Slashdot Mirror

Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.

They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves.

Heres a few examples of secrets theyre keeping to themselves. Luckily, I'm a 1337 h4XX0r. (-Karma)

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 8.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 6.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 5c.ps.gz http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 4.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 2.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 1.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 0.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig8 9.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/part ition-tr.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/fixt ure-tr.pdf http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/deepshadows/de epshad.pdf Thats enough for now.

Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.

They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves.

Heres a few examples of secrets theyre keeping to themselves. Luckily, I'm a 1337 h4XX0r. (-Karma)

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 8.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 6.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 5c.ps.gz http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 4.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 2.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 1.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 0.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig8 9.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/part ition-tr.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/fixt ure-tr.pdf http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/deepshadows/de epshad.pdf Thats enough for now.

Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.

They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves.

Heres a few examples of secrets theyre keeping to themselves. Luckily, I'm a 1337 h4XX0r. (-Karma)

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 8.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 6.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 5c.ps.gz http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 4.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 2.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 1.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 0.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig8 9.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/part ition-tr.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/fixt ure-tr.pdf http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/deepshadows/de epshad.pdf Thats enough for now.

Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.

They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves.

Heres a few examples of secrets theyre keeping to themselves. Luckily, I'm a 1337 h4XX0r. (-Karma)

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 8.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 6.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 5c.ps.gz http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 4.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 2.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 1.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 0.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig8 9.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/part ition-tr.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/fixt ure-tr.pdf http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/deepshadows/de epshad.pdf Thats enough for now.

Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.

They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves.

Heres a few examples of secrets theyre keeping to themselves. Luckily, I'm a 1337 h4XX0r. (-Karma)

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 8.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 6.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 5c.ps.gz http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 4.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 2.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 1.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 0.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig8 9.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/part ition-tr.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/fixt ure-tr.pdf http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/deepshadows/de epshad.pdf Thats enough for now.

Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.

They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves.

Heres a few examples of secrets theyre keeping to themselves. Luckily, I'm a 1337 h4XX0r. (-Karma)

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 8.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 6.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 5c.ps.gz http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 4.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 2.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 1.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 0.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig8 9.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/part ition-tr.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/fixt ure-tr.pdf http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/deepshadows/de epshad.pdf Thats enough for now.

Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.

They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves.

Heres a few examples of secrets theyre keeping to themselves. Luckily, I'm a 1337 h4XX0r. (-Karma)

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 8.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 6.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 5c.ps.gz http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 4.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 2.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 1.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 0.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig8 9.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/part ition-tr.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/fixt ure-tr.pdf http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/deepshadows/de epshad.pdf Thats enough for now.

Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.

They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves.

Heres a few examples of secrets theyre keeping to themselves. Luckily, I'm a 1337 h4XX0r. (-Karma)

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 8.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 6.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 5c.ps.gz http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 4.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 2.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 1.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 0.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig8 9.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/part ition-tr.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/fixt ure-tr.pdf http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/deepshadows/de epshad.pdf Thats enough for now.

Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.

They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves.

Heres a few examples of secrets theyre keeping to themselves. Luckily, I'm a 1337 h4XX0r. (-Karma)

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 8.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 6.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 5c.ps.gz http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 4.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 2.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 1.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 0.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig8 9.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/part ition-tr.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/fixt ure-tr.pdf http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/deepshadows/de epshad.pdf Thats enough for now.

Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.

They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves.

Heres a few examples of secrets theyre keeping to themselves. Luckily, I'm a 1337 h4XX0r. (-Karma)

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 8.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 6.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 5c.ps.gz http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 4.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 2.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 1.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig9 0.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/sig8 9.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/part ition-tr.pdf http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/research/deb/fixt ure-tr.pdf http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/deepshadows/de epshad.pdf Thats enough for now.

Even more amusing are the bonus requirements for the Mac/PC Systems Administrator position:

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

Pixar has one position that should be of interest to the /. crowd: (asks for a unix geek who can program PERL etc.)
MacOS X Systems Administrator

Here is their comlpete listing of current jobs:

Mac/PC Systems Administrator, Systems
MacOS X Systems Administrator, Systems
Security and Safety Officer, Facilities
Software Engineer, RenderMan Products (Seattle)
Quality Assurance Engineer/API Tester, Studio Tools
Project Coordinator, Studio Tools
Film-On-Line Tools Engineer, Studio Tools
QA/Automated Test Engineer, Studio Tools

Good Luck!

