive and your media storage volume, formatted with Disk Utility.
- To improve quality, Smoke does not apply compression to rendered intermediates. This means more space is required than for applications using compressed media. Select the appropriate storage solution to achieve sustained real-time playback. See the Release Notes for guidelines about the throughput your storage should support for various frame formats.
- Consult your vendor documentation for information on connecting the media storage disks to your Mac, and on using Disk Utility to set up RAID striping of your media storage device.
- Media storage configuration information is kept in /usr/discreet/sw/cfg/stone+wire.cfg. Once defined, this configuration information may be reused during subsequent upgrades or installations.
Network
- Smoke supports both static IP and DHCP network configurations.
- If your Mac uses DHCP to obtain its hostname or IP address, ensure the hostname and IP address assigned to your computer do not change when the DHCP lease is renewed. If the hostname or IP address of your Mac change while Smoke is running (for example, if your Mac switches from a wired network to a wireless connection), close Smoke and restart your computer.