Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes: Today Pixar announced their second major open source project, Universal Scene Description. USD is the technology that enables 'hundreds of artists to operate simultaneously on the same collections of assets in different contexts', says Pixar VP of software R&D, Guido Quaroni. Pixar has been working with industry to vet the new technology, gaining backing from VFX power-houses MPC and Double Negative as well as high-end digital content creation tool creator, The Foundry. Official source release is slated for summer 2016. Pixar released its RenderMan animation and rendering suite, free back in March.

jones_supa writes: A year ago, animation studio Pixar promised its RenderMan animation and rendering suite would eventually become free for non-commercial use. This was originally scheduled to happen in the SIGGRAPH 2014 computer graphics conference, but things got delayed. Nevertheless, today Pixar is releasing the free version into the wild. Free, non-commercial RenderMan can be used for research, education, evaluation, plug-in development, and any personal projects that do not generate commercial profits. This version is fully featured, without a watermark or any kind of artificial limits. Featuring Pixar's new RIS technology, RenderMan delivers extremely fast global illumination and interactive shading and lighting for artists. The software is available for Mac, Linux, and Windows. In conjunction with the release, Pixar has also launched a new RenderMan Community site where users can exchange knowledge and resources, showcase their own work, share assets such as shaders and scripts, and learn about RenderMan from tutorials.

jones_supa writes: A year ago, animation studio Pixar promised its RenderMan animation and rendering suite would eventually become free for non-commercial use. This was originally scheduled to happen in the SIGGRAPH 2014 computer graphics conference, but things got delayed. Nevertheless, today Pixar is releasing the free version into the wild. Free, non-commercial RenderMan can be used for research, education, evaluation, plug-in development, and any personal projects that do not generate commercial profits. This version is fully featured, without a watermark or any kind of artificial limits. Featuring Pixar's new RIS technology, RenderMan delivers extremely fast global illumination and interactive shading and lighting for artists. The software is available for Mac, Linux, and Windows. In conjunction with the release, Pixar has also launched a new RenderMan Community site where users can exchange knowledge and resources, showcase their own work, share assets such as shaders and scripts, and learn about RenderMan from tutorials.

nairnr sends this news from the BBC: 'The 3D rendering software behind films such as Toy Story, Monsters Inc and Harry Potter is to be given away free for non-commercial use. RenderMan, which is developed by Pixar, has faced increased competition from rival animation rendering programmes such as VRay and Arnold. Although Pixar, which is owned by Disney, produces its own films, it licenses RenderMan to rival studios. In a statement, the firm said it would release a free version of RenderMan "without any functional limitations, watermarking, or time restrictions." "Non-commercial RenderMan will be freely available for students, institutions, researchers, developers, and for personal use," it added.'

An anonymous reader writes "Last week at SIGGRAPH, Pixar Animation Studios announced OpenSubdiv, an open source implementation of the Renderman subdivision surface technology, thus releasing the patents to the long standing Pixar 'secret sauce.' In addition to the offline subdivision scheme, it also includes a GPU implementation. This video demonstrates a realtime deforming subdivision surface running at 50 FPS in Maya (though it is freely available to use anywhere). The source code is available on Pixar's GitHub account." Says the project's site: "OpenSubdiv is covered by the Microsoft Public License, and is free to use for commercial or non-commercial use. This is the same code that Pixar uses internally for animated film production."

emcron writes "The Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday its Pixar animation studio will commit to 3-D by releasing all of its movies in the format beginning with "Up" in May 2009. Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter made the announcement in New York at a presentation of Disney's upcoming lineup of animated movies."

IronicGrin writes "Even hard-core House of Mouse apologists have to admit that Disney's Feature Animation division has lost its way. After a half decade of pathetic failures (Atlantis) and epic disasters (Treasure Planet), the company shut its fabled Orlando 2D animation studios last year and announced that it was jumping on the computer animation bandwagon. A big motivation for the move to CGI was, of course, the Magic Kingdom's tenuous relationship with Pixar--the source of all of Disney's recent animated hits. But Disney is overlooking a better example of just what its toon team has been doing wrong...right under its nose. Howl's Moving Castle, which opened this weekend to rapturous critical acclaim, is the third masterpiece from Japan's Studio Ghibli that Disney has released theatrically. Today's New York Times has a feature by A.O. Scott [reg required, blah blah] calling Miyazaki the "world's greatest living animated-filmmaker"; meanwhile, last Thursday, I wrote a column for SFGate.com on why Disney animation, 3D rendered or not, is doomed to irrelevance if it fails to (re)learn some basic lessons from Miyazaki and his cohorts at Ghibli. What do you think? Is Disney destined to fade to black, or can a little Ghibli flavor (mmm....Ghibli) get it back on track?"

Anil Kandangath writes "BrandChannel readers have picked the top global brands for 2004. Apple is the leader, closely followed by Google. Arab-centric Al-Jazeera ranks fifth in global as well as Europe/Africa ratings. In regionwise ratings, Google tops North America, Ikea tops Europe/Africa, Sony tops Asia-pacific while Mexican cement brand Cemex tops Latin America An interesting fact is that Steve Jobs headed Apple is the top North American brand while his other venture Pixar comes fifth in the same zeitgeist."

rdurell writes "CNN is reporting that Disney has begun the process of setting up a new CGI studio with the goal of making Toy Story 3. Pixar has balked at the idea of another sequel thus far though Disney does own the rights to the franchise. Does this truly spell the end of the Disney-Pixar relationship? Can both Disney and Pixar live without the other?" We covered the Disney/Pixar breakup in January.

SeanCier writes "The SIGGraph 2004 conference showed off a lot of trends: high-dynamic-range (HDR) displays and video, suddenly ubiquitous general-purpose GPU programmability (it's not just for polygon shading anymore), 3D and high-colour displays, ever-more-refined fluid dynamics, crowd animation, and point-based graphics, to name just a few. But there was an unspoken undercurrent, a trend that's waiting to happen in the visual effects community, and happen in a big way: Open Source." Read on for more.

There are plenty of examples of open source and the graphics community getting along grandly: Gimp and CinePaint (aka FilmGimp), ILM's OpenEXR, and projects like Open Scene Graph. Linux, in particular, has made spectacular inroads: nearly everybody uses it for rendering, and many (most?) use it as their desktop OS of choice. In the RenderMan user's group (I'll get into RenderMan more in a minute), for example, somebody asked how many people used Linux as their main OS. Plenty of hands, and some approving chuckles all around. Mac OS X? A few hands, and woots. Windows? No hands at all -- and moreover, an handful of boos, followed by everybody cracking up as they realized the whole community was abandoning Microsoft wholesale.

But then there's the other side. All the major visual effects and animation studios -- ILM, Pixar, Dreamworks, Digital Domain, Blue Sky, Disney, and so on -- have a team of programmers in-house. Five, ten, two dozen, or more. They're the ones that'll write the software that does special rendering algorithms for Shrek 2, or an animation control system for Mr. Incredible, or produce massive crowd simulators for Lord of the Rings. Things that commercial software doesn't quite do -- or that nobody else has tried to do, or even thought of. Things they need to do just so. Things they need to do now.

Everybody has a ton of custom software written -- often good software, with flexible frameworks and clever hacks. Moreover, they don't want to rely any more than necessary on commercial software, because if ILM finds a bug in Maya that holds them up or slows them down, they best they can do is pay Alias to fix it fast (i.e. weeks) and then have hundreds of animators waste thousands of hours time working around it for weeks. And worse, if Digital Domain buys Alias and decides they'll keep new versions of Maya to themselves, ILM is simply screwed, in a big way. If they want to get a particular feature in Maya, and a plugin won't cut it? Well, that's even harder -- and involves more money and more time.

So ILM writes their own stuff whenever they have to, and whenever they can. And Digital Domain writes their own stuff. And Dreamworks writes their own stuff. And Disney writes their own stuff.

And most of it is all the same stuff. Fluid dynamics? Hair? Subsurface scattering? Muscle-and-skin systems? Crowd control? Dozens of topics -- and every studio pretty much has pretty similar, rather redundant code to do 'em all.

These studios aren't in the business of writing software, they're in the business of making movies. So why are they spending their time and money writing software? Because they have to; it's a Necessary Evil.

So, what if they all worked on Open Source stuff instead? Look at what I just wrote. Every word is a reason to go Open Source. No drawbacks, all upside: no lock-in, you can fix stuff, you can add stuff, you don't have to wait on anybody else, and plus, you can do all this while also using what others have written.

The knee-jerk reaction that may be some executives' first objection: our code is a strategic advantage, giving it away would be throwing away money. If we can do hair and our competitors can't, we'll make better films then they can (and, if it's a visual effects studio, we'll win contracts based on that unique ability).

Bull honkus. If your competitors need hair, they'll write hair software, no problem. Another quote from the Pixar RenderMan user's group, this one by a RenderMan developer (paraphrased): "this is based on the subsurface scattering papers from a couple years ago. Everybody does this, based on those papers." Nope, I don't see strategic advantage there: I see waste.

It is, as they say, a win-win scenario; the studios contribute their code to Open Source projects, and everybody helps make that code better. ILM started it in a small way, with OpenEXR, and it worked: OpenEXR is *the* format for high-dynamic-range images, no questions asked. Did it benefit ILM? You betcha: major packages everywhere (Photoshop, RenderMan, etc) either import/export OpenEXR now, or will soon. Pixar even contributed new compression code.

So, a great scenario, and proof that it works. Why hasn't it happened in a bigger way yet? Fear of the unknown. But listen close, and you'll hear a flood coming that could change the landscape -- and it's hard to divert a flood.

That leaves only one question: how will it start? Well, it could begin with open source projects becoming valuable to studios, as started happening with Gimp (though here I'm talking more about advanced 3D animation, simulation, and rendering; Blender's great for what it does, but medium-to-large studios aren't its intended audience; it's not going to displace Maya any time soon, because it doesn't offer anything that Maya lacks as far as the studios are concerned). Or it could start with a studio making a bunch of their custom in-house software Open Source (like ILM did with OpenEXR). Either way, it's up to us as a community -- either to write the software or to sell the concept.

