Linux and Shrek

Delrin writes "This article on Zdnet reports on how Linux is slowly becoming an important player in the high-end graphic design industry. The latest upcoming movie "Shrek" a perfect example. Dreamworks and others are turning to linux for a large portion of their work, turning away from the likes of SGI and Microsoft." The movie looks visually astonishing: I'm definitely checking it out asap. Hopefully the story can live up the credits (Mike Meyers, John Lithgow, Eddie Murphy) and the visuals (the trailers blow away much of Toy Story 2).

Final Fantasy blows this away...

I did think that this was somewhat impressive, until I saw some of the trailers for Final Fantasy. I watched it and was impressed by they way they combined real actors with computer generated backgrounds.

That was until I heard that the whole movie was computer generated!

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Re:SGI?

This person is confused.
The industry is not moving away from SGI.
They aren't even moving away from IRIX.
A lot of places are getting SGI Linux boxes in house. With an Origin 3000 server and using an Onyx for video streaming, you can have a nice setup using all SGI stuff.

And A|W is an SGI company, but they support intel boxes with RH 6.2.

Don't compare Shrek and Toy Story 2

Toy Story 2 is almost 2 years old. CmdrTaco is just playing the fool when he compares Shrek to Toy Story 2. In those 2 years technology at both Pixar and PDI has move along quite a bit. He should be comparing Shrek to Monsters, Inc., which will be released this year as well.

-dan

Re:Remember DeCSS?

Actually, the movie industry has sponsored at least some work on Linux. I know that Bruce Perens used to work for Pixar. That's the reason that all of the Debian Linux releases have names like Hamm, Woody, Buzz, or Sid (characters from Toy Story).

The fact of the matter is that Linux is useful enough that it is going to get used for all kinds of bad stuff. The Chinese will probably use Linux to build supercomputers, the oil companies are already using Linux to look for oil, terrorists will probably use Linux to encrypt their secret communications. Linux is a tool, and as such it doesn't have any power to say how it is used.

The good news is that the same things that make Linux useful for terrorists also make Linux useful for medical research, and whatever else you feel to be a "good" field of endeavor. The newest patch to improve networking might come from a skinhead neo-Nazi that wanted his hate web site to run a little faster, but it will help your Linux boxes just as much as it helped his.

Re:The Irony is Killing Me

Yes, but on the bright side Linux is guaranteeing that the tools used to make professional movies become less and less expensive. Pretty soon it will be possible to really break the MPAA by making it possible for struggling artists to produce and distribute their works inexpensively.

When it is all said and done this is the only way to break the MPAA. As long as making a movie is as expensive as it is today the MPAA will control the destiny of entertainment (because they will be the only ones able to produce it). Trying to "steal" their works after they have created them is a losing proposition.

You won't see the linux boxen on the artist's desk

While this press is nice, there's not much new here. It is true that most of the 3D vendors are working on Linux versions (except, notoriously, for Lightwave), but you won't see Linux replacing SGI and NT on the desktops of CG shops for a while.

The "Shrek" guys (and damn near everyone else in CG) used Linux to build a large, cheap renderfarm. This isn't new - when I worked at Digital Domain in 1999, their much-vaunted Linux/Alpha renderfarm used for some of the rendering on "Titanic" was several years old. (It also wasn't an exclusively Linux farm, contrary to popular belief - every box was dual-bootable to NT/Alpha to run the Lightwave renderer when necessary.)

SGI and NT still own the interactive (i.e. desktop, as opposed to batch rendering) part of the market for 3D software. Nowhere in the article was it stated that the creators of "Shrek" were using Linux on the desktop.

-Isaac

SGI?

turning away from the likes of SGI and Microsoft

I think SGI is one of the reasons why Linux is becoming populair in the High end graphics market. Isn't Alias|Wavefront owned wholy by SGI?

-adnans

This is in the Wall Street Journal Print Edition!

This isn't just a ZDNet article. It's in the Wall Street Journal print edition.

The interviews were set up and pitched to the WSJ by HP's P.R. department. So, we do have professionals doing Linux P.R. I was interviewed, although I'm not mentioned.

Bruce

Re:Linux Replaces Tom Cruise!

As an added bonus, we can stop indirectly funding the Cult of $cientology by paying admission for movies, which will be, after many twists and turns, reflected in how much Tom is paid, which is then passed on to Co$ to pay for more brainwashings.

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Shrek trailer online

See what Shrek looks like for yourself:

The trailer [countingdown.com]

Linux / SGI notes

Hrmm Dreamworks could be shifting away from using Irix and Irix based programs on SGI machines, but odds are they're using Linux based programs on SGI hardware. FYI for those who don't know too much about the graphic design/3-d industry, SGI used to make the top of the line machines for the tasks along with Irix running the programs some of which costed over 40k (most of the times it did) so to say they dropped SGI is somewhat false.

Dreamworks and other shops are likely using Linux on their existing SGI hardware as well, since their production machines are not your run of the mill eBay like SGI machines, they're likely highly stacked up SGI boxes, and I'm sure they wouldn't toss them out.

