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Dreamworks, Sinbad & Linux 345

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-isn't-that-special dept.
Ex-MislTech writes "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, an animated movie from DreamWorks Animation Technology that hits theaters July 2, is the first Hollywood production created entirely on Linux. More than 250 Hewlett-Packard workstations running Red Hat Linux make up the core of DreamWorks' graphics platform."
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Dreamworks, Sinbad & Linux More

Dreamworks, Sinbad & Linux

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  • Whew! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) *
    When I saw "Sinbad" I was starting to think about the comic. No wonder it would take so many Linux servers to render the man. (Yes, he's funny - but man, I wouldn't want him sitting in my lap.)

  • Problems... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jeffy210 ( 214759 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:30AM (#6339463)
    "The biggest problems were the women and the water."

    Isn't that the problem that most men have to deal with anyway?

  • the women (Score:5, Funny)

    by metallikop ( 649953 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:30AM (#6339464)
    The biggest problems were the women and the water.

    Strange, being a Linux user women are my biggest problem too.

  • The biggest question now is if a penguin will be in the credits.

    Oh oh.... BUY YOUR TICKETS ONLINE!

  • Ironic... (Score:4, Funny)

    by metz2000 ( 589474 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:32AM (#6339489) Homepage

    I find it highly amusing that the only place I could find clips for this new movie was on WindowsMedia.com [windowsmedia.com]!

    "Created using Linux, advertised by Microsoft."

    • Re:Ironic... (Score:3, Informative)

      by metz2000 ( 589474 )

      Well, there is the Official Sinbad site [sinbad-themovie.com], and seen as no one else has posted a link to that I thought I should

    • These always make me laugh. "How come the IBM Linux commercial is only on Windows Media not some open source codec that only we know about..."

      It is not irony. There are two major reasons for this:
      1. It is marketing. Most people still have windows and will until Linux wins out on the desktop for average users.

      2. Avid or whatever they use for edting outputs in whatever the video format guy knows how to use. Most TV producers are not computer scientists and don't see the irony and/or don't care.

      • Re:Ironic... Give me a break folks. (Score:5, Funny)

        by Surak ( 18578 ) * <surak&mailblocks,com> on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @12:09PM (#6339824) Homepage Journal
        Most TV producers are not computer scientists and don't see the irony and/or don't care.

        Can you imagine how awful TV would be if it WERE produced by computer scientists?

        Channel 45: The Slashdot channel! Geeks rant and rave about Microsoft, SCO, and RIAA! Then they geek out over Linux, *BSD (which they always seem to point is dying), and Mac OS X!!!

        Channel 52: The Microsoft Channel! Bill Gates discusses his plans for world domination!

        Channel 54: The Linux channel! Kernel hacker Alan Cox takes you line-by-line through the Linux source code!

        Channel 58: The Apple Channel! Steve Jobs demonsrates his famous "Reality Distortion Field" and exaggerates a lot about Apple's latest G5 computers!

        Channel 62: The FSF Channel! RMS talks about how Channel 54 should be called the GNU/Linux channel!

        Channel 69: The SCO Channel! *** programming unavailable ***

    • ...if you didn't see it on the Apple Quicktime trailers [apple.com]site. They're often the first place the trailer shows up.

    • Re:Ironic... (Score:3, Informative)

      by gid ( 5195 )
      You obviously didn't look that hard, it's also available in quicktime [apple.com]. Both formats, thanks to nice hackers, are very playable [mplayerhq.hu] under linux. Although maybe not 100% legally... :(
  • Red Hat is here to stay, this stuff is just good press for them.

  • Linux Taken Seriously (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <{yoda} {at} {etoyoc.com}> on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:33AM (#6339498) Homepage Journal
    And you have to ask yourselves, does anyone need more proof that Linux is as capable as any other operating platform out there?

    Short answer: No.

    Since when has a Linux user honestly given a cr*p what anyone else thinks?

    Rock on boys!

    • Re:Linux Taken Seriously (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Em Emalb ( 452530 ) * <ememalb AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:51AM (#6339656) Homepage Journal
      And you have to ask yourselves, does anyone need more proof that Linux is as capable as any other operating platform out there?

      No. I sure don't. In fact, we've been getting beaten over the head with this for a few years now.

      Linux used by company X! It'll be taken seriously now! Wohooo...that was in like 2000.