I'd suggest that a great place for all this to start would be with Pixar's PRMan (PhotoRealistic RenderMan, these days often called just RenderMan). And note I say this as a shareholder. Selling RenderMan and related software accounts for less than 5% of Pixar's revenue; the real reason -- the *only* business reason -- they still develop it is for the other 95% of the company to use. If open-sourcing it would bring in collaboration and improvements that would make them just 5% more efficient in generating movie revenue, doesn't that justify the decision right there? And of course that's not counting those who would still pay for service contracts, or the reduction in development costs that could come from the rest of the community helping with their R&D (the budget for which, BTW, surpasses their software revenue). RenderMan has always been a product ahead of its time, and that's why -- despite Pixar's belligerent and hostile use of patents and close-held IP -- it's still the golden standard in this industry. The RenderMan protocol and API was intended fifteen years ago to be a renderer-independent standard, the PostScript of the 3D world. That dream died because of Pixar's unwillingness to release IP: it became difficult or impossible for others to implement that standard officially, or at all, because Pixar grasped the it so tightly (case in point, ExLuna: their lawyers summarily killed what was the best chance in years of having a RenderMan-compliant renderer with new and different functionality, complementary to PRMan). But the renderer -- PRMan -- doesn't have to die through the same mistake, even in the face of an ever-shrinking market share and competitors with the advanced global illumination algorithms PRMan lacks.

But that's not to say Pixar is the only -- or even the best or most likely -- option here. They most certainly don't hold all the cards. So, don't sit back and wait for Pixar or another studio to start the ball rolling: we need to give it a push.

SeanCier writes "The SIGGraph 2004 conference showed off a lot of trends: high-dynamic-range (HDR) displays and video, suddenly ubiquitous general-purpose GPU programmability (it's not just for polygon shading anymore), 3D and high-colour displays, ever-more-refined fluid dynamics, crowd animation, and point-based graphics, to name just a few. But there was an unspoken undercurrent, a trend that's waiting to happen in the visual effects community, and happen in a big way: Open Source." Read on for more.

There are plenty of examples of open source and the graphics community getting along grandly: Gimp and CinePaint (aka FilmGimp), ILM's OpenEXR, and projects like Open Scene Graph. Linux, in particular, has made spectacular inroads: nearly everybody uses it for rendering, and many (most?) use it as their desktop OS of choice. In the RenderMan user's group (I'll get into RenderMan more in a minute), for example, somebody asked how many people used Linux as their main OS. Plenty of hands, and some approving chuckles all around. Mac OS X? A few hands, and woots. Windows? No hands at all -- and moreover, an handful of boos, followed by everybody cracking up as they realized the whole community was abandoning Microsoft wholesale.

But then there's the other side. All the major visual effects and animation studios -- ILM, Pixar, Dreamworks, Digital Domain, Blue Sky, Disney, and so on -- have a team of programmers in-house. Five, ten, two dozen, or more. They're the ones that'll write the software that does special rendering algorithms for Shrek 2, or an animation control system for Mr. Incredible, or produce massive crowd simulators for Lord of the Rings. Things that commercial software doesn't quite do -- or that nobody else has tried to do, or even thought of. Things they need to do just so. Things they need to do now.

Everybody has a ton of custom software written -- often good software, with flexible frameworks and clever hacks. Moreover, they don't want to rely any more than necessary on commercial software, because if ILM finds a bug in Maya that holds them up or slows them down, they best they can do is pay Alias to fix it fast (i.e. weeks) and then have hundreds of animators waste thousands of hours time working around it for weeks. And worse, if Digital Domain buys Alias and decides they'll keep new versions of Maya to themselves, ILM is simply screwed, in a big way. If they want to get a particular feature in Maya, and a plugin won't cut it? Well, that's even harder -- and involves more money and more time.

So ILM writes their own stuff whenever they have to, and whenever they can. And Digital Domain writes their own stuff. And Dreamworks writes their own stuff. And Disney writes their own stuff.

And most of it is all the same stuff. Fluid dynamics? Hair? Subsurface scattering? Muscle-and-skin systems? Crowd control? Dozens of topics -- and every studio pretty much has pretty similar, rather redundant code to do 'em all.

These studios aren't in the business of writing software, they're in the business of making movies. So why are they spending their time and money writing software? Because they have to; it's a Necessary Evil.

So, what if they all worked on Open Source stuff instead? Look at what I just wrote. Every word is a reason to go Open Source. No drawbacks, all upside: no lock-in, you can fix stuff, you can add stuff, you don't have to wait on anybody else, and plus, you can do all this while also using what others have written.

The knee-jerk reaction that may be some executives' first objection: our code is a strategic advantage, giving it away would be throwing away money. If we can do hair and our competitors can't, we'll make better films then they can (and, if it's a visual effects studio, we'll win contracts based on that unique ability).

Bull honkus. If your competitors need hair, they'll write hair software, no problem. Another quote from the Pixar RenderMan user's group, this one by a RenderMan developer (paraphrased): "this is based on the subsurface scattering papers from a couple years ago. Everybody does this, based on those papers." Nope, I don't see strategic advantage there: I see waste.

It is, as they say, a win-win scenario; the studios contribute their code to Open Source projects, and everybody helps make that code better. ILM started it in a small way, with OpenEXR, and it worked: OpenEXR is *the* format for high-dynamic-range images, no questions asked. Did it benefit ILM? You betcha: major packages everywhere (Photoshop, RenderMan, etc) either import/export OpenEXR now, or will soon. Pixar even contributed new compression code.

So, a great scenario, and proof that it works. Why hasn't it happened in a bigger way yet? Fear of the unknown. But listen close, and you'll hear a flood coming that could change the landscape -- and it's hard to divert a flood.

That leaves only one question: how will it start? Well, it could begin with open source projects becoming valuable to studios, as started happening with Gimp (though here I'm talking more about advanced 3D animation, simulation, and rendering; Blender's great for what it does, but medium-to-large studios aren't its intended audience; it's not going to displace Maya any time soon, because it doesn't offer anything that Maya lacks as far as the studios are concerned). Or it could start with a studio making a bunch of their custom in-house software Open Source (like ILM did with OpenEXR). Either way, it's up to us as a community -- either to write the software or to sell the concept.

I'd suggest that a great place for all this to start would be with Pixar's PRMan (PhotoRealistic RenderMan, these days often called just RenderMan). And note I say this as a shareholder. Selling RenderMan and related software accounts for less than 5% of Pixar's revenue; the real reason -- the *only* business reason -- they still develop it is for the other 95% of the company to use. If open-sourcing it would bring in collaboration and improvements that would make them just 5% more efficient in generating movie revenue, doesn't that justify the decision right there? And of course that's not counting those who would still pay for service contracts, or the reduction in development costs that could come from the rest of the community helping with their R&D (the budget for which, BTW, surpasses their software revenue). RenderMan has always been a product ahead of its time, and that's why -- despite Pixar's belligerent and hostile use of patents and close-held IP -- it's still the golden standard in this industry. The RenderMan protocol and API was intended fifteen years ago to be a renderer-independent standard, the PostScript of the 3D world. That dream died because of Pixar's unwillingness to release IP: it became difficult or impossible for others to implement that standard officially, or at all, because Pixar grasped the it so tightly (case in point, ExLuna: their lawyers summarily killed what was the best chance in years of having a RenderMan-compliant renderer with new and different functionality, complementary to PRMan). But the renderer -- PRMan -- doesn't have to die through the same mistake, even in the face of an ever-shrinking market share and competitors with the advanced global illumination algorithms PRMan lacks.

But that's not to say Pixar is the only -- or even the best or most likely -- option here. They most certainly don't hold all the cards. So, don't sit back and wait for Pixar or another studio to start the ball rolling: we need to give it a push.

SeanCier writes "The SIGGraph 2004 conference showed off a lot of trends: high-dynamic-range (HDR) displays and video, suddenly ubiquitous general-purpose GPU programmability (it's not just for polygon shading anymore), 3D and high-colour displays, ever-more-refined fluid dynamics, crowd animation, and point-based graphics, to name just a few. But there was an unspoken undercurrent, a trend that's waiting to happen in the visual effects community, and happen in a big way: Open Source." Read on for more.

There are plenty of examples of open source and the graphics community getting along grandly: Gimp and CinePaint (aka FilmGimp), ILM's OpenEXR, and projects like Open Scene Graph. Linux, in particular, has made spectacular inroads: nearly everybody uses it for rendering, and many (most?) use it as their desktop OS of choice. In the RenderMan user's group (I'll get into RenderMan more in a minute), for example, somebody asked how many people used Linux as their main OS. Plenty of hands, and some approving chuckles all around. Mac OS X? A few hands, and woots. Windows? No hands at all -- and moreover, an handful of boos, followed by everybody cracking up as they realized the whole community was abandoning Microsoft wholesale.

But then there's the other side. All the major visual effects and animation studios -- ILM, Pixar, Dreamworks, Digital Domain, Blue Sky, Disney, and so on -- have a team of programmers in-house. Five, ten, two dozen, or more. They're the ones that'll write the software that does special rendering algorithms for Shrek 2, or an animation control system for Mr. Incredible, or produce massive crowd simulators for Lord of the Rings. Things that commercial software doesn't quite do -- or that nobody else has tried to do, or even thought of. Things they need to do just so. Things they need to do now.

Everybody has a ton of custom software written -- often good software, with flexible frameworks and clever hacks. Moreover, they don't want to rely any more than necessary on commercial software, because if ILM finds a bug in Maya that holds them up or slows them down, they best they can do is pay Alias to fix it fast (i.e. weeks) and then have hundreds of animators waste thousands of hours time working around it for weeks. And worse, if Digital Domain buys Alias and decides they'll keep new versions of Maya to themselves, ILM is simply screwed, in a big way. If they want to get a particular feature in Maya, and a plugin won't cut it? Well, that's even harder -- and involves more money and more time.

So ILM writes their own stuff whenever they have to, and whenever they can. And Digital Domain writes their own stuff. And Dreamworks writes their own stuff. And Disney writes their own stuff.