Pixar has one position that should be of interest to the /. crowd: (asks for a unix geek who can program PERL etc.)
MacOS X Systems Administrator

Here is their comlpete listing of current jobs:

Mac/PC Systems Administrator, Systems
MacOS X Systems Administrator, Systems
Security and Safety Officer, Facilities
Software Engineer, RenderMan Products (Seattle)
Quality Assurance Engineer/API Tester, Studio Tools
Project Coordinator, Studio Tools
Film-On-Line Tools Engineer, Studio Tools
QA/Automated Test Engineer, Studio Tools

Good Luck!

Joe Letteri, Visual Effects Supervisor for Weta Digital, said, "The new speed optimizations in PRMan 11 gave us the breakthrough we needed to put the finishing touches on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. PRMan 11 has so many great new features that we couldn't use them all! "

Joe Letteri, Visual Effects Supervisor for Weta Digital, said, "The new speed optimizations in PRMan 11 gave us the breakthrough we needed to put the finishing touches on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. PRMan 11 has so many great new features that we couldn't use them all! "

Yeah. That's why Pixar Animation uses Linux, because it's GUI is so unresponsive. Right?

That's why I'm still playing NetHack...well that and because it's still the best game out there.

Seriously though, can these super cards be used for anything other than the generation of display output? As they are doing so much 3D processing so much faster than any CPU can, I'd like to see the ability to use these GPU's as coprocessors for rendering images back to software/files rather than just to display output. Something like using it as a hardware accelerator for POV-Ray or Renderman. Does anybody have any insight into potential non-traditional uses of these super cards?

They write their own rendering software, and ported it to Linux for this switch. I'm sure they could have done a PPC port instead, if that's what was needed.

I must be lost here, but most of these renderfarms I've seen that use Sun products is for network storage solutions, though they're even losing the marketshare these days. I think what people are starting to realize is that just because you paid a whole lot for it, doesn't mean you got "The Best".

Supercomputers of 5 years ago can be built today with computers being thrown away and setup into a computing cluster. Obviously the good old days of 40 trillion dollar super computers paid for by the goernment aren't the super computers of today.

One LAST try.

https://renderman.pixar.com/products/pricelists/in dex.htm

Okay, yes, 1600x1200 is unrealistic to benchmark this bargain basement chip. But, DX9 is nothing to sneeze at. It's Renderman in realtime people. Sure this chip may do great on games already released, but what about DX9 games coming down the pike in the next 90 days? Personally, I wouldn't buy it if it can't cut it for at least 180 days. (Extreme for Slashdot readership, yes, but hey, my Nissan's got 110,000 miles on it). Me thinks this Trident chip is DX9 compatible in name only.

Some interesting background reading is here.

First thing, you should be careful with your terminology.

A modeller lets you create models and scenes. A renderer turns these scenes into 2D images. A compositor lets you turn these 2D images into other 2D images, and usually also lets you assemble them into single-file animation formats. Don't expect to do any "real" 3D work without at least one of each.

It's confusing because many modellers have renderers built in. They are usually inadequate for complex jobs. (Though, in fairness, one blockbuster 100% computer animated feature film has been made using Maya's built-in renderer, so it's not exactly useless.) However, thanks to the wonders of Open Source, the modeller is now the only part you have to buy.

Here's what I suggest:

• Get Maya Complete. This will cost money.
• Get Liquid, which will cost you nothing. This will export Maya to RenderMan(TM).
• Get Aqsis, which will cost you nothing. This is your renderer. It is RenderMan(tm) compliant, which is the de facto standard for communication between renderers and modellers.
• Get Cinelerra, which will cost you nothing. This is your compositor. (Available only for Linux, unfortunately, but it's free.)

If you find yourself making money with these, you can replace and augment bits if you find them not doing what you want. (For example, replace Aqsis with RDC or PRMan and replace Cinelerra with Shake or After Effects. You can even augment Maya with Houdini or SoftImage if you feel like spending money.)