      Now, for whatever reason, geeks have this frigging complex that their operating system needs to have some sort of global warm fuzzy. This ain't all hollywood people. This isn't Sally Fields gushing about how we like her (we really like her!). Folks, use what you like, influence (if you must) who you can and just move on.

      LET...IT....GO.

      this message brought to you by the sarcastic Em.

    • Re:Linux Taken Seriously (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SweetAndSourJesus ( 555410 ) <.moc.oohay. .ta. .toboRehTdnAsuseJ.> on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:51AM (#6339670)
      And you have to ask yourselves, does anyone need more proof that Linux is as capable as any other operating platform out there?

      About 95% of the world's computer users.

      Since when has a Linux user honestly given a cr*p what anyone else thinks?

      As long as I can remember. I'm not saying it's bad, but linux users are just as fanatical as Mac users. Almost any negative commentary about linux is met with a slew of rebuttals.

      If linux users are really independent of popular opinion, why is it that every high profile article stating that maybe linux isn't all it's cracked up to be generates several hundred comments on slashdot?
      • I'd add that tech savvy Windows users are just as fanatical. This doesn't mean Aunt May, but the tech minded Windows users like those that read /.. Reality is that each OS has it's strong points and weak points and some people have very strong opinions on those points. Unfortunately, there are rarely, if any, reasonable discussions between the "factions" here that don't require a fire extinguisher to read.
    • And you have to ask yourselves, does anyone need more proof that Linux is as capable as any other operating platform out there?

      Depending on what you want to use it for -- business workstation? Graphics workstation? Graphics rendering? Consumer desktop? Internet server? Data server?

      Argument-wise, using Linux in one particular setting for one particular task is no proof that it's equally suited for every other setting and task.
    • "Since when has a Linux user honestly given a cr*p what anyone else thinks? "

      If they don't care what everybody thinks, then why does Slashdot post any story that contains the word Linux?
  • The biggest problems were the women...*snip*...Once the ocean was "baked,"...*snip*...But the Sirens still looked like naked plastic women...

    Me thinks the Dreamworks team had a whole lot of wholesome fun while making the movie.

  • The least technologically advanced "feature" I've ever heard a company boast about.
    "Each Siren has 16 strands of hair"
    Alright... 16 strands of hair? I thought modern computer graphics were up to thousands of strands. Am I missing something here? Maybe 16,000? Anyways, it's good to see Linux in the mianstream like this. Eventhough I use Windows and Mac OSX for work and school, linux still finds a way to get into my life.

  • I'm confused!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TrollBridge ( 550878 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:35AM (#6339511) Homepage Journal
    So it's OK for the movie industry to use Linux to CREATE movies, but it's not OK for us to use Linux to VIEW movies...

    That makes about as much sense as putting a screen door on a submarine.

  • yarr (Score:5, Funny)

    by huntz0r ( 580511 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:37AM (#6339529)
    More proof that Linux users are a bunch of pirates

  • JUST GREAT (Score:3, Funny)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportlandNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:38AM (#6339533) Homepage Journal
    "is the first Hollywood production created entirely on Linux. "
    another thing I won't be able to watch with windows..

    oh wait.
  • The Road To El Dorrado [imdb.com] had to face similar challenges with the water and gold (and it had the music of Elton John *swoon*). Gold also tends to be very hard to animate because of it's luster.
  • If we ask nicely, do you think they'll GPL any of that nifty software?

    Please Mr. Spielberg...

    Pretty, pretty, please...

    With sugar on top...

  • Trouble with the pre-screening... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:41AM (#6339562)
    Apparently they're having trouble getting this deployed because the theatres are having a tough time with their new digital video systems; it quits immediately with this error:

    - MPlayer crashed. This shouldn't happen.
    It can be a bug in the MPlayer code _or_ in your drivers _or_ in your gcc
    version. If you think it's MPlayer's fault, please read DOCS/bugreports.html
    and follow the instructions there. We can't and won't help unless you provide
    this information when reporting a possible bug.



    (and, yes, that was a joke, folks...)

  • Sigh... mod me down (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pVoid ( 607584 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:44AM (#6339588)
    Animating Sinbad proved a demanding test of the Linux operating system.

    In other news:

    "Making coffee proved a very difficult task for my Ford Explorer."

