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Pixar Switching to Mac OS X

Posted by pudge on from the ipixar dept.

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.'"

9 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Must be difficult for the employees... by zulux · · Score: 4, Funny


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

    --

    Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

  2. 180 Degree turn around? by malducin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It wasn't long ago that Pixar actually started to make the switch to Linux, it was reported in several places. Has Steve Jobs given an edict? While it might be fine it sounds rather abrupt. I wonder if everyone is satisfied.

    Here is the quote from the CGW article from September 2001 (which requires free registration):

    A studio just beginning the Linux transition is Pixar Animation Studios. Vice president of research and development Darwyn Peachey says, "This is the platform that will replace SGI in the CG industry. There's been a lot of progress made since last year. Nobody is wondering 'if' anymore." SGI as a hardware platform is being displaced by high-performance PCs, but the company isn't going away. SGI is actively supporting Linux, both on its hardware and through the Linux port of Maya by subsidiary Alias|Wavefront. Because Linux runs on PC, SGI, and Sun machines, it enables studios to support just one OS. Like DreamWorks, Pixar faced a massive job in porting its existing code. Pixar finished the Linux port of all its internal software, about two million lines, in May. RenderMan command line tools have been available on Linux since 1999. RenderMan Artist Tools, for use with Linux Maya, are now in beta testing. "Porting went very fast, averaging 2000 lines of code per developer day," says Peachey. "The port to Linux is straightforward, where Windows is difficult." Pixar has more than 500 SGI desktops and uses Sun servers for its renderfarm. About 30 Linux machines are in use for software development, and 20 Linux machines are used in production. By fall, at least 100 Linux desktops are expected to be used in production. Pixar's next film, Finding Nemo (release date summer 2003), is to be produced primarily using Linux systems.

    Here is the link:

    Linux Invades Hollywood

    The most puzzling thing is if they plan to substitute the SUN renderfarm, as one of the things they like is that they can pack a lot of power in slim racks (14 CPUs on each last time I heard). Maybe they got more space at Emmeryville now ;-). As recent as last holiday season SUN touted its hardware shortly after the release of Monster's Inc.:

    SUN story on Monsters Inc.

    Tom Duff sometimes posts around here, maybe he can comment? It's rather interesting.

  3. Predictable - really? by SpamJunkie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes this does seem all fine and predictable given that Steve Jobs is CEO/iCEO of both. But really the interesting part is how long it took.

    I hate to keep bringing up Microsoft, I really do, but remember when hotmail was bought by MS? Right away MS forced them to convert their Sun servers to NT. And, remember all the problems that resulted?

    What is really impressive then about Pixar switching to Mac OS X is that Steve J let them wait until OS X could do everything Pixar needed.

    1. Re:Predictable - really? by BitGeek · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ok, as apparently the ONLY person here who was actually AT the Pixar "announcement" its time to dispell some false assumptions.

      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 ,given its develoepers preferences for 1970s era development styles. (I'm talking vi/emacs and proceedural OS layers)

      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/ 1816257
  4. bypass the maccentral link... by h0tblack · · Score: 4, Informative

    ....and go straight to the original story:
    http://developer.apple.com/wwdc2002/pixar. html

  5. Pixar software ran on NeXT by grouchomarxist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One interesting thing to remember is that Pixar software used to run on NeXT. They probably pulled some code out of the archives as part of work on Mac OS X.

  6. in a related story... by jeffehobbs · · Score: 4, Funny

    Steve Jobs has announced that he himself will be personally doing most of the end user desktop tech-support. This move alone is expected to lower the number of internal Pixar reported trouble reports to near 0.0%.

    ~jeff

  7. Re:Misleading headline? by Snowfox · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I can't imagine that it would be too difficult for pixar to port their current rendering software over to OS X... plus it would be a great advantage for pixar (having the connection through steve jobs to apple), as they would almost be guaranteed apple's top notch technology. (or is this a false assumption?)
    To play devil's advocate:

    Apple's top notch technology wouldn't be good for the renderfarms. Those are all about speed, and the fastest Mac is about half as fast as the fastest PC. And Macs really fall short on memory-intensive tasks in dual processor configurations, owing to the slower bus speed. (The fastest Mac memory bus is 133MHz. The fastest PC bus is effectively over 1GHz.)

    Even if Pixar got the Macs for free and had to pay market price for the PC racks, it's likely that the cost of electricity from the additional machines needed would take away the Apple benefit in under two years. This is to say nothing of extra maintenance when there are twice as many machines, the value of the extra space used, and the cost of porting the render farm software over to the new system architecture.

  8. Re:Misleading headline? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.