And most of it is all the same stuff. Fluid dynamics? Hair? Subsurface scattering? Muscle-and-skin systems? Crowd control? Dozens of topics -- and every studio pretty much has pretty similar, rather redundant code to do 'em all.

These studios aren't in the business of writing software, they're in the business of making movies. So why are they spending their time and money writing software? Because they have to; it's a Necessary Evil.

So, what if they all worked on Open Source stuff instead? Look at what I just wrote. Every word is a reason to go Open Source. No drawbacks, all upside: no lock-in, you can fix stuff, you can add stuff, you don't have to wait on anybody else, and plus, you can do all this while also using what others have written.

The knee-jerk reaction that may be some executives' first objection: our code is a strategic advantage, giving it away would be throwing away money. If we can do hair and our competitors can't, we'll make better films then they can (and, if it's a visual effects studio, we'll win contracts based on that unique ability).

Bull honkus. If your competitors need hair, they'll write hair software, no problem. Another quote from the Pixar RenderMan user's group, this one by a RenderMan developer (paraphrased): "this is based on the subsurface scattering papers from a couple years ago. Everybody does this, based on those papers." Nope, I don't see strategic advantage there: I see waste.

It is, as they say, a win-win scenario; the studios contribute their code to Open Source projects, and everybody helps make that code better. ILM started it in a small way, with OpenEXR, and it worked: OpenEXR is *the* format for high-dynamic-range images, no questions asked. Did it benefit ILM? You betcha: major packages everywhere (Photoshop, RenderMan, etc) either import/export OpenEXR now, or will soon. Pixar even contributed new compression code.

So, a great scenario, and proof that it works. Why hasn't it happened in a bigger way yet? Fear of the unknown. But listen close, and you'll hear a flood coming that could change the landscape -- and it's hard to divert a flood.

That leaves only one question: how will it start? Well, it could begin with open source projects becoming valuable to studios, as started happening with Gimp (though here I'm talking more about advanced 3D animation, simulation, and rendering; Blender's great for what it does, but medium-to-large studios aren't its intended audience; it's not going to displace Maya any time soon, because it doesn't offer anything that Maya lacks as far as the studios are concerned). Or it could start with a studio making a bunch of their custom in-house software Open Source (like ILM did with OpenEXR). Either way, it's up to us as a community -- either to write the software or to sell the concept.

I'd suggest that a great place for all this to start would be with Pixar's PRMan (PhotoRealistic RenderMan, these days often called just RenderMan). And note I say this as a shareholder. Selling RenderMan and related software accounts for less than 5% of Pixar's revenue; the real reason -- the *only* business reason -- they still develop it is for the other 95% of the company to use. If open-sourcing it would bring in collaboration and improvements that would make them just 5% more efficient in generating movie revenue, doesn't that justify the decision right there? And of course that's not counting those who would still pay for service contracts, or the reduction in development costs that could come from the rest of the community helping with their R&D (the budget for which, BTW, surpasses their software revenue). RenderMan has always been a product ahead of its time, and that's why -- despite Pixar's belligerent and hostile use of patents and close-held IP -- it's still the golden standard in this industry. The RenderMan protocol and API was intended fifteen years ago to be a renderer-independent standard, the PostScript of the 3D world. That dream died because of Pixar's unwillingness to release IP: it became difficult or impossible for others to implement that standard officially, or at all, because Pixar grasped the it so tightly (case in point, ExLuna: their lawyers summarily killed what was the best chance in years of having a RenderMan-compliant renderer with new and different functionality, complementary to PRMan). But the renderer -- PRMan -- doesn't have to die through the same mistake, even in the face of an ever-shrinking market share and competitors with the advanced global illumination algorithms PRMan lacks.

But that's not to say Pixar is the only -- or even the best or most likely -- option here. They most certainly don't hold all the cards. So, don't sit back and wait for Pixar or another studio to start the ball rolling: we need to give it a push.

CarlosOlivaG4 asks: "We're in the process of acquiring and setting up a renderfarm, and I'm hoping the Slashdot community might light us up a little here. We'll use 6 to 8 nodes first, but would like to be able to expand it in the future." There was an earlier version of this question, but it dealt more with the hardware of the farm's nodes, rather than the network and software infrastructure on which these nodes would be based.

"In the hardware side, we still haven't made a choice between using AMD's Opteron or Apple's Xserve G5 (they have some very nice and price convenient cluster nodes which seem to be ideal for this kind of job), with Linux. As for the networking between them, is Gigaethernet enough or should we be going for Fiber? The software used to manage the render queues is another important point as well: I've been looking into Rush, and even though it's a commercial package, it works on all of the platforms we currently use (W2k/XP, Irix, OS X and Linux). But then there is also Dr. Queue, which is open source and is supported on at least the *NIX members of the aforementioned OS's. Other options include RenderPal and Pixar's RenderMan, but I would prefer an F/OSS alternative. Finally, it's worth noting that we'll be using the renderfarm for Maya and Adobe AfterEffects."

An anonymous reader writes: "The trailer for Pixar's next film, The Incredibles, is on the web. It's available from the official Incredibles site, the Apple trailers page, and Pixar's website. Lots of info on the official page as well! Enjoy!"

ejungle writes "The Toronto Star has an excellent article on Steve Jobs and his increasingly interesting role as head of both Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios. The article goes into the market pressures surrounding both companies, and goes a long way to explain their recent moves."

da_anarchist writes "After much speculation, Pixar has announced that it will end its distribution agreement with Disney. This comes after much bitterness at Pixar over the terms of their current deal with Disney, where Disney took a sizable (and some would say unfair) portion of the $2.5 billion in revenue generated by Pixar's films. Pixar is best known as the studio behind the Toy Story series and the more recent movie Finding Nemo."

May Kasahara writes "This is something which has been the talk amongst animators for the past couple of weeks: Walt Disney Feature Animation is in the process of halting all work on traditionally-animated features and going completely CG. Supposedly, all of their animators-- even staunch traditionalists such as Glenn Keane-- are being trained on 3D computer animation techniques. The last hand-drawn high-budget Disney feature scheduled for release is Home on the Range, which is due out next April. It appears that Disney is bowing to the supposed pressures of the market, even though the hand-drawn Lilo and Stitch was considered a success and the all-CG Dinosaur (done at Disney's now-defunct FX house The Secret Lab) was not. However, I believe there's another factor at work: Pixar's contract with Disney is set to expire soon, and the revered CG house has been making their own demands of Disney for the contract's renewal."

deadwood writes "It seems Lucas is creating a Digital Animation studio as a subsidiary of ILM, according to this Yahoo! article.
Lucasfilm Animation is created roughly 17 years after George Lucas sold Pixar to Steve Jobs. I wonder if Episode VII-IX would be a good choice as first projects?"

blamanj writes "According to a SF Chronicle story this morning, Pixar has been sued by artist Stanley Mouse. Mouse created a movie treatment titled "Excuse My Dust", which was set in "Monster City," where the animated monster characters worked for the "Monster Corporation of America." One of the characters was a a green, wisecracking, ambulatory eyeball. Furthermore, the lawsuit claims that a story artist from Pixar visited Mouse in 2000, and discussed Mouse's work."

tjansen writes "The trailer of the next Pixar movie, Finding Nemo, is out. Only Quicktime, as usual, so you need CrossOver on Linux machines." Actually's Disney's site has Real and Windows Media formats, so you can pick your poison.

donglekey writes "The software used by Weta to output scenes to be rendered on the LOTR trilogy has been made open source under the Mozilla license. Called Liquid, it outputs from Maya to any Renderman compliant renderer. This is extremely good news as it may quickly become a standard in high end 3D, as well as greasing the wheels for Aqsis, a GPLed Renderman renderer."

liquidbrains writes "With 'Princess Mononoke' fresh in our memories, the number one highest grossing film in Japan -ever- is coming to the US. Thanks to Disney and Pixar's John Lasseter, who has supervised the dub, we can soon expect a fine English adaptation of animation master Hayao Miyazaki's latest masterpiece, 'Spirited Away'. See the trailer here." Reader thefalconer writes "It seems that Apple has just released the very first trailer to X-Men 2 on their website. From what I've seen this movie looks like it's going to rock! Too bad I have to wait for May of next year!"

Here are 10+ plus answers to Slashdot questions from motion picture digital effects expert Thad Beier. He chose the additional questions himself. (Yes, he's on Slashdot almost every day; we asked him to do the interview after reading many intelligent comments he's posted.) Anyway, there's some fine insight into the intersection of moviemaking, graphic arts, and computer science here, brought to you by an award-winning member of the film industry who just happens to be a fellow Slashdot reader.

Are 'FX programming' days numbered?
by Anonvmous Coward
Every year, 3D packages get more and more sophsticated. Not just in terms of rendering effects, but in their scripting capabilities as well. Do you see a day where the artist will be able to handle the rendering features and the scripting of a 3D prog so well that it'll no longer be necessary to have a dedicated programmer on board?

Is there a particular type of problem that will always need a programmer?

Thad:
First, I feel that the difference between 'scripting' and 'programming' is nonexistent; both are programming, albeit in different languages with different development environments. People can, and do, write thousand-line MEL scripts for Maya -- which are every bit as complex as anything written in C. With each new animation system, the scripting languages become more powerful, and subsume larger modules as primitives within the language -- this should allow non-programmers (or, more realistically, people who don't consider themselves programmers) to create significant custom systems with reasonable short scripts.

Secondly, though, I feel that there will always be a need in movies for people who are predominantly programmers. Films have to compete with each other and with the library of pre-existing films, and one way that is done is by continually pushing the state of the art. A consistent request from filmmakers is for 'something nobody has seen before'. Often that means creating custom tools; or building scripts and shaders far beyond the capabilities of non-programmers.

It is true that as time has gone on, the percentage of people on visual effects teams who consider themselves primarily programmers has fallen. One reason is that when doing 500 shots of a mouse for Stuart Little you only have to create the mouse once, but you still need hundreds of people to do the artistic tasks of animation, lighting, and compositing. That doesn't mean that the programmers aren't important, they are the key to ensuring that the artists can be productive.