    • Re:Sigh... mod me down (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pVoid ( 607584 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:50AM (#6339648)
      Fucking fucking losers... alright, I have karma to burn (and enemies to make I guess)...

      Sinbad's numerous ocean scenes created a daunting technological task. If animators had created the film's oceans segment by segment (as in the past), it could have added years to the movie's production time. By using Linux, the DreamWorks effects department was able to create a rolling oceanscape rather than compose the ocean frame by frame.

      What has linux got anything to do with anything here? it's an OS not a rendering suite!!!

      Hype like this just makes you lose credibility man...

      • Fucking fucking losers... alright, I have karma to burn (and enemies to make I guess)...

        Considering I saw this under Ford Explorers making coffee, I take it yours does not make decaf. :-P
      • What has linux got anything to do with anything here? it's an OS not a rendering suite!!!

        Too bad nobody modded you down. Oh well, perhaps there are others who don't know that essentially the whole animation industry has gone to Linux, or is in the process of doing so. That includes writing open source tools specifically to run on, and enhance the usability of Linux as an animation platform. Ever heard of Film Gimp? There are some open source compositing tools as well, I've heard. There's also Sweep,
      • Wow, so hateful because Linux on the desktop got some needed street credit.

        Are your sure your at the right site?

        btw I think they were reffering to how efficient linux turned out to be.

        If I had to cherry pick a single quote from the article it would be this.

        "You hear a lot about Linux not being ready to work on desktops," said HP's Jeff Wood, director of product marketing for personal workstations. "Well, here we have the perfect example of how Linux is more than ready for the desktop -- hundreds of anim
        • Yeah man, I think I'm on the right site. I never said I was anti linux. I use linux myself...

          But here's my cherry pick for you: "You hear a lot about Linux not being ready to work on desktops,"

          So let's respond to FUD by writing stuff that makes linux people look like defensive 14 year old girls who shy of their own bodies... The text in that article is just plain demeaning... it has the tone of a desperate teenager's cry. Think all you want of me... the truth is there.

          There are two possible outcomes

      • As was pointed out elsewhere in this story thread, when you are dealing with hundreds of render stations, linux is much, *much* cheaper to deploy.

        SB
  • Animators studied the movements made in gymnastics, ballet and modern dance and looked at underwater filming to get a feel for the fluid movements these "water women" might make.

    No wonder the film took four years to make !
    Animator: Sorry love, we didn't quite capture that.. once more, but this time come closer.. we need to get an artistic feel

  • First time was last year (Score:5, Informative)

    by beef3k ( 551086 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:46AM (#6339611)
    ...that "an entire Hollywood production was created on Linux", at least according to this [serverworldmagazine.com]

    Hey, it's even the same company.
  • But the Sirens still looked like naked plastic women until the effects department incorporated particle systems.

    Prepare Linux Users, our plastic women will be realistic longer than we think!! To think, we've had these particle systems the whole time and never thought about giving them to our plastic women.

  • 3d animation tools? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by e2d2 ( 115622 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:48AM (#6339632)
    The article didn't mention what specific workstation tools they were using to model or develop the animation. I assume that these are home-grown tools but any chance that they will release that software?

  • That comedian always had the zaniest things to say.

    And his pants!

    The article doesn't mention anything about Linux having any issue with his pants. Big, billowy pants - likely what inspired MC Hammer now that I think of it.

  • Anyone know if they use custom software or 3rd party stuff?

  • Glad to see they're still at it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Joel Bruick ( 685266 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @12:04PM (#6339785)
    I wonder if Dreamworks will ever come up with some original concepts for their animated films.

    A Bug's Life/Antz (Obvious.)
    The Emperor's New Groove/Road to El Dorado (These were much closer originally, but changed quite drastically after rewrites on both sides).
    Monster's Inc./Shrek (This is quite a stretch, but hey, green monsters star in both, heh.)
    Treasure Planet/Sinbad (Hardy har har!)
    Finding Nemo/Sharkslayer (Something smells fishy here.)

    Obviously these movies aren't all complete ripoffs by any stretch of the imagination, but it is quite interesting that Dreamworks/PDI movies that closely follow the release of Disney/Pixar ones have similiar basic ideas behind them.
    • I hadn't noticed that, but a very interesting take on it, nonetheless. Add to that fact, most Disney movies are ripoffs of some other story themselves. So we have a ripoff artist being ripped off. How "ironic"! :)
    • Hmmm...

