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the then-vs-now for computer graphics animation than it will be as a movie per se. [it was hard to swallow then as a story] When I went to SigGraph in Boston in '82, it was more like a sci-fi con than a computing conference or trade show: young comp. graphics geeks all had tron on the brain and were very impressed withourselves despite how crude the technology was.
in Pixar was pretty much a gleam in Ed Catmull's eye back then. Tron was a technicolor collage of animation from a whole zoo of hacked graphic engines and computers like the Foonlee, none of which could out-draw a low end NVIDIA product nowadays.
But with the Disney-Pixar divorce, how are they going to draw this thing?

Yes, the website is run on WebObjects, on Xserve servers and OS X. Streaming is done with QuickTime Streaming Server.

Apple owns FileMaker so that would mean they have a database but whether they use it for the website I don't know. Oracle loves them and Larry E was a board member so maybe they use Oracle for the larger jobs and Filemaker for smaller jobs?

Pixar, Jobs' other company, has been doing a transition from Intel hardware over to Xserve now that Apple has RAID and SAN solutions together with Shake for video compositing as well as Pixar's own Renderman software.

Visit the QuickTime or Pixar websites for movie trailers just to see how well it all works together.

Yes, the website is run on WebObjects, on Xserve servers and OS X. Streaming is done with QuickTime Streaming Server.

Apple owns FileMaker so that would mean they have a database but whether they use it for the website I don't know. Oracle loves them and Larry E was a board member so maybe they use Oracle for the larger jobs and Filemaker for smaller jobs?

Pixar, Jobs' other company, has been doing a transition from Intel hardware over to Xserve now that Apple has RAID and SAN solutions together with Shake for video compositing as well as Pixar's own Renderman software.

Visit the QuickTime or Pixar websites for movie trailers just to see how well it all works together.

You can download them on Pixar's website.

Also, see some of the threads over at film-tech.com (a website/forum for projectionists). Most of them think it's neat, although there is some (probably not unjustified) worry that it could start a trend that would quickly grow out of control. Just image a year from now Disney or Fox decides to put their logo in a corner of the screen and keep it there through the whole movie, like those translucent logos that show up on the majority of cable TV channels. Yuk. Hopefully that won't happen, though.

You can view it off of Pixar's site as well here I also recently came across this funny stop motion/Lego/SWEIII short film here

• Clip 1 - Varied content mentioned below.
• Clip 2 - Five sentence plot summary.
• Clip 3 - Talks about an actor who's had parts in the Pixar movies

I think these were the clips that were shown just before three of the commercial breaks in the television airing of "Toy Story". If you want them in chronological order I think it was Clip 3, then Clip 2, then Clip 1.

The animation is rough. Very rough. You can see that some of the characters have undergone some design refinement so you can probably count on very little of what you see as something that will definitely be in the movie.

Clip One has the most potential for spoilers. It also has the most material from the movie itself rather than people talking about the movie. Here's an intentionally vague and rough description of the content:

• Character delivering two word line to another character indicating self-assurance.
• Behind the scenes view of render station. Very rough render of an action scene. Unable to determine OS or Window manager being run.
• A character not shown in other trailers or clips delivering a two word line of either brown-nosing or self-assurance. The impression is of a toss-away extra or practice animation.
• Low resolution, limited movement, oddly lit scene of two characters in possibly dangerous situation.
• A character gives a look of self-assurance to the camera. No lines.
• A character face extpresses a determined effort to do something, but the context is unclear.
• A voice actor shown in the recording studio recording a two word line. The voice is similar to a character in the promos. The line has no context other than a vague expression of urgency in the actor's voice.
• Some black and white storyboards shot from a distance. On pause you can vaguely make out some superheros using their powers.
• A different voice actor recording a 4 word line indicative of impatience.
• A character's face demonstrating unexpected suprise.
• Two characters sitting and watching something vaguely antrhopomorphic that appears to be vaporizing/disappearing/teleporting.
• A voice actor shown recording a ten word line (used in the two trailers) indicative of a self-assured attitude.
• Eight very fast (under a second) shots of characters in motion (and various stages of finished/rough animation)
• Actor saying nine word line indicative of either self-confidence or boredom (no context). This voice actor hasn't had lines in other trailers, but some posters in studio indicate what character this actor may play (not sure if that's a spoiler or not).
• An eight second assembly of different scenes. It is apparent that beyond a perhaps thematic relation, most of these are shown out of context. A conversation between two characters dominates the soundtrack which may or may not be a composite of different conversations.
• A character concluding one of the lines started by one of the voice actors. In context it may indicate slightly different gender roles (or his perception of gender roles) in the superhero universe.
• Five word line from one character indicative of suprise and frustration. May reveal a plot point not mentioned in other trailers but hard to tell not knowing who she is talking with.
• A one word reaction shot from a character indicating possible emotional immaturity being juxtaposed with the previous scene, but may be out of context.
• Concludes with a number of rapidly changing scenes of superheroics and superpowers.
• After a John Ratzenberger wrap up, a gadget parodying a popular superhero prop appears as t