Shaders
by f00Dave
How much overlap is there between the programable graphics processing units (AKA "shaders") found on modern game platforms and the software/hardware used in the special effects industry? Would programming skills for one translate to the other?

BTW, I realize that special effects are half artistry, half mathematics and half sweaty work: kudos from a 'GL hacker... [;-)]

Thad:
I note that some slashdotters have criticized your math, but you have hit upon a fundamental truth of visual effects, that the work takes far more than the available time.

While it is conceivable that there is overlap possible between programming of games hardware and writing shaders for visual effects, I haven't seen too many people making the move from games into FX; mostly it is the other way around. Certainly many people in the games business are clamoring for visual effects and other film artists to help bring cinematic ideas and qualities to the games world.

The interesting new wrinkle in this is the Cg language from Nvidia. It's a new, high-lvel language for writing shaders. Cg is then compiled down to microcode run on the graphics hardware in the machine. While I had been skeptical, now I think that this might dramatically change the way that rendering is done. The work of the visual effects and game shader-writers could be exactly the same. It wouldn't surprise me if future software renderers use graphics hardware to speed up the process.

Cost
by Fembot
When films are labled as "100$ Million on special effects" where does most of that money go? On rendering hardware or what?

Thad:
I don't think that any movies have had $100 Million in special effects, yet -- unless you count Dinosaur or Final Fantasy -- which are animated (as opposed to FX) films. That said, the overwhelming cost on any films for effects at this point goes to the creative people. Especially today, the hardware is virtually free. (In some cases, the hardware is literally free as a company will donate machines in return for good PR.)

A reasonable estimate for the cost is 75% for artists, and 25% for everything else. This has changed dramatically over the digital visual effects era which started around 1990 -- back then it was probably exactly the opposite. But machines have gotten much cheaper and animators have become more expensive, and that trend will probably continue. It's interesting that people talk about how much cheaper Linux PCs are compared to SGI machines (say), but truly both machines have almost the same cost (zero) compared to the cost of the animator who is using the machine. The choice of workstation should be entirely based on what makes the artist most productive.

Directors approach?
by FurryFeet
I'm guessing you get to work pretty closely to directors. If so, can you tell us what is their approach to the new tools technology has given them? Are they still "thinking celluloid" made cheaper by rendering it digitally, or do they really seek to break the mold and make shots that were previously impossible?

Thad:
The job of a movie director is to harness the skills of hundreds of talented, unique, possibly difficult people to create his vision and tell his story. In our experience, directors always request the ideas and proposals from his creative team; and they listen to that advice. The FX team is hired to help make the movie, and are trusted to help make the decisions. In most cases, the director will work very closely with the FX supervisor when shooting the shots that will have effects, asking for help and comment on all aspects of the shot. After the ability to get the most out of his team, though, the most important quality of a director is decisiveness -- once all of the input has been gathered, everybody has to march in the same direction.

Every director we have worked with has been extremely interested in any ideas we could contribute to making shots cheaper, better, easier to shoot, or cheaper. They want to get the best images on film, and any resources saved on one shot can make the next one better.

best way to get into the industry?
by josepha48
What is the best way to get into the computer generated special effects industry? Is it who you know or what you know? If it is what you know what should one know? (Programming, graphics tools, etc...).

Thad:
Well, my first sincere, if unhelpful answer is "Are you sure that you want to?" It isn't really an industry in the traditional sense -- there is little or no job security, there are long hours typically with no overtime paid, the stress can be extreme and the rewards are not great. There are almost no rational reasons to choose CG visual effects as a career. So think about it before making that choice. If it really is the most important thing in the world for you, then read on.

Every person is different, and every position to be filled is different, so any advice given will either be too specific to be generally useful, or so broad as to be a platitude, but I'll do my best. Over the last few years it is my impression that there have been far more applicants trying to get into the field than available jobs; that might just be a cyclical problem or it might be persistent.

A solid undergraduate education is always a good thing. Some basic art experience is helpful, to learn color theory, layout -- basically learn what makes a good image good. Knowledge of mathematics and elementary physics is useful, to know how the world works. General computer experience is helpful, for example the ability to write and understand shell scripts. To get a job at a large facility a familiarity with the most commonly used tools is helpful.

Clearly you would like to have some animation experience. Computer animation is useful, but 2D hand-drawn animation is also an exceptionally good way to learn how to bring images to life.

When preparing a reel of your work, a few great shots is better than a large volume of mediocre work. You want something to make your reel stand out from the rest of them. Play to your strengths; concentrate on what you do best. If the work on your reel includes shots done by a team of people, be certain to call out your particular contribution. A demonstrated ability to work on teams with other creative people is a definite plus.

The Siggraph show every year is a good place to meet recruiters from many companies in a few days. It takes place in late July or early August. This year's conference took place last week, and all of the big companies demonstrated vigorous recruiting efforts. A few companies have great pages to assist people in planning their careers. Here is the employment FAQ from Pixar and the one from PDI. While they are animation companies as opposed to visual effects companies, their advice is still appropriate, by and large.

What movies have impressed you?
by Anonvmous Coward
When somebody has intimate knowledge about how a movie is made, it gets really hard to make their eyes jump out of their head.

For example, there's a scene in the Director's Cut of Robocop where Alex Murphy is just about to be shot in the head by the lead bad dude. The camera is pointing right at Alex's face, then swings around behind him. As soon as the camera is behind him the bad guy fires a gun, the back of Alex's head explodes and you can see a hole clean through it. This whole scene was one smooth camera movement, no edits.

I was *stunned* to find out that Alex was a puppet. They were able to make a puppet that totally convinced me that Peter Weller was sitting in front of this guy about to get his head blown off. I could not believe that they were able to do one that convincing.

I'm curious, what movies have had that affect on you? "OMG! I had no idea that was an effect!"

Thad:
Your example is a classic of FX misdirection. Another one is in 'Spiderman'. We see Peter Parker with his shirt off pretty early in the movie, and he's the scrawny little twerp that he's supposed to be, and you accept it without a second thought. Later, after he's been bitten, he takes off his shirt and he's totally ripped. Not until that point do you say "hey, wait a minute! How did they do that effect!" When, of course, the effect happened in the first shot with a body replacement that you never expected. I was blown away, it was just so cool, and so easy. The best effects are those that you would never expect, and that by the time you realize that they must have been effects they are over.

These days almost every film has FX shots that nobody could possibly see. Our first film was 'Showgirls', and I defy anybody to find the dozen shots we did in that movie -- they are not in-your-face effects. Two of our more recent films, 'The Fast and The Furious', and 'For Love of The Game' were praised in the Los Angeles Times and Variety as films with a refreshing lack of special effects. It's not that they're missing obvious things; it's just that FX can be undetectable.

So, when you say if there's anything where I'd say "I had no idea that was an effect", well, it's certainly true -- but for most of those shots I still don't know that it was an effect.

Project you'd like to tackle?
by seldolivaw
Although recently a lot of the big names in science fiction and fantasy are finally making it onto the screen in a plausible way (e.g. Tolkein) there are still plenty of great books out there that haven't even been optioned. If you could turn any science-fiction/fantasy book or series into a movie, which would it be?

[My personal choice: the Foundation saga by Asimov. So huge! Such a great plot! So eminently filmable! Somebody make this movie, dammit! :-)]

Thad:
Surprisingly, and contrary to your question, classic SF books like The Foundation Trilogy and Ender's Game are always in play; we get scripts or proposals for these every couple of years. You're not the only one that wants to see these books filmed; it's very difficult to do, though. While the tremendous success of The Lord of The Rings is on everybody's mind, don't forget that people have been trying for years to make those books into films with limited success. A good book has such scope and detail that it's hard to distill it into a reasonable-length movie. While I'd love to see a movie made from Stephenson's 'Snowcrash', any reasonable length movie would have to leave out at least half of the stuff that makes the book great.

Short stories are a better bet. The astonishing success of movie versions of Philip K. Dick's short stories would have completely bewildered him, but they are great source material. I'd love to see a John Varley short story -- say, 'The Phantom of Kansas' -- although I admit that 'Millenium', based on the book-length version of his short story 'Air Raid', was perhaps the worst movie I've ever seen.

Reduction in man-hours for CG?
by ceswiedler
At one point, as a film student, I was interested in computer animation as a way for a single person or small group to produce a film, without the expense of locations, casting, cameras, etc. I thought that soon, as hardware and software improved, it would be possible for me to create a film on my own computer at home.

But my experience in animation in college taught me that increasing hardware capacity doesn't reduce the time it takes to produce a film or demo reel; it simply increases the quality of the final output. I imagine that the modelling, animation, and rendering of the scenes in Tron took as much human time as comparable scenes in Fellowship of the Ring. It's possible to render Tron-quality CG in realtime on a modern PC, but nobody wants to watch it.

My question is this: do you think it will ever be possible to produce a full-length CG film in about a man-year or less, with effects which are reasonbly "modern" for the time? Will the technology curve eventually flatten out, once we get to a certain point where the human eye can't really tell the difference? Or is it implausible to think that a single person or small group could provide all of the artistic input (scriptwriting, directing, modelling, animation, acting, etc) to produce a full film, even ignoring all technological constraints?

Thad:
There are movies created by small teams of people; and some of these will be CG generated films. They won't be "Toy Story", though, they'll be motion-capture or cg-puppet films with relatively simple lighting setups; I don't think that you can do high-quality animation quickly, except through some kind of performance capture. There's a sort of Moore's Law at work with state-of-the-art animation where the complexity of scenes doubles every couple of years. Animators always will wait a certain amount of time for their frames to render, on the order of 15 minutes to an hour -- and that time hasn't changed even though computers are 1000 times the speed they were 10 years ago.

Your question has been answered in the affirmative last year by 'Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius'. That was a relatively small team of people working for just a few man years; and they created an incredibly successful film. Compared to 'Monsters Inc.' it wasn't state-of-the-art, but compared to say 'Rugrats in Paris', you'd have to say that it was.