      Armeggedon/Deep Impact Dante's Peak/Volcano etc. etc. etc.

      Could it be that hollywood is just unoriginal... Nooo... that can't be it.

    • it is quite interesting that Dreamworks/PDI movies that closely follow the release of Disney/Pixar ones have similiar basic ideas behind them.

      That might be interesting, if it were true.

      From IMDB.com [imdb.com] [imdb.com]:

      The release date for "Antz" was 9-19-1998, two months before "A Bug's Life" on 11-14-1998.

      "Road to El Dorado" release on 3-31-2000, while "The Emporer's New Groove" released on 12-10-2000 (and the only thing they had in common is that they took place on the same continent)

      "Shrek" released o

    • Re:Glad to see they're still at it. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by One Louder ( 595430 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @02:39PM (#6341568)
      This all stems from Jeffrey Katzenberg's ongoing fury with Michael Eisner over not getting promoted.

      Effectively, Dreamworks tries to figure out what Disney and/or Pixar is up to and attempts to beat them to the theater with a movie with a vaguely similar theme.

      If you watch the "special features" on some of the DVD (Spirit, for instance), you can practically see the venom dripping from Katzenberg's chin as he tries to position Dreamworks as the leader in CGI vs the carefully unnamed Pixar.

      The problem is that Dreamworks does not have a great storyteller like John Lasseter or Andrew Stanton, and Pixar's CG capabilities for the Toy Story/Bug's Life/Monsters Inc class of animation are unrivaled.

  • Distributed Effort (Score:2, Interesting)

    by neilmoore67 ( 682829 )
    It surprises me that no animator (that I know of) has started some kind of distributed rendering effort with people on the Internet (eg. distributed.net). Not only could it be faster and cheaper, but you immediately have a huge number of people who feel that they have a stake in the movie, this might also increase audiences.

  • What ever happened to Spirit? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by YodaToad ( 164273 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @12:10PM (#6339829)
    In this slashdot article [slashdot.org] it claims that Spirit was the first movie to be created in a 100% linux environment (in April 2002). How can this Sinbad movie be the first one if Spirit was... Over a year ago. Am I missing something here or is this just another PR attempt?
  • ...that the movie looks really lame. I mean really, it's derivative second-tier Disney. (Judging from the trailer, anyway.) The dialog is dreary, the character styling seem ripped off from Aladdin, and we have the requisite "big names" as voice "stars" to lure in the masses. So it's 3D instead of 2D. Big whoop.
  • Honestly, who gives a damn what OS the render farm was running? What we should care about is "is this movie any good", and frankly, it doesn't look like it will be any good at all.

  • I bet any 2D textures weren't done on Linux... (Score:5, Informative)

    by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @12:25PM (#6339969)
    I work in one of Europe's largest post production houses, and we've moved most things over to Linux now. However, we still need Windows to run Adobe Photoshop, as there's still nothing suitable yet in Linux. The GIMP just doesn't cut it, and I'm sure it's the same with them.

    Sure, the modelling, animation and rendering were probably all done on Linux, but it's probably not correct to say that it was done exclusively on Linux. I bet there were a bunch of Windows or Macs with Photoshop on them being used there, and unless they did all their compositing on Shake, they'll have probably used some dedicated compositing systems.

    Linux works quite well in visual effects, largely because all those who grew up using IRIX workstations find it quite familiar. The pipelining and scripting stuff is easier than it is in NT/2000/XP. However, it's worth noting that the vast majority of the actual graphics software we use is still commercial/proprietary - there's not much in the way of Open Source stuff out there of a sufficiently high quality. The notable exception to this is 'Liquid' a maya->Renderman convertor, and to a lesser extent FilmGimp - useful because there's not much else that will edit High Dynamic Range images, but less useful because it still appears to be rather unstable...
    • Clue: Linux is running commercial applications! So "the vast majority of the actual graphics software we use is still commercial/proprietary" does not mean you are not using Linux!

      The "dedicated compositing system" is by far the most likely thing to be running on Linux. Every commercial compositing system that is worth using has a Linux version.

      For every single person who says "Linux will never work because there is no good open-source house-blueprint software (or whatever)" is missing the entire point.

