DreamWorks Switches to Linux

tal-home writes "Newsforge has a story about the decision Dreamworks made to port ALL of their front-end servers and workstations to Linux. Their new movie, called 'Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron' which will hit the theaters in late May, was created in a 100% Linux enviroment, unlike older movies like Shrek and Lord of the Rings that used IRIX servers as a rendering farm. It's a good time to mention that this move by DreamWorks also includes porting the artists workstations to Linux, in addition to the servers. Redhat and HP helped out in the switch." Word has it that Adobe may be pursuing unix versions of it's toolset as DreamWorks isn't the only shop switching.

Comments

Adobe on Linux

[baldass_newbie]

I have a friend who refuses to go to Linux full time until he can get Photoshop and Premiere on the platform.

I've even tried to get him to try Mac OS X, but to no avail.

Re:Adobe on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

IEEE 1394 (aka Firewire) support in Linux is still very young and immature... this is basically a requirement for any serious video app to have commercial appeal.

Re:Adobe on Linux

[NanoGator]

Count me in. What's holding me back from Linux is that I can't run the programs you mentioned, plus After Effects, Lightwave, and some of the other Win things I use.

As an animator, I can tell you that I'm really excited about studios moving over to Linux. What's great about Linux is that you can run it on any platform.

I'll tell you something, Apple totally kicks ass when it comes to making laptops. I'm very happy that Lightwave 7 and all Adobe products are available on it. As a matter of fact, I am *Heavily* considering purchasing one of these machines. If the programs I mentioned ran on Linux, I'd have no qualms about buying a Mac. At that point, it wouldn't really matter!

I *Love* the idea of being totally platform independent. I could finally break out of the Windows cage.

Adobe!

[magicslax]

This is great news if it means having quality graphics software available under linux. The Gimp just doesn't provide a compelling alternative for serious professional shops. Adobe ports to linux would be a Good Thing and then some.

what about OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

With Final Cut Pro, Maya, and the Adobe lineup now shipping, it seems like OS X would be a platform of choice...

Re:what about OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just some guesses:
1) The people using these machines are used to Irix and the standard unix tool chain. There's no point in wasting CPU cycles on Aqua.
2) Their in-house apps are more likely to be easily portable to standard X toolkits than Mac API's.
3) Linux/x86 is cheaper and margins are thin.
4) They are not beholden to any vendor for system software modifications they may need. They've been creating stuff in-house for years and are not afraid to "roll-their-own" when it makes sense.

Proof that Linux isn't quality insurance

[gdyas]

Their new movie, called 'Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron'

A bit O/T I guess, but I had to note that I've unfortunately seen the preview for this film a number of times, and when you're dying for thew preview to end, it doesn't exactly speak well of the film. Whatta piece of wasteful pop pablum.

We're talking completely empty prepackaged Britney Spears - style crap here.

Shrek *was* rendered on Linux...

[don_carnage]

From this article at CIO.com:

"At the film company DreamWorks, Ed Leonard has ported the entire graphics animation department to Linux; Shrek was created on a "renderfarm" (a powerful, refrigerator-size rack of servers) that had 800 processors running Linux. Leonard took the money he saved by not having maintenance contracts and used it to buy far more inexpensive Linux PCs. He says the money he has saved will allow DreamWorks to replace desktops and the renderfarm every two years instead of every five."

Am I missing something here?

Re:"Adobe may be pursuing unix version"

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple forced/coerced Adobe into abandoning Photoshop and Illustrator on IRIX many years ago. The last version was 3.01 and 5.5 respectivly. Some of the things in Photoshop that Apple is always using to benchmark their systems is done in real time on certain SGI systems. It is a pitty that one cannot get a current license for IRIX.

Search usenet for some interesting stories about Adobe shiating on their UNIX customers.

I guess MS Bob really burned their goat

[Locutus]

This is great news and shows the curtain is really starting to close on Redmond.

I just read that Doug Miller is now in charge of a UNIX migration hit-team at Microsoft. They don't mention alternative OS's unless they absolutely HAVE to. Hehe. :)

It's a ZiffDavis story no less....

http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s=1884&a=259 32 , 0.asp

LoB

Linux can already dominate in realtime graphics...

[PyroJimmy]

... as evidenced by one of my colleague's recent thesis. In it, he compares the performance of a high end 24-processor SGI system with the performance of a few (2-4) cheap Linux PCs running the same application. We aren't even talking about a clustered system here - just a few boxes sync'd with a little networking.

It's fan-freaking-tastic.

[Check out the paper here]

I need a better solution than boycotting Adobe.

[NanoGator]

"fter the Dmitry and DMCA flop by Adobe, I will never purchase an Adobe product and I swear to gawd I will save my friends and co-workers from thinking about purchasing an Adobe product..."

I sympathize with your view, but the reason that Adobe is so popular is because it makes a totally kick as series of products. If I lose Photoshop or After Effects, I don't have a whole lot of good choices to replace them with, especially for the money. You wouldn't be 'saving me' from Adobe, you'd be hurting me if you convinced me to switch.

I really don't like what they did with Dmitry, but I need a solution to express my disgruntlement with them that doesn't involve crippling my productivity.

I have the same issue with Blizzard. I've been asked to boycott Blizzard over using the DMCA to shut down BnetD. The problem I have with that is a healthy game industry = better job market for me. Blizzard consistently makes kick ass games. Not buying Blizzard 3 would do more to work against me than help prevent them from further DMCA abuse. On top of that, I think Warcarft III will be lots of fun, and I'd hate to miss out on that too.

