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Pixar Switching to Mac OS X
DavidRavenMoon writes "MacCentral reports that Pixar technologist Dr. Michael Johnson says Linux, Sun and Windows-based systems are being replaced by Mac OS X. 'The studio's entire team uses Mac OS X not only for creative work, but for workflow and custom application development.'"
"a Linux-based competitor can give them a run for their money. "
oh, you filthy whore, you.
Anyway, Macs have been churning out high volume work for years. They were the backbone of the digital press, and now they're becoming the backbone of digital film.
Final Cut and Premiere ran fine on OS X Macs. Sure, they run better on OS X, but that doesn't mean OS X was as horrible as you make it out to be.
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pants ahoy
....and go straight to the original story:. html
http://developer.apple.com/wwdc2002/pixar
PIXAR is selling their software. The Renderman Toolkit that is used by many of the top animation and effects studios is developed and sold by PIXAR. It has also run on several different platforms in the past (including both 68K and PPC Macs as well as NeXT/OpenStep based systems). They also developed and maintain their own in-house animation software which they use instead of other's programs (such as Maya).
Actually, they basically started making animated films to showcase their software.
Ok, as apparently the ONLY person here who was actually AT the Pixar "announcement" its time to dispell some false assumptions.
,given its develoepers preferences for 1970s era development styles. (I'm talking vi/emacs and proceedural OS layers)
First off, this wasn't an announcement. This was one guy at WWDC telling a bunch of developers about how Pixar goes about making movies. He did that and he also talked about OSX. He showed an app he developed in OS X in 10 days that was pretty cool and useful to Pixar. He sung the praises of OS X and said that Pixar has been using OS X more and more.
He mentioned, and showed a picture, with all the linux and sun machines in the renderfarm.
He dispelled the rumor that had been going around that Pixar was going to announce Renderman for OS X (but gave no indication which way whether it was a possibility.)
Jobs did not lay down the law to make Pixar switch. IT hasn't even switched, or announced switching. It has only said that its using OS X more and more, and that the guy on stage was persnally loooking forward to the new rackmounted servers.
Also, Jobs DOES own pixar. That is, as much as anyone who owns a public company can. He owned it outright before it went public. So, whateve the public and employees don't own is owned by him. After getting fired by apple (Almost a death warrent for apple) he learned his lesson.
So, while he could lay down an "edict" this is the kind of conspiracy theory that online geeks like to engage in, as it makes it easier to ignore the reality that the better product won.
The Mac hardware packs far more punch in a given amount of space (with rackmount cases, anyway) than any other os/hardware combination out there, other that *possibly* Sun boxes that cost a whole lot more.
It is also provides the best development environemnts- bar none- currently shipping. Hell, it has top of hte line support for Java development, Objc/Cocoa, Classic development, and Unix tools.
And, it also is worth pointing out that while Microsoft and Apple both announced "object oriented operating systems" way back in 1991, in 2001 Apple actually delivered one. Yes, next delivered it before, but the power of OO in the OS is really rapid, quality app development. something that, unfortunately, linux will never have
But I digress. You guys should be busy going out and figuring out how to get redezvous in to Linux- an Apple technology apple is encouraging you to copy- than worrying abou the fact that OS X stole a major customer win from Linux. Get used to that- its the natural result of picking the Windows Lookand feel for your windowing system, among other things.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
In particular the software was PhotoRealistic RenderMan (PRMan). See the renderman FAQ. Also the NeXTSTEP 3D Graphics Kit, an API, was based on RenderMan.