• Clip 1 - Varied content mentioned below.
• Clip 2 - Five sentence plot summary.
• Clip 3 - Talks about an actor who's had parts in the Pixar movies

I think these were the clips that were shown just before three of the commercial breaks in the television airing of "Toy Story". If you want them in chronological order I think it was Clip 3, then Clip 2, then Clip 1.

The animation is rough. Very rough. You can see that some of the characters have undergone some design refinement so you can probably count on very little of what you see as something that will definitely be in the movie.

Clip One has the most potential for spoilers. It also has the most material from the movie itself rather than people talking about the movie. Here's an intentionally vague and rough description of the content:

• Character delivering two word line to another character indicating self-assurance.
• Behind the scenes view of render station. Very rough render of an action scene. Unable to determine OS or Window manager being run.
• A character not shown in other trailers or clips delivering a two word line of either brown-nosing or self-assurance. The impression is of a toss-away extra or practice animation.
• Low resolution, limited movement, oddly lit scene of two characters in possibly dangerous situation.
• A character gives a look of self-assurance to the camera. No lines.
• A character face extpresses a determined effort to do something, but the context is unclear.
• A voice actor shown in the recording studio recording a two word line. The voice is similar to a character in the promos. The line has no context other than a vague expression of urgency in the actor's voice.
• Some black and white storyboards shot from a distance. On pause you can vaguely make out some superheros using their powers.
• A different voice actor recording a 4 word line indicative of impatience.
• A character's face demonstrating unexpected suprise.
• Two characters sitting and watching something vaguely antrhopomorphic that appears to be vaporizing/disappearing/teleporting.
• A voice actor shown recording a ten word line (used in the two trailers) indicative of a self-assured attitude.
• Eight very fast (under a second) shots of characters in motion (and various stages of finished/rough animation)
• Actor saying nine word line indicative of either self-confidence or boredom (no context). This voice actor hasn't had lines in other trailers, but some posters in studio indicate what character this actor may play (not sure if that's a spoiler or not).
• An eight second assembly of different scenes. It is apparent that beyond a perhaps thematic relation, most of these are shown out of context. A conversation between two characters dominates the soundtrack which may or may not be a composite of different conversations.
• A character concluding one of the lines started by one of the voice actors. In context it may indicate slightly different gender roles (or his perception of gender roles) in the superhero universe.
• Five word line from one character indicative of suprise and frustration. May reveal a plot point not mentioned in other trailers but hard to tell not knowing who she is talking with.
• A one word reaction shot from a character indicating possible emotional immaturity being juxtaposed with the previous scene, but may be out of context.
• Concludes with a number of rapidly changing scenes of superheroics and superpowers.
• After a John Ratzenberger wrap up, a gadget parodying a popular superhero prop appears as t

• Clip 1 - Varied content mentioned below.
• Clip 2 - Five sentence plot summary.
• Clip 3 - Talks about an actor who's had parts in the Pixar movies

I think these were the clips that were shown just before three of the commercial breaks in the television airing of "Toy Story". If you want them in chronological order I think it was Clip 3, then Clip 2, then Clip 1.

The animation is rough. Very rough. You can see that some of the characters have undergone some design refinement so you can probably count on very little of what you see as something that will definitely be in the movie.