So what do we do? I'm open to suggestions as to how to let these companies know what they're doing is unacceptable without creating ripples in the good work that they're doing. One idea is to make their email address available so people can write in their complaints. Another would be to have Slashdot carry a banner encouraging people to read about what happened and, again, give them an email address they can send complaints to.

Personally, I think this would be far more effective than saying "I won't buy your product even tho I need it."

Re:I need a better solution than boycotting Adobe.

[testadicazzo]

I agree with you on a number of points. Primarily I think boycotts are poorly organized, and only effective when they are vastly accepted. I have a suggestion (which is admittedly of limited relevance in this case) on how to make them more efffective.

I currently boycott Nike because of their labor policies. As an active sports enthusiast, I wish I could in good concience buy nike products, as often they have the best or most available products. But I find alternatives. Then I save the receipts, and mail them to nike with a letter explaining why I bought the competitors products.

So my suggestion for an active partial boycott is this: Buy alternatives whenever possible. Send the receipt and notification of why you did this to the company. If they get enough they'll realize their bottom line is being affected far more quickly and immediately than through a normal boycott.

I have to get off my arse and make a web page propounding this idea.

Linux not ready for prime Time

[MagikSlinger]

P-p-p-p-lease listen to me before moding me down! Gives readers the Roger Rabbit pouty look

It was interesting to note they had a problem with it for desktop use (including problems with XFree86). This has been one of the issues plaguing Linux now and hurting its foray into the desktop or workstation market: there are polishing features that need to be done.

Now, the good news is XFree86 did fix things up. Did the XFree86 team even know Dreamworks were having problems it? I mean, when there's a big opportunity for Linux, we really need to get the teams involved. It makes skitish users feel better, and more importantly, it gets the "hacker" culture a better idea of what the user culture needs. No contempt or animosity. Just people helping people.

Another thing is the polish. Fixing those annoying little bugs, or getting that useful feature in that no one has time to do. IBM and their billion dollars could help here, but there does need to be more support for the Open Source polishers out there (like the Linux janitors). Have you submitted a patch lately? :-)

So, hopefully, Linus and his informal team can clear up the bottleneck for patches and we can make Linux ready for primetime. Right now, I consider the current releases of Linux on the desktop to be about the same quality as Windows 3.1, and that took over the world! So let's report those annoying features! Let's leave the cool feature aside for a day and fix an annoying, but persistent bug. Then we go back to even cooler features!

Currently, the biggest challenge for Linux is making the installation painless. The problem is not that Linux developers don't want to--its just as I'm sure they can tell you, getting the hardware and drivers they need is really difficult. I'm not sure how we, as a community, can help that. Maybe mass-buy a new graphics card if the company produces a Linux driver off the bat?

Just some, hopefully, constructive and positive thoughts.

Re:Hypocrites

[captredballs]

Did you notice the quote from one exec/manager who explicity expressed that their reasons for moving were not based on preference or politics, but on cost?

If the only reason for linux is the political aspect of it, then I'm afraid many zealots are fighting for a lost cause. Personally, I like the polital aspects of using Linux/GPL/etc.. software, but seperately I also enjoy the other aspects, including productivity, cost, openness (which isn't neccessarily political) and the geek factor.

Money saved

[MicroBerto]

So how much money did they save by switching to an all Linux-based solution? That is the kind of info that Linux advocates need to be spreading if they want it to get out to a corporate level.

Then what is Disney using nowadays?

[MtViewGuy]

Here's an interesting question: does anyone know what kind of computer hardware is Disney using at their feature animation department in Burbank, CA nowadays? I believe that Disney's Computer Aided Production System (CAPS) for compositing digital and hand-drawn animation elements into a single film is based on SGI hardware, though I think if Disney could port the CAPS tools to Linux and run them on x86-based Athlon XP or Pentium 4 machines with one to two gigabytes of RAM per machine on a rendering farm level could save Disney a boatload of money.

Photoshop on Linux

[stubear]

This is a quote from one of the Adobe Photoshop programmers concerning Photoshop on Linux:

"Adobe is keeping an open mind. And we're keeping an eye on Linux.

But right now, most Linux users aren't willing to pay for commercial software.

And the lack of a viable window manager (X-Windows does NOT count), printing solution, font solution, color management solution, etc. make Linux a WHOLE lot less attractive.

OSX and Linux only have command line utilities and a few concepts in the kernel in common. That's less than 1% of what's needed for application compatibility."

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for Photoshop on Linux because not a lot has happened in the UI front since this comment was written.

Inaccurate article, but Dreamworks uses Linux

[lcarstensen]

The author clearly doesn't understand the relationship between Dreamworks Animation and Dreamworks/PDI.

Dreamworks Animation has thus far released "tradigital" (digitized traditional) animated movies "Prince of Egypt" and "Road to El Dorado", both of which used IRIX as the focus of their pipelines, and who will be releasing "Sprit: Stallion of the Cimmaron" Memorial Day weekend, which was split between IRIX and Linux. Two key workstation applications were developed for use on Spirit, and rendering mostly stayed on IRIX.

PDI/Dreamworks is a full CG production house which has been in the special effects and commerical spots business for years (Seen those alien Intel ads recently? That was PDI.), and has recently made "ANTZ" and "Shrek". ANTZ was all IRIX, Shrek was split between IRIX and Linux, with IRIX still the most popular on the workstation and Linux was used heavily for rendering.

HP provided lots of assistance with OpenGL workstation compliance on Linux - which undoubtedly contributed to them getting the 3-year deal mentioned in the article. Dreamworks also presently has a support contract with RedHat (as RedHat cited recently in their quarterly report). Dreamworks Animation and PDI/Dreamworks have been requesting Linux versions of various graphics applications and tools since Linux was decided upon several years back.

These statements are my own and not those of my employer.