The key here is to stick with standards so you can drop in replacements into your production line.

Good luck.

Finding Nemo

The Incredibles

Cars

Nothing about "Ray Gunn", nothing about "Toy Story 3". What's your source?

Yes, Liquid only allows you to connect (seamlessly) Maya to a RenderMan renderer. PRMan is U$5000 per license. RAT is even more expensive. Maya Complete now is U$2000, but Unlimited is U$7,000:

As you can see from the list prices with Liquid you are partially subsituting RAT, which is $8,500. Specifically you are substituting MTOR which is the bridge between Maya and PRMan, You would still miss on things like Alfred, Slim and It.

Why it does matter is that now small studios or even artists can afford a Maya to RenderMan bridge. Potentially they could combine it with cheaper alternatives like RenderDotC, AIR or 3Delight on the renderer part, and something like Smedge for distributing the rendering jobs. So potentially it could be easier to save the cost of RAT for artists workstations. Also if a studio has in house tools, they could potentially integrate them easier since the code for Liquid will be available.

Ehhhh, First LOTR was rendered with the standard Photorealistic RenderMan, they didn't use radiosity or global illumination.

Second you don't get MTOR automatically, it's part of the RenderMan Artist Tools (RAT). You can also buy PRMan separate with no RAT, after all why would you need RAT in render nodes.

Third over 90% of movies VFX are rendered with PRman and most of the time with no GI of any kind, for over 15 years that PRMan and Pixar came to being. That's what good lighting TDs do. GI is not the be all end all for movie VFX production work.

Fourth, Pixar announce this past SIGGRAPH that PRMan 11 will support GI via photon mapping, which included many interesting new shading language calls. This seems to have been in response to Exluna's Entropy before it's demise:

CGI, in and of itself, is not the problem. The problem is George Lucas, and his lack of artistic taste. There are good examples of CG characters that do engage an audience, and display life and personality. Pixar and Big Idea come to mind. CG is just a tool.

Consider implementing the Renderman interface. It's a widely accepted standard for renderers, and it's not difficult to write code that will export Renderman-ready files. The best part, I think, is that there are a diverse group of renderman renderers out there, some even GPL'ed. That way, you can focus on writing a good modeling/animation package, without having to worry about the renderer, or vice-versa.

Dan

(5 movies was it? So that's Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc, and whatever the next one is).

Actually, TS 2 doesn't count towards the 5 because it's a sequel. Disney wants them to do a TS 3, but Pixar refuses unless they can count it towards the 5 movie deal.

Oh and Finding Nemo (see here or here or just google it) is the next one from Pixar - then one more and Pixar can go it alone (wether that is good or not remains to be seen).

(5 movies was it? So that's Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc, and whatever the next one is).

Actually, TS 2 doesn't count towards the 5 because it's a sequel. Disney wants them to do a TS 3, but Pixar refuses unless they can count it towards the 5 movie deal.

Oh and Finding Nemo (see here or here or just google it) is the next one from Pixar - then one more and Pixar can go it alone (wether that is good or not remains to be seen).

(5 movies was it? So that's Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc, and whatever the next one is).

Actually, TS 2 doesn't count towards the 5 because it's a sequel. Disney wants them to do a TS 3, but Pixar refuses unless they can count it towards the 5 movie deal.

Oh and Finding Nemo (see here or here or just google it) is the next one from Pixar - then one more and Pixar can go it alone (wether that is good or not remains to be seen).

Ha Ha Ha.

Nice to see that ATI recognizes that their stuff is inferior to a nice render farm, nVidia doesn't seem to quite understand that yet, seeing as how they keep claiming "Pixar Quality".

Don't expect to see nVidia- or ATI-rendered imagery on the big screen anytime soon. Yes, graphics cards are advancing in ability and speed. However, this is largely irrelevant to the world of CGI. No matter how good it looks on a monitor, it's not good enough for film.

Yes, I'm sure a Toy Story 2 quality film could be rendered on one of these cards. However, by the time these cards come out, TS2 will be nearly 3 years old.