I think your question about the technology curve flattening out means that you're asking whether at some point the most elaborately specified scene might render in real-time. That it's not inconceivable but it is unlikely. It's possible that computer speed will finally outstrip the ability of an animator to create complexity, so that frames will render that fast; but I think it's more likely that database-amplification techniques will allow the specification of arbitrarily complex scenes.

To some extent what makes movies interesting is that a single two-hour movie can contain the distilled essence of a thousand man-years of work, and if it was a well managed process you can see each hour of effort up on the screen. You can see these movies over and over, and always see something new. It's like a tidal wave of information flooding over you. A small team of people won't be able to do that; but they can make perfectly good smaller movies.

Killing the Classics
by Skyshadow
Several directors have recently released "special editions" of their classic movies which subtly change the films by using computers effects to either clean up the old effects or (far worse) alter the original film.

The problem that I have with this is twofold: First, these "special editions" seem to be the ones that show up on TV and on video rental shelves, so that they and not the original become the pervasive copy.

Second, I can foresee a day when older movies are edited in this fashion so they can be remarketed to audiences with more "modern" attitudes (think similar to Speilburg taking the guns out of the hands of the pursuing authorities in the ET rerelease).

Do you believe that, as a creative professional, you have any sort of ethical duty to resist these sorts of changes? Is there a line to be drawn between merely cleaning up the original effects and replacing them entirely (as in the Star Wars special edition), or between effects-patchup and all-out content alteration (aka, the wussification of Han Solo by having Greedo shoot first)? Do you feel that old films should be left alone, or do you consider them more as ongoing acts of creation?

Thad:
I do not like the changing of movies. A movie, to me, reflects the time that it was created and becomes a kind of historical document. On the other, dominant hand, it is completely the choice of the owner of a film to do with it what he pleases.

I can understand the feeling that a movie is somehow owned by society at some point, but my point of view is different. Making a film is tremendously hard, making a good one far harder still -- and with that effort comes the right to muck it up down the road if that's what one decides to do. So, I don't see an ethical dilemma at all. I think that the place to make your protest felt is as a critic and as a movie patron; vote with your wallet. A related problem is that movies have a relatively short lifetime. The first Star Wars film reportedly had deteriorated quite a bit before the Special Edition was created; as the dyes in the film don't have good long-term stability. There will be a fifty-year period of movies that will be lost unless extraordinary (and unlikely) efforts are made. In the near future, though, all movies will be digital at some point in the process, and they have at least a fighting chance of being around for a long time. There are several digital-post facilities being set up now, which scan the whole film to allow better color correction and editing -- the most striking use of this was on O Brother, Where Art Thou?, where the final movie was dramatically color-corrected throughout in a way not possible with optical means.

question for thad
by Jucius Maximus
Thad: When designing tools for making 3D scenes or characters, how much does real world physics play into what is generated? Do you use fluid mechanical models to generate the flow of water over a waterfall or the movement of a large tree affected by a mass of air? Do you use vibro aoustical and biomechanical models to determine they way a CG mechanised character will walk?

In essence, how much do you take real physics into account when designing something a CG item to emulate a 'real' item on screen? What is the balance between physical limits and creative freedoms?

Thad:
Our charter is to create the sequence that the director of the film wants for his movie; that usually means building things that look and move like things do in real life. Often we would use real-world physics to do this. Typically, though, we take extremely simplified views of the real world to make the computations more simple, and to make them run faster.

As an example of physics in action, Nick Foster at PDI created a simplified fluid dynamics model to be used for animation; this was used to create several shots in ANTZ and Shrek. One of the big problems with simulation, as opposed to animation, is that it is difficult to control. Typically one sets initial conditions and then lets the simulation run. Having a system that runs very quickly enables the artist using the tool to try many different initial conditions, to try to create the desired final result. A slow, but more physically accurate solution would have been worthless if the animator couldn't get to a reasonable result.

Often what is done is an absurdly simplified model of reality is chosen, then it is made more accurate (and slow) until it looks good enough for the film. On our recent movie 'Showtime', we had to do a waterfall bursting out of a building, and we simulated the motion of water with air-drag, then simulated the water dragging the air with it, to get the characteristic motion of a waterfall; but we didn't have to go any further than that and simulate viscosity of the water or evaporation.

ILM has done some wonderful work simulating the dynamics of creatures, creating models of bones, muscles, fat, and skin. These give a character like a dinosaur a 'weight' that just can't be animated by hand. These dynamics are a great cue to they audience for how big and heavy these creatures are.

One curious reality of the FX world is that often reality is not what is wanted. A classic example of this is starfields. In any real-world photograph, the stars are invisible, they are far far darker than anything else in the scene. Directors often want stars in the sky to go with their actors, though; so that is what they get.

Finally, there are times when straightforward animation is the best approach. For the movie Red Planet, we had to create zero-g fire. I spent a few weeks trying to simulate the flow of smoke and fire in a zero-g environment, when my colleague Jamie Dixon thought that he could just animate all the shots by hand in a couple of days -- which he proceeded to do. When CalTech's physics department reviewed the movie for the Los Angeles Times, they panned every bit of science in the movie, except for the zero-g fire; which they thought looked "pretty cool."

CGI alternatives
by Strange Ranger
Do you think CGI can too often be seen as a "suppressor" of other art forms? The specific example in my head right now is Old Puppet Yoda vs. New CGI Yoda, we haven't seen (AFAIK) any major puppeteering work in cinema in a long time. Other possibly "suppressed" art forms might be makeup art, the art of the stunt man, set construction, backdrop painting, cinematograghy, heck even acting could be listed here. Will CGI be escorting some or all of these art forms down the same path as Silent Films, blacksmithing, and totem-pole carving?

Do you ever want to say "Hey this would be a lot better if it were done with [not CGI] instead"?

Thad:
There are many times as many people working in the FX field today as there were ten years ago. Now, it's true that some of the techniques are not as much in demand as they were, but it's not as bad as you might think. A company that we do quite a bit of collaborative work with is Illusion Arts, in Van Nuys California. The two founders, Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton, started doing practical camera effects and matte paintings, and built a very successful company around these kinds of classical techniques. Today, they are now doing synthetic 3D camera moves and painting on Macs; but 90% of the talents and skills they used before are still applicable today; just the medium is different. What makes a good artist is foremost their eye; their ability to see what is right and to see how to fix what is wrong. Illusion Arts was the lead shop in The Fast and The Furious, and along with us and Digiscope made a very modern movie.

In your example of puppetry, I too was a little disappointed to see the CG Yoda; especially in the closeups it just wasn't exactly the same. Of course, there's no way that a puppet could have done the lightsaber battle. Also, a growing area of FX is performance capture; recording data in real-time and applying it to CG characters. In Episode One and Two of the Star Wars movies, there is a tremendous amount of motion capture, used to animate robots and creatures. Performance capture is just puppetry with one's whole body, really.

Back in 1989, Graham Walters and I build the CG puppet Waldo C. Graphic for The Jim Henson Hour. The puppet was animated by putting one's hand into a 'waldo' (a mechanical tracking device reminiscent of a Luxo Lamp), and moving it around; and watching the results on a TV screen. This was so similar to the way that the Henson puppeteers usually work that it took no time at all to get comfortable with the puppet; I don't think it took Henson himself more than about 5 seconds to get totally up to speed on it.

Speaking about stunt work, one of the very first things that people realized with digital techniques is that 'wire-removal' is fairly straightforward. One can identify a moving wire in a scene and use several techniques to get rid of it. This meant that whereas stunt people used to use the thinnest possible safety wires, or none at all; now they could use systems with significant margins of safety. Also, face-replacement techniques coming to the fore means that stunt people can play far closer to the camera than they used to, opening up new opportunities for stunts.

When it comes to acting, though, I don't think that digital graphics will ever replace traditional techniques. There's no good reason to attempt it, and it's unbelievably hard. The subtlety and complexity of motion of skilled human actors is astonishing, and a ridiculous portion of the human brain is dedicated to interpreting those expressions and motions.

So, I would say that for every job lost, many are created -- and the people whose jobs are lost can often put those same skills to use in this new digital world.

Little studios vs Big Studios
by Milinar
I've followed your company's work over the past few years with great interest. It seems to me that the effects you do are pretty much on par with big studios like digital domain, etc. Have you purposefully stayed a small studio, with a few dedicated individuals? And what advantages has that given you?

Thad:
When we started Hammerhead, we made a deliberate commitment to stay small. We didn't see significant economies of scale in the field, and it seemed like we'd have much more fun in a smaller company. There is a strong culture in American business that you have to "grow or die", but it was our experience that growth was extremely difficult to manage and that companies that grew quickly found themselves dying quickly, too. Once you get past a couple of dozen people, there seems to be a phase change in company culture, and productivity declines.

We do find that our small ('boutique' is the term of art) studio can compete against companies one or two orders of magnitude larger than us on many jobs that don't require a huge volume of shots. While our staff is small, we are extremely experienced, having been doing digital visual effects since we helped create the field at the beginning of the 90's. We tend to hire very capable, experienced artists -- one way that we keep it interesting for them is that they are given a huge amount of creative control over their shots.

As a small company we can be very flexible, too. We can reconfigure ourselves for whatever project is at hand; and become the Deep Blue Sea company when that is what is going on. There is very little overhead not contributing to getting a particular job done. Paradoxically, in a small company you can do more different things. We've done FX for films, wrote and produced a big Hollywood film, made our own low-budget horror film, and wrote and sold software. We will very likely be making a couple of TV pilots next year of shows with substantial visual effects content. Bigger FX companies have to be more focused, they can't afford to be experimental and possibly make mistakes, because they would be much larger mistakes.

Our biggest weakness is that we cannot even begin to take on huge jobs. Movies like Pearl Harbor or Spiderman require hundreds of people; and we have to leave these jobs to the ILMs and Sonys of the world. Still, there are hundreds of movies a year with a few dozen to a hundred and fifty shots, with reasonable time schedules, where we can compete well. I think that we have found a 'sweet spot', where many features combine to make a pleasant, profitable, successful company -- and the small size is an important part of that.