Clip One has the most potential for spoilers. It also has the most material from the movie itself rather than people talking about the movie. Here's an intentionally vague and rough description of the content:

• Character delivering two word line to another character indicating self-assurance.
• Behind the scenes view of render station. Very rough render of an action scene. Unable to determine OS or Window manager being run.
• A character not shown in other trailers or clips delivering a two word line of either brown-nosing or self-assurance. The impression is of a toss-away extra or practice animation.
• Low resolution, limited movement, oddly lit scene of two characters in possibly dangerous situation.
• A character gives a look of self-assurance to the camera. No lines.
• A character face extpresses a determined effort to do something, but the context is unclear.
• A voice actor shown in the recording studio recording a two word line. The voice is similar to a character in the promos. The line has no context other than a vague expression of urgency in the actor's voice.
• Some black and white storyboards shot from a distance. On pause you can vaguely make out some superheros using their powers.
• A different voice actor recording a 4 word line indicative of impatience.
• A character's face demonstrating unexpected suprise.
• Two characters sitting and watching something vaguely antrhopomorphic that appears to be vaporizing/disappearing/teleporting.
• A voice actor shown recording a ten word line (used in the two trailers) indicative of a self-assured attitude.
• Eight very fast (under a second) shots of characters in motion (and various stages of finished/rough animation)
• Actor saying nine word line indicative of either self-confidence or boredom (no context). This voice actor hasn't had lines in other trailers, but some posters in studio indicate what character this actor may play (not sure if that's a spoiler or not).
• An eight second assembly of different scenes. It is apparent that beyond a perhaps thematic relation, most of these are shown out of context. A conversation between two characters dominates the soundtrack which may or may not be a composite of different conversations.
• A character concluding one of the lines started by one of the voice actors. In context it may indicate slightly different gender roles (or his perception of gender roles) in the superhero universe.
• Five word line from one character indicative of suprise and frustration. May reveal a plot point not mentioned in other trailers but hard to tell not knowing who she is talking with.
• A one word reaction shot from a character indicating possible emotional immaturity being juxtaposed with the previous scene, but may be out of context.
• Concludes with a number of rapidly changing scenes of superheroics and superpowers.
• After a John Ratzenberger wrap up, a gadget parodying a popular superhero prop appears as t

"Ask kids in the back of a car on a two-hour trip, 'Hey, would you like to have your videos there?' My kids would," Gates said. "I guess Steve's kids just listen to Bach and Mozart. But mine, they want to watch 'Finding Nemo.' I don't know who made that, but it's really a neat movie."

You can find Pixar's original announcement at Pixar Animation Studios and Exluna Settle Lawsuit

Further discussions can be found at CD Talk

That sounds a lot like Pixar's short film "For the Birds. Truly a wonderful film, I saw it at SIGGRAPH 2000 and loved it instantly. So, am I right?

That sounds a lot like Pixar's short film "For the Birds. Truly a wonderful film, I saw it at SIGGRAPH 2000 and loved it instantly. So, am I right?

We did this because we primarily use Discreet's 3dsmax (with Brazil and V-Ray) and Eyeon's Digital Fusion. We have found that most existing render farm solutions do not support these two packages very well -- thus we decided to develop our own custom solution. We also support After Effects, Alias|Maya, AIR and other RenderMan compliant rendering packages.

Of interest to the general Slashdot crowd may be that this Deadline Render Management Solution is based on the open source (BSD License) Exocortex C# library originally released with this C# 3D Engine. Deadline is built with C# in the hopes that using Mono we will be able to start supporting Linux with minimal extra effort.

I'll be reading all the posts on this Slashdot thread but I would also appreciate any direct feedback on our current beta product. We also found solutions such as Rush and Smedge to be less than user friendly in many respects. Thus we have tried as best as we could to increase a 3D package that is not well supported by most render farm management solutions -- except for Discreet's Backburner (which we found not that that scalable.)

Sully's hair in Monsters, Inc. consisted of 2,320,413 computer-animated hairs. I'm not sure what you're criticizing - that they had individual hairs, or that you could see them? It looked pretty convincing to me, but I'm not a 3D animation aficionado.

