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LOTR Special Effects at OSCON

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-see dept.

gnat writes "The IT Director for Weta Digital, Peter Jackson's company doing the digital effects for the Lord of the Rings movies, is keynoting at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. They use a ton of Linux and Perl." FWIW I believe Hemos and I are speaking too, but I'm much more interested in seeing this LotR thing.

7 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Perl? by Fastball · · Score: 5, Funny
    use LOTR::Ringwraith

    Get that module to CPAN stat! I want it! ;)

  2. I'm glad Taco & Hemos have made up... by schwatoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    But I didn't realise they weren't speaking.

    --
    I have trouble with passwords among other things.
  3. Gandolf did look a bit like RMS by JeffGB · · Score: 3, Funny

    I always thought that Gandolf looked a bit like Richard Stallman.
    Maybe it was just the beard.
    Lord of the Token Ring

  4. O'Reilly conferences are laughably expensive by Sanity · · Score: 5, Insightful
    $1024 for a conference pass - that is absolutely rediculous given than many of the people who make Open Source happen don't have the backing of a company that could cover this cost.

    Even the 65% off that students get leaves the student with a hefty price-tag, I know that during my student days every pound (went to uni in the UK) was valuable and there was no way I could justify spending over $300 to get into a conference just for the privilige of speaking to others who have also had to fork out (I find the people I meet at conferences are often much more interesting than those speaking at them).

    1. Re:O'Reilly conferences are laughably expensive by spaten-optimator · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, it was either charge $1024, or $512. Like true computer geeks, they can only think in powers of two. Methinks the organizers have read Snow Crash one too many times.

      --

      --
      Disclaimer: The above statement probably includes half-truths, because real truth is too complicated.
  5. Perl? What for? by prockcore · · Score: 3, Funny
    I wonder what they were using Perl for.

    Then it hit me, they must be using this to replay dvd versions of production tests under linux :)

  6. Re:Movie magic by donglekey · · Score: 3, Informative

    That was certainly not the Zenith of visual effects.

    John Gaeta was the visual effects supervisor for the Matrix, if that is what you are talking about. So it was his crew, the artists and the developers. Dan Piponi is head of R&D. It is a simbiotic relationship, don't pretend that one doesn't need the other.

    Manex won the Oscar for visual effects for the Matrix.

    That wasn't the same year (Obviously) as Titanic. Titanic was before that, not in the inerim. In fact Manex won back to back Oscars for What Dreams May Come and The Matrix, so Titanic was actually in 1997.

    Star Wars Episode I should have won for visual effects, but it didn't because the movie was shit.

    And finally, it tells us nothing about the sad state of affais in movies today.

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