Dropped crusade against Pixar patent?
by Anonymous Coward
I heard a rumor that you dropped your "crusade" against Pixar's software patent on deep-shadow technology? The rumor implied you were "bought-out"? Care to comment/share your thoughts on software patents in the VFX industry?

Thad:
While this was not moderated up, I do feel it needs an answer. The patent that is referred to is for the obvious enhancement of Lance Williams' 1978 z-buffer shadow scheme [pdf link] given that today's computers have more than 64 Kb of memory. In the Williams algorithm the scene is rendered from the point of view of the light, and the depth to the first surface is stored. Then, when rendering the image from the camera's point of view, you can easily tell whether a surface should be in shadow or not. The Deep Shadow Map idea was to store a function of depth vs. opacity at each pixel in the image rendered from the light POV, to allow partially transparent surfaces and subpixel shadow coverage.

Unfortunately, Pixar has decided to patent this. They presented the idea at Siggraph '00 but didn't mention in the paper the fact that they'd filed a patent; although word got out pretty soon. As the patent has not been granted yet, and they filed the patent before the Patent Office's policy change that now publishes patent applications, it's unknown what their claims are. What I am fairly sure of, though, is that Pixar didn't invent this technology, and that people at Pixar know this. So, it's not only really nasty to try to build on somebody else's technique and wrest it for yourself, but there may be legal problems as well.

I've discussed this with lawyers, and they say that the time to fight a patent is after it grants. While that seem weird and suboptimal, there's nothing about patent law that isn't weird and suboptimal. So, I'm going to wait and see what happens. There are other possibilities for fighting the patent that don't make sense to reveal at this time, for obvious reasons. Clearly this comment reveals that there is no agreement between Pixar and me to remain quiet on this issue.

It wouldn't surprise me if patents destroy the visual effects industry as we know it today. Pixar already has one notch in its belt, last week forcing the company ExLuna to withdraw its Entropy renderer that competed with Pixar's Renderman (and the shareware BMRT program that preceded Entropy, as well). A rational, cold-blooded analysis of the software patent situation would reveal that almost every complex program today could be attacked on patent grounds, as we've seen recently with the JPEG fiasco. Back when I worked at PDI, we were attacked a couple of times for patent violations, only escaping a devastating patent by NYIT on the thinnest of technicalities. In irony not lost on anybody, Ed Catmull of Pixar (with Disney's lawyers help) led the fight against NYIT's patent.

Interestingly, this has happened before in visual effects. Back in the bad old days, every single analog visual effects technology was patented and owned by the studios. Rear Projection, Front Projection, Blue Screens, Sodium Screens -- everything. The studios would in effect pool the patents between themselves; but if you wanted to make a visual effects film you had to do it completely within the studio system. It might happen again.

Dean Siren asks: "When will mainstream moviemakers, such as Lucasfilm, finally replace their render farms and Renderman with a GPU (Geforce or Radeon) and Cg based renderer? Would the savings in equipment cost and rendering time be worth the learning curve? Is anyone developing such an app? We've had the tech for years with video games, but the art form hasn't really been tried. Is anyone working on this now?" An interesting thought, and it puts an interesting spin on the old computers-will-replace-actors argument. It also means good planning ahead of time, since there will be no "post-production" stage where you can clean up the mistakes, and perform the minute adjustments needed to make things just right. Do you think such an art form will ever catch on in Hollywood, or will small shops have to be the ones to pioneer this before others follow suit?

"There's a forum called Machinima whose main idea is that not only should the final rendering of a movie be generated in real time, but so should the animation, implying that computer animation should be performed, maybe even improvised, live by motion captured voice actors. Accomplishing this goal would require replacing not only Renderman but Maya and Softimage as well. A developer named Strange Company took the challenge and started writing an app in this direction called Lithtech Film Producer (interview here). They even made easy porting a high priority. But they soon realized that they were tiny and the project was huge so they quit. But the idea of improv animation is full of potential."

Yes ladies and gentleman Pixar is back with its latest full length computer animated film, Monsters, Inc. And I braved crappiest theater in all of holland to see it opening night. My review follows, and although I've tried hard not to give any spoilers, I'll give away a few things that hopefully won't hurt anything for you. But the short review is that I liked it, but if you've read enough of my reviews, you know that I love eye candy kids movies, so be warned.

Before I get to the review, I want to mention that I saw this at the crappy theater in holland. The sound system is super assy, and the screen is kinda small. I've seen many movies here, but the Holland 7 always kinda taints a movie for me just because the theater is dirty and the sights and sounds aren't to par with a state of the art theater. Also our showing was led off by the Star Wars Episode II trailer (which wasn't really very interesting) and a Pixar short. I love shorts before films. I wish that this was standard practice. All movies. At least, all comedies anyway, should start off with a short. And this one was hilarious.

Since this is a computer animated film, I'm gonna start by talking a little about the CG. I don't feel like Monsters Inc has hugely advanced the state of the art for computer animated graphics with this film. There are however exceptions: especially in James, John Goodman's character. They hair system they used on the gigantic blue-with-purple-spots monster is simply stunning. There are some scenes where I simply couldn't take my eye off of it. Also the finale which takes place in a gigantic room with a roller coaster like system of children's closet doors whizzing through the air is absolutely a site to behold.

There are other exceptins too, but really what Monsters, Inc. has done is taken the state of the art CG that pixar has perfected, and used it to tell a story. And I think that it might be awhile before a movie comes a long and is able to up the ante as much as Toy Story and Toy Story 2 did. I think this is much more akin to a Bug's Life, where they broke less new ground in the rendering techniques, and instead tried to do more with the characters.

The look of the film is simply stunning. The warm tones of past pixar movies have been chucked out the door for blues and purples and neon green. But when monsters pass into the human's world, you feel as if you might be back in Toy Story... but why would you want to when this world is so interesting? The centerpiece is the Monsters, Inc factory which has a look that is sorta like a factory with a bit of airport stirred in. But then all skewed. Thats where this movie has really taken off: previous Pixar efforts have all taken place in a relatively believable world (assuming that you believe bugs or toys can talk). They take place in a subset of our world. But MI takes place in what might be thought of as a parallel world with gateways (read:childrens closet doors) back to ours. So the artists were given a chance to truly create something unique.

Now I'm going to try to give you a brief summary of the plot without spoiling anything. The main characters are the blue and purple hairy James (John Goodman) and the little green one eyed Mike (Billy Crystal). The main enemy is a chameleon monster named Randall (Steve Buscemi). Other notable smaller parts are voiced by Frank Oz and John Ratzenberger.

Anyway, James and Mike work at Monsters, Inc. The factory is a power plant... but in Monstropolis, they don't use coal or natural gas. Rather they use the power generated by the screams of children. Using a complex system where doors open into Children's Closets, the monsters run in, get their scream, and the juice is collected. It's dangerous work because children are lethal to monsters. One touch, and a monster is dead! James is the best scarer of all time... until his rivalry with Randall goes wrong, and a little girl (nicknamed 'Boo') accidentally comes back to Monstropolis.

The bulk of the show then revolves around Mike and James dealing with this tiny (and adorable) "Monster" that they have accidentally been stuck with. While trying to get her home, protect her from the Bad Guys, and unraveling the secret plot, good times are had by all.

The voice acting is all fairly solid. And I'm not particularly fond of Billy Crystal any more. I was really worried that his baggage was going to carry over into the character and his lame humor would drag everything down. But they /almost/ never let that happen. And Goodman just has great charisma as a voice. What a lucky man. I'd kill to get to be a voice in a Disney or Pixar film, and he's already got a chance to do both! (To say nothing of practically having a guaranteed part in every Coen bros. movie. What a sweet gig!). But as you would expect, all the voice acting was top notch.

The score was excellent for the film. I'm not going to comment on the sound effects because (as I said above) I saw this film in a crappy theater so its just not fair for me to mention that the audio clipped a bit in places and the surround sound effects weren't very good. I purely blame my theater.

Worth noting is that this is the first Pixar film not directed by John Lasseter, and I think it shows. The pixar trademark of being family friendly, but just skewed enough to make it fun for adults is definitely strong here, but MI is a little edgier then its predecessors.

Pixar's deal with the devil (read:disney :) is almost at an end, and I'm really interested to see what they're going to do after they have free reign to create films on their own. But as long as they are producing films as solid is this one, I'll continue to show up to the theater on opening night. The eye candy. The humor. It's just a class act in an age where most movies have none. I still think TS2 is a better film, but you're not going to see many better all-ages movies this year. Unless of course Harry Potter is everything it could be...

NicerGuy writes "Today I was bored and decided to check out pixar.com. I hadn't been there in a long time, but was pleasantly surprised to find that they have finally made all(?) of their animated shorts available for download. The films, which are in QuickTime format, include my favorites: Geri's Game and Luxo Jr."

NicerGuy writes "Today I was bored and decided to check out pixar.com. I hadn't been there in a long time, but was pleasantly surprised to find that they have finally made all(?) of their animated shorts available for download. The films, which are in QuickTime format, include my favorites: Geri's Game and Luxo Jr."

Bruce Perens writes: "In an effort to seed the development of Open Source(TM) auto-navigation software, mapping web sites, and other geographical applications, I have purchased the TIGER/Line 1997 data set, and will be reissuing it on CD under the GPL. This is a complete U.S. map database, with GPS coordinates, street names, etc. I am offering one 6-CD set to each of Debian, GNOME, and KDE, and will consider other worthy non-profit groups with a history of finishing what they start. They will be able to use this data to develop navigation applications, etc., under the GPL or LGPL" The FAQ specifies this does not include topological data, but Bruce is looking into other sources of that.

There is a Review about Pixar's latest movie "A bug's life". The article's author mentions the RenderMan program, as well as a bit of technical info. I really liked the screenshot :)

Cyrrin has written in with a killer update from Siggraph 98. He's got notes about everything from Alpha to Antz, as well as a ton of juicy nuggets from the Linux 3D SIG. Click immediately below and read this if you're at all into graphics! The Following was written by Slashdot Reader Cyrrin

The pace has really picked up since the Exhibition booths opened on Tuesday. Pixar, one of the most popular booths in the center, was graciously handing out free copies of "Geri's Game" (the Academy Award winning short) which included the trailer for the very promising "A Bug's Life".