The Incredibles

Release Date: November 5, 2004
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
Director: Brad Bird
Starring: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Lee, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Sarah Vowell, Brad Bird
Genre: Action, Animation, Adventure, Comedy
MPAA Rating: Not available
Official Website: TheIncredibles.com

Plot Summary: From the Academy Award-winning creators of "Toy Story", "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo", comes this hilarious action-packed animated adventure about superheroes. Bob Parr used to be one of the world's greatest superheroes (known to all as "Mr. Incredible"), saving lives and fighting evil on a daily basis. But now fifteen years later, Bob and his wife (a famous superhero in her own right) have adopted civilian identities and retreated to the suburbs to live normal lives with their three kids. Now he's a clock-punching insurance claims adjuster fighting boredom and a bulging waistline. Itching to get back into action, Bob gets his chance when a mysterious communication summons him to a remote island for a top-secret assignment. Pixar Animation Studios stretches the boundaries of the art form with this stylish and entertaining film. Acclaimed filmmaker Brad Bird ("The Iron Giant") directs.

As far as I can tell, that's Nemo. In fact, the bird is stolen from Finding Nemo too. WTF?

I think some little Mac kid just embraced and extended OpenOffice.

Almost every FX house? I don't think so.

It depends on the context. Most major and high end VFX houses heavily rely on PRMan, like ILM, Weta Digital, Digital Domain, Imageworks, Tippett Studio and more. Mental Ray is also being used quite a bit, ESC in particular is an MR only place. On the other hand the small and boutique houses tend to use stuff like Brazil, Lightwave, etc. Places like Cafe FX, Blur Studios, etc. For example the movie The Core was done mostly by small houses and had quite a bit of 3DMax use coupled with something (Brazil I think). But most major VFX movies have PRMan rendered in them simply because it's what the major use and they work on the big projects. A handful of places have propietary.

Just to witness some of the biggest VFX films this year will probably rely quite a bit on PRMan, like Van Helsing, Day After Tomorrow, Harry Potter 3, Troy, Spider-Man 2 and I Robot. Actually Pixar has a partial lists of where PRMan has ben used:

PRMan Movies

As far as price, well PRMan is a product for professional of a very niche market. As far as limitations, well almost every other renderer might be a bit more limited IMHO. PRMan is geared towards technical users.

Aqsis and other open-source Renderman renderers are not based on BMRT source code (which has never been released, I think) - they're all independently developed.

Renderman specification, as I understand it, has been "open" for a quite a time now. You can download the specs for both the protocols/APIs and the shading language. The main difference between commercial and open-source renderers is the supported feature set and the level of speed optimisations...

And yeah, it's nice to see Renderman stuff available as open source. Now, if only Blender folks would get us Renderman integration instead of three-quarters-convenient scripts, then we would also have a nice modeller as well...

It produces better looking renders for a couple of reasons. First, they support just about every rendering gizmo under the sun (ie it was designed from the beginning with support for motion blur). Next, the textures and lighting are handled by an extremely scriptable shading engine (actually, scripting may not even be the right word here since you actually compile your shaders). Finally, since it is scriptable, it seems like a lot of academics in the graphics section of computer science use Renderman as the test bed for their ideas, resulting in Renderman usually being the first place to pull off a new technique (ie subsurface scattering).

The rendering software for ROTK is Pixar's Renderman. Ed Catmull, Rob Cook, and Lauren Carpenter received an oscar for it in 2001. According to the site, "Pixar's RenderMan(R) was used in 35 of the last 39 films nominated for a Best Visual Effects Oscar(R) by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (2004)." An interesting feature article is in the IEEE Spectrum

The rendering software for ROTK is Pixar's Renderman. Ed Catmull, Rob Cook, and Lauren Carpenter received an oscar for it in 2001. According to the site, "Pixar's RenderMan(R) was used in 35 of the last 39 films nominated for a Best Visual Effects Oscar(R) by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (2004)." An interesting feature article is in the IEEE Spectrum

most notable is the last bullet under "Helpful Qualifications":

Experience navigating and controlling real-time 3D environments such as Quake and Unreal.