      • I was pointing out that most of the applications we user are not free or open source, but rather are commercial, closed-source Linux applications.

        The big thing we are missing is Photoshop for Linux.

        As for the compositing systems:

        Flame and Inferno run on SGI IRIX machine with custom harware.
        The Avid systems run on Windows.
        The Quantel Henrys ran their own Quantel system - I'm not sure what the modern Quantel systems run on
        Certainly the only compositing system I know of that runs on Linux is Shake. Most of
    • I agree with you about Gimp, but I've heard (haven't tried it myself) that Photoshop 6 and 7 run just fine under win4lin.

      SB
    • Very true. My friend does animations / special effects with Maya in Florida and South Carolina area. He would have an all Linux shop if not for Photoshop. He got into an argument at the last siggraph with a booth guy. Went more or less like this.

      Friend: When are you going to have photoshop on Linux? It's the only program I use that I need Windows for.

      Adobe: (Annoyed) Never. Linux people just want everything for free.

      Friend: You sound pretty upset, people must ask you that a lot

      Adobe: All the time

  • What about Linux OpenGL support? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by forgoil ( 104808 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @12:28PM (#6340000) Homepage
    Or more exactly, the support for good GFX cards. Does HP provide special drivers etc for certain applications or what?

    Just thinking of the benefit for the avarage Linux user.

  • Not created on Linux! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @12:29PM (#6340015)
    It was created using various applications. Those applications could have been running on FreeBSD, OS X...it doesn't really matter all that much. In fact all of these applications can already be recompiled to run on OS X or whatever. That the name of the kernel providing virtual memory, process switching, device drivers, and some low-level services is "Linux" in this case, well, that's something that really only matters if you're a hardcore geek.

    I don't mean this as a flame at all. It's just that this story is misguided advocacy. Generic putdowns of "Windows" are equally as meaningless. People don't use an operating system. People use applications. Being fixated on operating systems is like being fixated on tires instead of cars.

  • Dreamworks and Linux (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1) Spirit wasn't done on Linux. That was marketing bull puckey. It wasn't rendered on Linux, either. There were some portions of the 2D animation that were done in linux, namely the Toon Shooter program and coloring the 2D animation.

    2) Backgrounds and some other minor stuff for Sinbad was done in Photoshop, on Macintosh G4. So this movie isn't 100% linux, either. Although now DW is using Photoshop 7 in Crossover on Linux, and (gasp) Windows 2000.

    3) 3D modeling and animation were don

  • Linux can draw? (Score:3, Informative)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @01:16PM (#6340565)
    "The first movie created entirely with Linux"

    So funny how everyone praises the technology. I'm sure they used at least one or two pencils to make that movie...

    Sinbad was traditionally animated, which means a lot of people hunched over light tables, exactly the same way they did it in the 1920-30's. The ink and paint department may be gone, and the effects are a little bit better, but an animator from that time would still fit right in...

  • So what? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @01:34PM (#6340809) Homepage Journal
    Really, what diffrence does it make what kernel ran their graphics software? I mean, this is a good victory for OSS, but it dosn't really help anyone of us.

    And notice that the article dosn't mention what software the actual animators used. Sure, I suppose they could have drawn each character on cells and scanned them, but I find that doubtfull.

    No, it'll be big news when a movie is produced entirely with Open Source (or at least cheap) software like the movie gimp and other tools.

  • Nice stories (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RichiP ( 18379 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @03:09PM (#6341939) Homepage
    It's nice seeing on slashdot's frontpage stories like Bill Gates' interview about Linux going nowhere and this story about Linux going everywhere.

    I swear, Bill Gates must be the worst technologist/visionary/prophet if he only sees Linux as a passing fad.

  • Mac OS X and G5 for 3D Rendering and video editing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by afantee ( 562443 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @04:52PM (#6343210)
    Well, Pixar president Ed Catmull said at WWDC last week that the dual 2 GHz G5 Power Mac was the fastest desktop computer for RenderMan.

    In addition, Final Cut Pro only runs on Mac, Apple sells Shake for $5000 on Mac OS X and $10000 on Linux and other platforms, 25% Maya sales go to Mac OS X. It looks that Mac OS X on G5 is a far better 3D and video solution than Linux, particularly now that the dual G5 Power Mac is cheaper than the dual Xeon Dell.

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