And speaking of bugs, keep an eye out for "Antz", and "Prince of Egypt" from Dreamworks and P.D.I.. Prince of Egypt boasts twice as much computer rendering as Titanic... and it looks great!

Digital expects the 1GHz 21264 chip to be released next summer, or alternatively, as their banner reads, "1 Gigahertz by 2000". Meanwhile, their 600Mhz 21264 workstation chews through anything you can toss at it. And Sun, while advertising their 3-D workstations as price/performance competitive to SGIs, has split their marketing pitch 50/50 to include plugs for Java.

CMU has a booth where they've been demonstrating a high-level 3-D web authoring system, called Alice . And the Lego Corporation has been showing off their microprocessor-imbedded, programmable robotics packages. Man, I wish I had this stuff to play with when I was younger! Okay, the Linux3D SIG. Brian Paul (author and maintainer of the Mesa package) opened the discussion with news that Mesa 3.0 release is due out in the next few weeks. Among other things, it will include the OpenGL 1.2 API, a revised GLX extension, and a few new texture functions.

Darryl Strauss (maintainer of the Linux Glide port) announced that version 3 of the Glide 3 drivers will be available soon and will access more of the Voodoo 2's capabilities. He also said that he has begun work on the soon-to-be-released-and-blow-everything-else-out-of-the-water Banshee card, a 2-D/3-D combo card scheduled for Q3 release.

Also, it would appear that the Obsidian 2 from Quantum 3-D is running in Linux under the Glide drivers... and the people from Quantum didn't even know it. Finally, Darryl said that there is now a Glide library for Alpha Linux that will be available very soon.

Next up was Metrolink, announcing their latest X server release, which includes the OpenGL extensions for use with Permedia, GLint, and more chips. Basically, it appears that hardware vendore are becoming more interested in supporting Linux, but only feel secure with NDAs with commercial companies like Metrolink. Metrolink stated that they feel that the XFree86 and Mesa can cooexist with commercial servers and extensions and that there will continue to be a demand for each, depending on the situation.

The important thing is... requests for Linux support are having an effect, and companies that are traditionally Windows-only are turning their heads.

Three more companies had reps there to answer questions. Precision Insight had a short blurb about their interest in Linux, and said that they fully support direct hardware rendering, instead of incurring overhead by going through the X server.

3DFX gave a little presentation on the new Banshee (which can have up to 16MB video memory not including texture memory, up to 1920x1440 resolution, and blazing 2D and 3D performance). They also said that they'd really like to hear back from Linux developers about what people are doing with the Glide-based software. You can mail them at devprogram@3dfx.com if you have a nifty application that you want to tell them about.

Finally, SGI came to the front of the room, and was immediately inundated with questions about Farenheit and the future of Open GL. Farenheit is a spec that is being "published" by SGI and Microsoft and is a hybrid of Direct3D and OpenGL, and will allow for faster 3D on Windows systems. Unfortunately, that leaves the Linux community out of the game. This is even more true with the SceneGraph API that is being developed concurrently, and when finished, will be completely owned by Microsoft. HPUX, IRIX, and a couple others will be supported, but a port to any other systems will require a license from Microsoft.

SGI did make sure to stress though, that for cross-platform 3D apps, there is not substitute for pure OpenGL, and that they, in no way, will discontinue support or develeopment of the OpenGL that we all know and love.

One more thing. It was suggested at the meeting that there is an engineer for a "company that is VERY well known in 3D modeling and animation" who has ported their complete software package to Linux. No names were mentioned, just the suggestion that we "harass them all politely" until we can convince them that a commercial release of the product would be a viable business move.

My opinion? I'd have to place my bets on Softimage. They already have their product on NT and IRIX. So go and evangelize... just remember... it's just a guess.

Bruce Perens sent us a bunch of info about the status of the Linux Standard Base System. I'm running it as a feature to get some feedback on it. The LSB is definately one of the most important issues facing Linux these days; especially if we want it to continue to grow. Bruce also says "We would like to discuss the following proposal in BOF sessions at both Linux Expo and Linux Kongress. Nothing about the proposal is cast in concrete until after those meetings." The following comes from Bruce Perens

PROJECT PROPOSAL AND CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: THE LINUX STANDARD BASE (LSB) project (V1.5)

The Linux(R) Operating System's rapid adoption by millions of computer users everywhere is direct recognition of the quality of the software and success of the freely distributable software development model. In order to ensure that large software application programs, from binary-only tools sold by the largest software companies, to freely distributable desktop environments built cooperatively over the net, run smoothly on as many Linux-based computers as possible - the Linux Standard Base (LSB) Project is an attempt to define the common core of components that can be expected to be found in any "Linux" system.

The signers of this proposal are most of the leading commercial Linux distributions, board members of Linux International, and key personnel like Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. We propose a set of goals and the organization for this project, and invite all other Linux distributions to join us in planning the project and carrying it out.

The "base system" is the set of programs, libraries and files that are essential to every Linux system. These objects and their related file formats play a supporting role for every application. Examples of this include (but are probably not limited to) the C library, the format and placement of system files, and other necessary interfaces. Linux distributions traditionally do not distinguish themselves on these interfaces, they distinguish themselves in other categories, such as the applications on their system, quality and ease of installation, and quality and ease of systems administration as well as support for users. Linux distributions should maintain the base system collectively, as the kernel is maintained, rather than individually.

The Linux Standard Base project will provide a vendor-neutral standard, backed by source code, upon which to build Linux distributions, much as the Linux kernel project provides a single kernel that is shared by all distributions. This standard base will be distributed as a reference platform from which Linux distributions may be derived and which application producers may use for testing, but it will _never_ be targeted to be an end-user solution in itself, as that is the role of the Linux distributions that incorporate the standard.

The application of the standard will be that any program that runs successfully on the reference platform can be expected to run on all Linux systems. If they don't, the distribution creator must either fix a problem with their own distribution, or convince us that there's a bug in the sample distribution which violates the standards. This is not intended to prohibit distributions from making their own extensions to the base system, or even to use different source code from what is supplied in the reference platform - it's only meant to provide a common set of features that will be known to exist on every Linux system which ISVs can depend on.

Participation in the base standard will assure the distributions of compatibility with each other for the set of applications that depend only on the files and libraries in the reference platform. As time passes, the standard will expand to include most of the files and libraries upon which a commercial application might depend.

The Linux Standard Base System will be 100% compliant with the Open Source Definition. This assures all distributions that they can derive from it without concern over licensing problems for themselves or their users. Development will be carried out in the public, with anonymous access to the CVS archive and the developer mailing lists. The core group will be a mix of high-quality developers from the Linux community and the staff of commercial distributions, with an organization similar to the tremendously successful Linux kernel development team. Attention will be paid to standards such as POSIX and the FHS (the successor to the Linux Filesystem Standard). However, the project goes far beyond the utility of these standards, because rather than produce only paper documents, it will provide a complete implementation of the standard, ready to be integrated into Linux distributions or used as a reference platform for application developers. This will provide the Linux distributions with improved time-to-market, lower cost, and much less duplication of effort than a paper standard which is defined to fully take into account side effects, undocumented issues, etc.

We propose Bruce Perens as the project leader. He has the experience of having run Debian for several years, during which he did extensive work on Debian's base system. He is a board member of Linux International, president of Software in the Public Interest, and a member of the 86open steering committee. He is the principal author of the "Open Source Definition" and its predecessor, the "Debian Free Software Guidelines". He has been a Unix systems programmer since 1981, and is currently employed by Pixar Animation Studios, makers of "Toy Story".

The Linux Standard Base System will implement some of the goals of the 86open project, which proposes to establish an interoperability standard for all Unix-like operating systems.

We, the undersigned, endorse this proposal, and ask that other distributions and ISVs also join us to help further define this proposal and then to help implement it:

Linus Torvalds, Creator of Linux
Jon A. Hall, Executive Director, Linux International
Bruce Perens, Director Linux International, proposed Project Leader
Ransom H. Love, Director Linux International, General Manager, OpenLinux Division, Caldera, Inc.
Roland Dyroff, Director Linux International, S.u.S.E. Linux
Mark Bolzern, Director Linux International, President Linux Mall and WorkGroup Solutions, Inc.
Phil Hughes, Director Linux International, Publisher, Linux Journal
Larry Augustin, Director Linux International, President VA Research
Kit Cosper, Director Linux International, President Linux Hardware Solutions, Inc.
Garry M. Paxinos, Director Linux International, Vice President Metro Link Incoporated.
Cliff Miller, Director Linux International, President, Pacific HiTech (TurboLinux)
Ted Cook, Director Linux International, President, Enhanced Software Technologies.
Tom Lang, Director Linux International, President, H & L Software
Eric S. Raymond, open-source evangelist and author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
Sam Ockman, President, Penguin Computing, Chairman, LINC: the International Linux Conference and Exposition

Non-Linux Supporters:
Jordan Hubbard, FreeBSD project.

Linux(R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries.

Jon Hall, Executive Director of Linux International, said "The success of this project will mean a tremendous boost for Linux. Across-the-board compatibility of applications will be a tremendous boon for end-users, and will help Linux assume a leadership position in the operating-systems market."

"A Linux standard supported in the spirit of Open Source software is a major step in removing the last obstacle to the main stream adoption of Linux by key hardware and software providers in the industry. This standard will facilitate an increased quantity and quality of business solutions for Linux. Caldera salutes Linux International's efforts and lends its support to promoting this much needed step in the evolution and adoption of Linux." - Ransom H. Love, General Manager, OpenLinux Division, Caldera, Inc.

"The Linux Standard Base (LSB) project will help to insure that software that runs on Linux from one vendor will also run on another. It provides a common meeting ground for all looking to support a truly open solution to computing. Progress is only possible through communication, and communication is possible through concepts in common and words that express these concepts. Consider LSB to be a dictionary for basic Linux." - Mark Bolzern, Director Linux International, President of Linux Mall and WorkGroup Solutions, Inc.