The vision of the artists themselves is what drives CGI, and no matter how good the real-time solution is, the brute-force computational solution will be better - simply because it doesn't have to be real-time.

Fast graphics cards definitely make animators lives easier. We (medium-sized visual effects studio) recently switched from SGI Octanes to Intellistations with ATI FireGL 8800s running Linux. Being able to tumble fully-shaded medium res characters in real-time is sweet. But, it's not good enough, even for TV. And, by the time a card exists that IS good enough, the bar will be much higher.

This is what Pixar's Photorealistic RenderMan does RIGHT NOW. link

Now show me that in real-time and I'll marry your ugly Aunt Hilda.

Weta, the graphics power house behind Peter Jackson, have recently purchased NZ Herald: "[476 systems] at 2.2GHz with four gigabytes of memory each. The 950 processors will be added to 350 existing 1GHz Pentium 3 systems as part of a dedicated "render wall" comprising 22 racks." These will be running Renderman software on RedHat. For all those army sceens in LOTR, Grunt (Guaranteed Rendering of Unlimited Numbers of Things) was used, an in house product by Jon Allitt.

Blender itself was easy enough to use. Don't let the vast array of buttons get you down. It's really not that hard to learn. It will take you an hour. Two tops.
The real problem arose when I started getting serious about my 3d art. Don't get me wrong, Blender is a nice program for beginners. But for anyone who is serious about 3d art or animation, Blender doesn't cut it by a long shot. Even Bryce 5 produces nicer effects.

I really hope the OSS community can do something for the program. Afterall, look at POVray. That was one sweet program, considering that it too was free.
In the end, though. My employers demand the best. So I'm sitting here hammering out models in Maya 4 with the Renderman plugin, or 3d Studio Max with Cebas Final Render.
Check out the girl on the Final Render site, or the Gallery sections and you'll see what I mean.
Blender was a pretty sweet program(And you can't beat the price), but it still has a long way to go before professionals will even begin to take it seriously.

• opengl shader.
• a great paper on the hardware shading problem, and a very generic approach.
• stanford's rtsl.
• the proposed opengl2 also has a hardware shading abstraction language.

hopefully, opengl2's shading will become standard, and mitigate the cross-platform differences. it's seemingly a much better option than this new thing by nvidia, but we'll have to wait and see what does well in the marketplace, and with developers.

Keeping track of which is the desk-lamp and wich one is the computer is going to get difficult.

Apple Relizes that this is a share of the market place that it is missing - and I believe Apple is making it there - slowly.

3D - Market: Maya ported to Mac OS X
and with Pixar's Render Man already available for Linux I do not believe that Darwin will be far behind.
RenderMan
With the combination of Maya - Render Man - & Clusterable Darwin/ OS X machines (especially if thier low profile this puts Mac at the fore front of 3D rendering. I'm sure that Steve Jobs recognizes the demand for a setup such as this - as he is the CEO of PIXAR.

For the scientific field Apple has released Genentech BLAST and there a slew of other programs being ported from unix to OSX.

After observing Steve Jobs fro many years - you must realize that Jobs will not release a product until it is the most svelte & elegant thing in the market place.

When Apple does release low profile - Rack CPU's they will be *insane*. IT organizations & Science reasearch labs will drool all overthemselves.

But Jobs does not work on a normal time table:
Recognize market - develop product for market - release.

Jobs works more like this:
Recognize market.
Target specific areas in Market where the Mac can dominate, Think about that for several years.
Add ram & 50Mhz increase to iMac line.
Release software developing lust & desire for product line.
Begin engineering new product.
Take a nap.
Add ram & 50Mhz increase to iMac line
Scrap new product start over - with same deadline.
Release new product at Apple Dev WORLD Expo with the famous line "Oh, & one more thing...."

It's Microsoft's job to take on the Linux folks not Disney's

1. Pixar is a better animation studio than Disney is,
2. Eisner knows it,
3. and the Disney/Pixar contract has only three films to go...all currently in production.

It's Microsoft's job to take on the Linux folks not Disney's

1. Pixar is a better animation studio than Disney is,
2. Eisner knows it,
3. and the Disney/Pixar contract has only three films to go...all currently in production.

david baraff's & andy witkin's notes for physical simulation:

cmu or pixar

Yep - hardware is all the magic.... It's the way Steve Jobs wants it.

