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Kaydara Announces FiLMBOX Support For Linux
Chicken can run writes: "Kaydara announced Thursday in a press release the port of FilmBox to Red Hat Linux V6.2. FilmBox is a real-time character animation and motion capture system and was the software behind the groovy slow-motion camera fx in The Matrix. What is interesting is that it is the first such system to be available on Red Hat Linux, opening further the door to major 3D production oportunities on the OS."
Personally, I think that it's stupid to port this stuff to Linux as long as it sags in the areas multimedia and real-time. This port would be better served for BeOS, where the latency for multimedia operations is much lower (and much more predictible). This isn't a flamebait against Linux, just a statement of the facts. Obviously they're looking for hype first before technological feasability.
Does this mean that we will see dirty, bearded, smelly, GNU hippies doing impossible feats like kung fu fighting, bullet dodging and absorbing, and jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper?
Where is Kaydara's website? If I understand this correctly you should be able to duplicate the efforts by using multiple still cameras placed in a row(circle, incline, etc.) and release the shutters simultaneously. The exposed (or digital) images are then placed back to back to create a seamless movement across the stage, with the actors(and all other motion) frozen. Kinda cool...
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. " - Revolution Books, NY
Hey, now i can render some REALLY cool 3d penguins!
Where's the warez site for this?
-Superb0wl
-Superb0wl
It's not that I'm lazy....it's that I just don't care.
...I have so many sarcastic comments I don't know which one use to use.
I know! A new poll!
[ ] This isn't freshmeat
[ ] Hollywood loves Linux because it saves them money
[ ] Imagine how many pictures you could take with a beowulf cluster of these thing
[ ] It runs on a handheld! (150 external cameras not included)
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No. The Matrix is just a pathetic rip off of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. One of the coolest serials ever.
and the most important thing to me in production will not be the actors, nor the script, nor locations, talent, creativity, or anything else. I'm just excited that I can do rip-off Matrix-like visual effects under LINUX.
Uh, did SLASHDOT read this article?
We'll see impossible feats like dirty, bearded, smelly, GNU hippies avoiding caffeine and moving teir eyes away from the screen. If the special FX budget can stretch to it, we'll see them eat food that isn't Pizza.
Linux is defiantly on the up at the moment,
Corel soon to release some decent gfx apps,
lots of games coming,
good support from DB2,Oracle @co..
it seems the 'real' world is looking at Linux as being more than a toy for geeks and a cheep web platform.
if only someone would write a good dtp for Linux (I feel a source forge attack coming on).
the only bad news in the article is that it used that 'RED HAT' phrase again..
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
With more software like this more people will use linux for Gaming and Film production environments. This will also create a better support for Video Cards so I hope more annoucements like happen so we can see a higher depand for linux video drivers
They download a copy of RedHat Linux 6.2. They port their software to RedHat Linux 6.2. They test only on RedHat Linux 6.2. They release RPMs.
Now that the product is out the door, they will likely test on other distros, doing porting where necessary (different libs or locations, for instance). Anyway, that's what my company is doing.
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Maybe when they say RedHat they mean it'll be bundled in the 2 zillion cd pack :) that they redhat sell for a few $
The reason why this is important for linux users is not that we all really need this program. Nor that Linux is the best platform for 3d development (as Beos users would argue).
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This is useful to us because of advocacy issues. It has been a long time since we have given up the elitist atttude to linux. We need desktop users, commercial applications, and we need the publicity. If the commercial apps are crap, we won't use them anyway, but at least we get publicity off them.
If this release seems to be a bit 'hyped' because they want to be seen as "redhat-linux friendly", then so be it. It can only help linux.
My two cents.
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As someone who has used FiLMBOX on NT before, lemme tell ya.. WOOHOO!!!!! For as much as they claim that the deformation engine is threaded nad should be scaled over multiple processors, the looking I did revealed very little of that.. Though of course its hard to parallelize a deformation that's based on linear time data from a MoCap source. The point is that NT just didn't like FiLMBOX at all (BSOD's, driver crashes, odd OGL glitches) I blame part of it on the threading, part of it on NT and part of it on FiLMBOX.. Now that's it's ported to linux I have more control over the non-kaydera stuff and that makes me happy. Now, all I need is for them to support PVM and get large Beowulf with Myrinet interconnects...(Sorry.. It had to be said)
Redhat!=Linux
What about people who use slackware, or even BSD? Will this program be GPL'd? If not will you bitch and moan and refuse a gift?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I'd like a link to more information on the Loki installer, I've never heard of it.
However, I'll note that it STILL doesn't solve the problem of testing these different distros. No responsible business person is going to tell you "sure, we'll support it on Distro X" without testing it first.
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I don't know much about Filmbox, but it's contribution to the Matrix was minimal. Primary tools for the Matrix were things like Maya, Softimage, Renderman, Cineon, Shake. Maya, Renderman and Shake are already on Linux. Cineon is dead, and Softimage is on the ropes. Most of the tools used to create movie vfx are being ported from SGI/Irix to Linux/FreeBSD/MacOSX since SGI has fallen way behind in the price/performance curve, and Microsoft hasn't been able to make NT the Unix killer they promised.
Just to straighten the record a bit- saying that this was *THE* software behind the Matrix is not telling the whole story. The BulletTime sequences were shot using a large number of stills cameras, fired electronically. Unfortunately, each camera had its own trigger to shutter delay, resulting in hugely jerky images. Before anything could be done with them, they had to be smoothed, and extra frames inserted. This job was done by UK based Snell & Wilcox (for whom I worked at the time), with their technology called FloMo, which can very precisely measure the motion between frames and allow very sharp temporal interpolation. It was this that made the motion smooth, before any other effects, backgrounds, etc. were added. For the geeks amongst us, it is notable that Mr. Reeves' leg would pass through one of the pillars in the subway station if it was on screen at the time.... EtF.
Not that this isn't a cool bit o software. Just don't run out and buy it thinking it does things it doesn't.
... because Houdini has been available on Linux for a while now. That's a high-class modeling/animation/rendering program that's been used in more movies than you can imagine.
-Andrei
This is a major step forward for anyone who has done film or video motion capture work. The fact that is runs on Linux just makes it all that much easier to bring into a production environment where you already have SGI's, Suns, etc.
FiLMBOX is a great tool...as with all effects work it's just another piece that makes the whole. You can't think in the box of "one computer/one software package does it all"; use the best of each to make the image on the screen. Use a Mac, use a PC, use a Linux box, use a BeOS box, then render it on an Alpha. As long as it works well, you can spend your time on the creative part of the image...and that's what people will remember in the end, not what you used to make it.