"Over the past six years, Linux has grown from a college student's idea to a serious commercial success. This project assures users that their choice of Linux will be supported across vendors as well as across hardware platforms." - Phil Hughes, Publisher, Linux Journal

"It's one of the great advantages of Linux that when users have problems like compatibility someone like Bruce Perens can step forward and solve it for them. Nowhere else do you find that kind of response. It's that kind of problem solving support that made InfoWorld give its Best Technical Support award to the Linux community. VA Research will support the project through the donation of hardware resources and network bandwidth." - Larry Augustin, President VA Research

"The fact that the Linux community is actively addressing the issues of binary compatibility between various distributions indicates the transition of Linux from a hobbyist's operating system to that of a commercially viable environment," said Garry M. Paxinos, Director Linux International and Vice President of Metro Link Incorporated.

"The vitality of the Linux movement comes from the diversity, cooperation and openness of the Linux community. The LSB Project furthers the cooperative spirit by providing a set of common building blocks that draw together the various Linux flavors. It will be welcomed by Linux users and developers alike." - Cliff Miller, President of Pacific HiTech (TurboLinux)

"The Linux Standard Base project, coupled with the outstanding growth of Linux in the marketplace, presents a compelling invitation to software developers to port their wares to Linux. As an ISV who entered the Linux market early on, I am proud to be associated with this project. EST's success in the Linux marketplace has far exceeded our original expectations. and I invite other ISV's to jump on the Linux bandwagon ahead of their competition." - Ted Cook, President, Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc.

"The value of this project, both for the Linux world at large and OS's like FreeBSD who would have far fewer applications available were it not for their ability to run Linux binaries, is beyond question. A single standard for ISVs to follow will allow them to reach the maximum number of Linux and FreeBSD users with the least amount of effort and is in everyone's best interest. Bruce Perens has our full and enthusiastic support." - Jordan Hubbard, FreeBSD project leader.

Bruce Perens sent us a bunch of info about the status of the Linux Standard Base System. I'm running it as a feature to get some feedback on it. The LSB is definately one of the most important issues facing Linux these days; especially if we want it to continue to grow. Bruce also says "We would like to discuss the following proposal in BOF sessions at both Linux Expo and Linux Kongress. Nothing about the proposal is cast in concrete until after those meetings." The following comes from Bruce Perens

PROJECT PROPOSAL AND CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: THE LINUX STANDARD BASE (LSB) project (V1.5)

The Linux(R) Operating System's rapid adoption by millions of computer users everywhere is direct recognition of the quality of the software and success of the freely distributable software development model. In order to ensure that large software application programs, from binary-only tools sold by the largest software companies, to freely distributable desktop environments built cooperatively over the net, run smoothly on as many Linux-based computers as possible - the Linux Standard Base (LSB) Project is an attempt to define the common core of components that can be expected to be found in any "Linux" system.

The signers of this proposal are most of the leading commercial Linux distributions, board members of Linux International, and key personnel like Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. We propose a set of goals and the organization for this project, and invite all other Linux distributions to join us in planning the project and carrying it out.

The "base system" is the set of programs, libraries and files that are essential to every Linux system. These objects and their related file formats play a supporting role for every application. Examples of this include (but are probably not limited to) the C library, the format and placement of system files, and other necessary interfaces. Linux distributions traditionally do not distinguish themselves on these interfaces, they distinguish themselves in other categories, such as the applications on their system, quality and ease of installation, and quality and ease of systems administration as well as support for users. Linux distributions should maintain the base system collectively, as the kernel is maintained, rather than individually.

The Linux Standard Base project will provide a vendor-neutral standard, backed by source code, upon which to build Linux distributions, much as the Linux kernel project provides a single kernel that is shared by all distributions. This standard base will be distributed as a reference platform from which Linux distributions may be derived and which application producers may use for testing, but it will _never_ be targeted to be an end-user solution in itself, as that is the role of the Linux distributions that incorporate the standard.

The application of the standard will be that any program that runs successfully on the reference platform can be expected to run on all Linux systems. If they don't, the distribution creator must either fix a problem with their own distribution, or convince us that there's a bug in the sample distribution which violates the standards. This is not intended to prohibit distributions from making their own extensions to the base system, or even to use different source code from what is supplied in the reference platform - it's only meant to provide a common set of features that will be known to exist on every Linux system which ISVs can depend on.

Participation in the base standard will assure the distributions of compatibility with each other for the set of applications that depend only on the files and libraries in the reference platform. As time passes, the standard will expand to include most of the files and libraries upon which a commercial application might depend.

The Linux Standard Base System will be 100% compliant with the Open Source Definition. This assures all distributions that they can derive from it without concern over licensing problems for themselves or their users. Development will be carried out in the public, with anonymous access to the CVS archive and the developer mailing lists. The core group will be a mix of high-quality developers from the Linux community and the staff of commercial distributions, with an organization similar to the tremendously successful Linux kernel development team. Attention will be paid to standards such as POSIX and the FHS (the successor to the Linux Filesystem Standard). However, the project goes far beyond the utility of these standards, because rather than produce only paper documents, it will provide a complete implementation of the standard, ready to be integrated into Linux distributions or used as a reference platform for application developers. This will provide the Linux distributions with improved time-to-market, lower cost, and much less duplication of effort than a paper standard which is defined to fully take into account side effects, undocumented issues, etc.

We propose Bruce Perens as the project leader. He has the experience of having run Debian for several years, during which he did extensive work on Debian's base system. He is a board member of Linux International, president of Software in the Public Interest, and a member of the 86open steering committee. He is the principal author of the "Open Source Definition" and its predecessor, the "Debian Free Software Guidelines". He has been a Unix systems programmer since 1981, and is currently employed by Pixar Animation Studios, makers of "Toy Story".

The Linux Standard Base System will implement some of the goals of the 86open project, which proposes to establish an interoperability standard for all Unix-like operating systems.

We, the undersigned, endorse this proposal, and ask that other distributions and ISVs also join us to help further define this proposal and then to help implement it:

Linus Torvalds, Creator of Linux
Jon A. Hall, Executive Director, Linux International
Bruce Perens, Director Linux International, proposed Project Leader
Ransom H. Love, Director Linux International, General Manager, OpenLinux Division, Caldera, Inc.
Roland Dyroff, Director Linux International, S.u.S.E. Linux
Mark Bolzern, Director Linux International, President Linux Mall and WorkGroup Solutions, Inc.
Phil Hughes, Director Linux International, Publisher, Linux Journal
Larry Augustin, Director Linux International, President VA Research
Kit Cosper, Director Linux International, President Linux Hardware Solutions, Inc.
Garry M. Paxinos, Director Linux International, Vice President Metro Link Incoporated.
Cliff Miller, Director Linux International, President, Pacific HiTech (TurboLinux)
Ted Cook, Director Linux International, President, Enhanced Software Technologies.
Tom Lang, Director Linux International, President, H & L Software
Eric S. Raymond, open-source evangelist and author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
Sam Ockman, President, Penguin Computing, Chairman, LINC: the International Linux Conference and Exposition

Non-Linux Supporters:
Jordan Hubbard, FreeBSD project.

Linux(R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries.

Jon Hall, Executive Director of Linux International, said "The success of this project will mean a tremendous boost for Linux. Across-the-board compatibility of applications will be a tremendous boon for end-users, and will help Linux assume a leadership position in the operating-systems market."

"A Linux standard supported in the spirit of Open Source software is a major step in removing the last obstacle to the main stream adoption of Linux by key hardware and software providers in the industry. This standard will facilitate an increased quantity and quality of business solutions for Linux. Caldera salutes Linux International's efforts and lends its support to promoting this much needed step in the evolution and adoption of Linux." - Ransom H. Love, General Manager, OpenLinux Division, Caldera, Inc.

"The Linux Standard Base (LSB) project will help to insure that software that runs on Linux from one vendor will also run on another. It provides a common meeting ground for all looking to support a truly open solution to computing. Progress is only possible through communication, and communication is possible through concepts in common and words that express these concepts. Consider LSB to be a dictionary for basic Linux." - Mark Bolzern, Director Linux International, President of Linux Mall and WorkGroup Solutions, Inc.

"Over the past six years, Linux has grown from a college student's idea to a serious commercial success. This project assures users that their choice of Linux will be supported across vendors as well as across hardware platforms." - Phil Hughes, Publisher, Linux Journal

"It's one of the great advantages of Linux that when users have problems like compatibility someone like Bruce Perens can step forward and solve it for them. Nowhere else do you find that kind of response. It's that kind of problem solving support that made InfoWorld give its Best Technical Support award to the Linux community. VA Research will support the project through the donation of hardware resources and network bandwidth." - Larry Augustin, President VA Research

"The fact that the Linux community is actively addressing the issues of binary compatibility between various distributions indicates the transition of Linux from a hobbyist's operating system to that of a commercially viable environment," said Garry M. Paxinos, Director Linux International and Vice President of Metro Link Incorporated.

"The vitality of the Linux movement comes from the diversity, cooperation and openness of the Linux community. The LSB Project furthers the cooperative spirit by providing a set of common building blocks that draw together the various Linux flavors. It will be welcomed by Linux users and developers alike." - Cliff Miller, President of Pacific HiTech (TurboLinux)

"The Linux Standard Base project, coupled with the outstanding growth of Linux in the marketplace, presents a compelling invitation to software developers to port their wares to Linux. As an ISV who entered the Linux market early on, I am proud to be associated with this project. EST's success in the Linux marketplace has far exceeded our original expectations. and I invite other ISV's to jump on the Linux bandwagon ahead of their competition." - Ted Cook, President, Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc.

"The value of this project, both for the Linux world at large and OS's like FreeBSD who would have far fewer applications available were it not for their ability to run Linux binaries, is beyond question. A single standard for ISVs to follow will allow them to reach the maximum number of Linux and FreeBSD users with the least amount of effort and is in everyone's best interest. Bruce Perens has our full and enthusiastic support." - Jordan Hubbard, FreeBSD project leader.