I've heard this a lot, but check the credits on a recent Pixar release, say Finding Nemo ... and it says "Rendered on Sun Microsystems Computer Systems". Also, check out Pixar How Web Do It, there are some pictures of the render farms and they look a lot like Sun E4800s with A5200 arrays to me.

Here is a page, from Pixar, describing their tools. Apparently it runs on Linux, Windows and Macintosh. You can even buy the software for use in your own films.

Not updated regularly for obvious reasons, but one of my favorite hidden gems on the web nevertheless.

I'm sure it would help, but looking over the specs for Pixar's software (available for outside licence) indicates that, not only does it run on Windows and other Unixes, but some of it is not available for OS X.

You know, a lot of friends and colleagues have been laughing at me when I tell them that Mac is the new force to be reckoned with. I've been watching them for a little while now and ever since they integrated FreeBSD into their OS, they've taken on a new direction which seems a lot more proffitable.

Don't get me wrong, I still have my two Linux and two OpenBSD boxes at home along with the obligatory windows boxes for the wife, daughter and gaming.. but you know what? I'd love to get my hands on one of them OS X boxes..

If you don't think I'm right.. that's your opinion.. but I know if I had OS X experience, I might be able to get a job Here!

---
No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.

Have you seen Finding Nemo? They must be afraid that they will escape into the wild ocean.

Oh well. Maybe Pixar will get on the stick and start porting to OS X. .

You mean like this?
https://renderman.pixar.com/products/news/G5_relea se.html

Luxo Jr. was that animation involving a jumpy, excitable desklamp that now serves as the "i" in Pixar (You'll see it in the opening titles of any Pixar film).

Of course, instead of just hearing people on Slashdot go on about Pixar's history, why not just get it straight from the horse's mouth?

A nice, clear, and easy history of Pixar.

Actually, Pixar was a spin-off from the computer graphics division at Lucasfilm. It was sold to Steve Jobs at that time in 1986. Disney wasn't involved until 1991 - well after Pixar had made a name for itself.

Official Pixar History

Yes, Renderman is the main rendererereerer of choice for many things. The latest version of Photorealistic Renderman (Pixar's actual product that they sell) supports true raytracing now.

There are even open source Renderman renderererer called Pixie that is very powerfull in it's own right.

But Finding Nemo is considered total animation and not special effects per-se. Special Effects are for live action movies where there is something needed to be added that only special effects could solve. Expect to see Finding Nemo up for Best Animated Movie though.

It's interesting to note though that Pixar got the very first Oscar for an animated short that was completely computer animated. Tin Toy!

Yes, Renderman is the main rendererereerer of choice for many things. The latest version of Photorealistic Renderman (Pixar's actual product that they sell) supports true raytracing now.

There are even open source Renderman renderererer called Pixie that is very powerfull in it's own right.

But Finding Nemo is considered total animation and not special effects per-se. Special Effects are for live action movies where there is something needed to be added that only special effects could solve. Expect to see Finding Nemo up for Best Animated Movie though.

It's interesting to note though that Pixar got the very first Oscar for an animated short that was completely computer animated. Tin Toy!

Hows that it is an amazing mistake - Its the best foilm inanimation this season ! LOTR is cool but...

It's interesting to note that a good number of these movies use Pixar's Rendering software. That being said, I am surprised that Finding Nemo is not in the list. Don't they consider animations for the visual effects Osar?

It's interesting to note that a good number of these movies use Pixar's Rendering software. That being said, I am surprised that Finding Nemo is not in the list. Don't they consider animations for the visual effects Osar?

Best: Finding Nemo

Worst, by miles: either ep of the Matrix frantschise.

It is raster based, but it now can do raytracing as well. No need to use BMRT as a rayserver for PRman in frankenrender mode anymore. Check out Pixar's Renderman page for what its capable of now.

Keep in mind that all the Pixar movies use rasterization techniques, not raytracing or radiosity.

Pixar disagrees:

In general, at Pixar we look for broad artistic and technical skills, rather than ability to run one package or another. We concentrate on finding people with breadth, depth, communication skills and the ability to collaborate. If you have those attributes, we can teach you the tools.

Linux is primarily used on headless RENDER FARMS

I can think of a few that would beg to differ:

1, 2, and 3.