There was a post on Slashdot awhile ago (I know I should go find the link) that was pretty insightful to the way Steve thinks. Steve is a fully paid up member of the Style Council - cool design is his thing, remember the Cube - totally cool, and this was a total reprise of the NeXT Cube and they both bombed. Steve has an obsession about cool hardware and if you've eveer seen him demo OSX you can see him drooling over his candy coloured OS too. And do you get his "oh and one more thing' surprise fetish?

The point is could Steve ever bear to see his beautiful OS run on a beige box? Probably not. And he's a wealthy man having the time of his life - so why bother?. He has this company making these great looking computers, running a beautiful cutting edge OS and when he has time he can duck over to Pixar. I bet his idea of a great time is watching Monsters Inc on a Cinema Display running OS X. I have to agree - it's mindblowing.

So what's the motivation for going to Intel for Steve? He's having all the fun he wants, the business model is dubious - Apple is a hardware company.... I repeat HARDWARE company. Do you think that iPod is going to drive sales of computers for Apple... No. It's just more cool hardware. There's nothing about moving to Intel that does it for him.

I figure that Apple will begin to release more and more hardware products alongside their range of iComputers. It's much much more likely that Apple will support Intel based computers and operating systems for these other products... iPod will be the first of many.

So Cringley is way off - he doesn't get how Apple and Steve Jobs tick - he should stick to technology - this whole topic is too much about people for him to grok.

This whole discussion reminds me of a quote everyone forgets:

"Technology, no matter how dazzling, hold an audience for longer than five minutes without a captivating story."

Steve Jobs
Pixar's 1996 Report

People can wonder about how come some movie technology doesn't seem to make it, why do some movie studios with special effects have been sold. They have all forgotten this essential truth.

Until people see that the movie's ability to captivate is more important than the technology used in the movie (or to display to movie, for that matter) we will have more discussions like this. But as I write, there's over 400 posts to this discussion alone. I expect this point to be lost in the uproar.

Apple is trying to repeat it's desktop publishing success. To this day, a majority of publishing houses are mac-centric. Now, many studios have already converted to using Macs and Final Cut Pro to produce trailers and stuff like that. Steve Jobs is way into the video entertainment industry, and he's trying to make Apple be part of that.

Apple will never be huge like Microsoft, or Dell, but Apple is poised to become a dominant player in making all aspects of video - creating, managing, and viewing - accessible to everyone.

People have such a narrow focus on what computers are; they are bland commodities. Digital video is becoming a commodity too, and Apple is right there. Apple is trying to be part and parcel of the entertainment industry, not the computer industry. The entertainment industry is gargantuan compared to the computer industry.

Yes, the iMac as a computer industry commodity is a failure. But it may succeed as an entertainment industry commodity. That's Job's Big Picture.

My first thought was that it looked a whole lot like Luxo Jr.

It really reminds me of pixars luxo jr movie, the way the screen moves around in the movie they have online. Funny, since jobs was also founded pixar.

I hear that Apple was being sued by Pixar over the new iMac design.

Apparently, it looks too much like Pixar's corporate logo.

I hear that Apple was being sued by Pixar over the new iMac design.

Apparently, it looks too much like Pixar's corporate logo.

Many readers have already stated how this thing looks like Luxo
Jr. from them Pixar short. I have noticed that many mac sites and fans like to give
distiguishing nick-names to the different mac models to help stop
confusion. I mean how many rev's are there to the iMac yet they are
all called "iMac". Perhaps "Luxo", "Luxo Jr." or my favorite simply "Jr."

"iMac Jr." is cool, kind of like "My First Sony".

Be sure to go get the short film. it is quite good. http://www.pixar.com/shorts/ljr/index.html
(Pixar.com).

I know when i get mine I'm gonna name it Junior. And all I'll have
to do is move my small tv off my desk and it will fit right in with
my (2) 17" CRT's I use for Photoshop. My desk looks a little more like
the console in The Matirx everyday.

-jim
www.geocities.com/younkin3