Strata Pro Studio which is actually a kick as 3-d program for Windows may have ported something to the Nix community as well but I'm not sure, its been about 4 years since I worked in the GD/GA field.

Re:The Software they're using..

Softimage *was* owned by microsoft.. they are now owned by Avid.

a quote from their website.

About Softimage Co.
Softimage Co., a division of Avid Technology, Inc, is the industry leader in 3-D animation, 2-D cel animation, compositing and special effects software, designed to address the demands of the film and commercial/broadcast and games/interactive industries. SOFTIMAGEÒ|XSIÔ, an integral player in Avid's Make, Manage and Move MediaÔ strategy, is the flagship product offering from Softimage. XSI is the industry's first truly nonlinear animation (NLA) system that gives animators and digital artists the freedom to Make professional animation, visual effects and games - from major motion pictures, to cartoons and commercials, to animated content for video games and Web sites. The Softimage product family is designed to help users innovate, create and collaborate throughout the production process.

The Irony is Killing Me

I'm glad that our product can further add to the profit margin of the MPAA, which has been nothing but hostile to this community.

It's a benchmark

Just like things have been compared to Star wars for so many years, Toy Story 2 kind of stands out in the animation industry as something that you end up getting compared to. It's not a matter of pitting them against the movie, but more of a tribute to how amazing Toy Story 2 was in it's day.

Two words:

Final Fantasy. I know a guy above me mentioned it, but let me add my $0.02. The girl was in some stupid guy magazine, and when CNN went around showing the picture (among a bunch of pictures of real models), and people couldn't pick which was the computer model. They didn't do any kind of scientific poll, but certainly there seemed to be a reasonable number of intelligent people (it wasn't like a bit on the Late Show or anything).

In 10 years, processing power will probably be some 32-64 times faster (to be on the conservative side of Moore's Law), and that by itself will allow almost unbelievable improvements in detail. I think his prediction is perfectly reasonable.

The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

Re:article won't persuade most potential users

That, and high per-seat license fees, compelled my small company to switch to Linux in 1997. We had more than one occasion to meet with top-level engineers from Digital to track down crippling bugs in the Digital Unix. It was frustrating to have to rely on the holy priests to interpret the holy source code. We only have a handfull of people who _could_ make use of the OS source, but we're much more motivated to solve our client's problems than any closed source tool/infrastructure maker. Using closed-source OSes means having to describe problems to another party which may or may not be able to find the cause - and, even if the cause is found, may be embarrassed to admit culpability (remember Sun's hardware problems revealed a year ago?). Every time we've had these meetings (client, VAR, OEM conferences) the atmosphere is not friendly, but full of tension, blame-passing, suspicion and butt-covering. Even getting to the stage of having the meeting meant hours and hours of impasse leading to escalation of the problem. Very acrimonious. (Note: we've never had such a meeting with Microsoft, so I have no idea what that would be like).h

Two years ago we ran into a limit of ptys on an older Linux server. We searched the message boards and, not finding a solution, went through the source and found out what we were doing wrong. I'm not sure if we tweaked anything - that was a while back - but we solved our own problem without any acrimony.

Cost is an issue, but, with a little effort, the best benefit of Open Source is opened source. Maybe that's why it's called "Open Source" and not "Cheap Software".
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Someone finally understands

I just happy to see sombody finally stop squabbling over price and cite the TRUE benifit of Free Software :
"Although we're a shop of 1,300 people, we don't have the clout to get Microsoft to change their operating system," says Andy Hendrickson, director of systems development at Industrial Light & Magic. "With Linux, we can do it all ourselves."

It's refreshing to see somone tout the value of freedom.

don't forget!

With Linux, we can do it all ourselves.
--Andy Hendrickson, director of systems development at Industrial Light & Magic.

Except watch the movies he makes on DVD! (well legally anyway)

Re:The plot and story line...

...must obviously suck. When a trailer for a CARTOON trumpets all the flesh-voices as the reason it's a "must-see", you KNOW a dog is waiting to bark off its reel.

Really, what is this obsession with gosh-gee visuals, anyway? _The Simpsons_ is STILL more visually interested (not to mention intellectually challenging) than the latest Burger King toy factory flickering at the cineplex.

Linux Replaces Tom Cruise!

"Ten years from now, maybe we don't need actors like Tom Cruise anymore, because we've reached the stage where we can render them so well," Fink says.
This has to be the best thing ever to come out of the Linux community.

The plot and story line...

are awesome. I got to see a sneak preview 2 weeks ago, and was amazed at the visuals throughout the entire movie. I also think it was Murphy's funniest movie in a good long while. Three cheers for DreamWorks!

The Software they're using..

Softimage Co., whose animation software helped create a colosseum in "Gladiator," expects to ship Linux versions of its two leading products in September. The Montreal firm expects the Linux market to account for 15% of sales shortly.

Softimage is a wholy-owned subsiduary of Microsoft. I hope Montreal doesn't tell Redmond what they're doing.
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Re:Linux Replaces Tom Cruise!

Hasn't Nicole been saysing something like this for a while now?
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