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More on LoTR Special Effects

Posted by michael on from the smoke-rings dept.

sushi writes: "Another LoTR article: this one focusing on the technology used at Weta Digital (the CG shop). Interesting that they are undertaking "major" R&D into running more Linux, and that Linux "delivers about two times the price performance compared to systems running proprietary operating systems". I've been lucky enough to have seen inside this place, and it's cool to see a render-wall of linux boxen. Full story from a New Zealand newspaper." We linked to another good article about WETA a month ago.

2 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. Where there's a whip... by A_Non_Moose · · Score: 0, Redundant

    there's a way...

    Should have Tux holding a wip on the side of each box.
    Or Tux with an engraved ring as a "collar" of sorts.

    From the article:This time next year, serious consideration of Weta's future will start.

    The Hardware of the Rings

    Can we call him "Lord of the Penguins"?

    I loved this quote most of all:
    As the facility's infrastructure becomes complete, being chief technical officer is more administrative and takes up less time, he says.


    Certainly can't say the same about the NT boxen I'm in charge of...the Samba and web server on the other hand...

    Just a thought.

    --
    Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
  2. What happens to the old clusters??? by elem · · Score: 1, Redundant

    In article on salon.com it says that they use clusters of around 1000 linux boxen, which they replace for every film... it take aprx. 2/3 years to make the film, so by the next film hardware has become more powerfull, so bye-bye old clusters, hello new ones.

    What I would like to know is what they do to the old computers... I hope that they do things like donate them to local schools and the such, I know that for most applications it doesn't realy matter if you don't have this year's Pentium 54 with 5gigs of ram, but I would imagine that these machines are tricked out pretty nicely. Does anyone know what does happen to them?

    1000 machines x $2000 = $2,000,000
    Thats still cheaper than a bigname actor... shocking :)