Of course, given your statements; this info is pretty much useless to you as demonstrated by your statements.

1. Suns and SGI stations were used in 1997. They got old. They were replaced with Intel/Linux and saved a slew of money in the process.

2. They love linux because they can hack it up as much as they want. It does what they want and nothing else.

3. Microsoft tax anyone? Why pay it if you don't have to?

-B

America Losing Jobs?

How could that be possible?

A quick whip around finds him here and here.

Hmmm...maybe Disney will have to bribe Congress and get text messaging banned.

Disney isn't having any problems producing movies that don't suck.

According to Pixar, Toy Story 2 does not count as one of the five, being a sequel. So we will get another film: 'The Incredibles' The trailer is here

I was under the impression no real 3d cards are available on the mac. I mean real as in professional. Geforce's are fast but they are not accurate and can misrender information that a wildcat or a quadro can not. Quite essential for a movie.

As far as I'm aware, those types of cards aren't used for this type of work at all. Something like this might be more appropriate? But I don't work in that industry, so I have no idea.

Is their even a MacOSX port for Renderman?

Not yet, but they're thinking about it.

After looking at the article and TDRL's website, the more interesting side of the story seems to come from the USA Today article, specifically IBM's new goal to make computing power a utility such that on demand computing can be purchased just like the power/water/gas utilities of today. The animation stills from TDRL are ok, but nothing spectacular. I've seen more realistic stills come out of a skilled single artist with Maya (see here). The incredible results that Pixar has been able to achieve through their research into rendering technology (ie. RenderMan) combined with artistic prowess have brought them success, and I fail to see how the Terminator 2 producer merely acquiring processor power brings TDRL into a position to challenge the best in the field.

Animation is simple enough...
While this isn't something to snub your nose at, I'll really be impressed when a company such as Pixar starts using linux exclusively.

When talking about about Disney 3D trash, you mean Pixar right? hmm, who is the president of that company again? Steve Jobs that is! Eventhough he is a Mac-founder, many of the machines at Pixar is runned by Linux-clusters(and desktops), but nobody talked about hardware ... It might be that there are Macs everywhere, just running Linux and/or Darwin. I think that is what the G5 is build for at least.

OK /. How far away is a system like this from real-time photorealistic rendering?

I agree with other posters, who say that film resolution is a few times higher resolution than typical gamer's setup.
There are other barriers. Much of visual effects rendering involves sophisticated per-pixel programs called shaders. These often are processed in Rendermn [pixar.com]. These shaders perform generalized floating point operations, if-then-else structures, etc.
Newer generations of graphics cards are implementing floating point pixels and enough processing generality, that this kind of shading can be done on the graphics card

Before we get too excited about a scene running in/near realtime, remember that there can be a need for 100s of MB of data for 1 second of footage. Plus, lots of processing is done before rendering -- simulation of forces, cloth, hair/fur, smoke/fire, etc. Also, the composite process is performed after rendering to combine many layers (100+ for "hero" shots, like far-away harbor scenes in Pearl Harbor).

In the past few Siggraph [siggraph.org] conferences have shown prototypes of Nvidia hardware rendering movie scenes. Two years ago was a multi-character shot from Final Fantasy. Last year was a battle scene from LOTR. In each, lots of precomputing determined the geometry. While rendering, many many passes were made and the result was about a 5hz update rate.
(IMHO neither looked just like the movie -- perhaps the rendered images were adjusted in the composite phase, or they ran out of time for the demo).
The floating point operations occur so much faster on a GPU (Graphics) than a CPU, that speed-ups compared to software rendering of ~100x were not uncommon.

So, there are lots of precomputed items to rendering a scene in "realtime". And these scenes are optimized for just what you see -- nothing extra to slow down the process. There's less detail for smaller things than close things.
Do you want to fly around and explore a scene from a movie? Well, that might work -- but you won't see much detail.

Those that work on movies do not want to work in realtime -- they push their systems to the limit to maximize what they can do. Jurassic Park had scenes that took hours for one processor to render each frame. So do today's movies. Maybe with 1000s of processors, you can push it to 10+ hours per frame.