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Linux at Industrial Light and Magic
Nicholas DePetrillo writes "Linux Journal has a big story about how LINUX is being used in hollywood, specificly at Industrial Light and Magic with some GREAT screenshots
and a very descriptive article with configuration details." Word has it that their rendering farms have gotten even bigger since this article was published.
Could there be some kind of anology between the light side vs the dark side and Linux vs Microsoft.
Would that make Bill Vader? Which distro is Obi Wan Kanobi?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Action is great!
Music isn't bad!
Acting is pathetic.
No amount of eye candy will ever make the prequels worth watching as standalone movies.
I have been pwned because my
'Linux Journal' no less.
we must never speak of this again
;)
They'll have to stop using Linux right after they outlaw it.
I'm assuming that would be the case, anyway.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Remember everybody, if you like the article then please buy the magazine! The articles, while provided free of charge, do not magically appear.
If you want more great articles like this, support Linux Journal. I know the idea of paying for something might go against some people's sensibilities (information wants to be FREEEEEEE!!! and such), but remember that in real life people need to eat. Please don't let the fine people at Linux Journal starve. Buy a magazine.
Please. Do it for the authors.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
...we'll have to start calling the company GNU/Industrial Light and Magic. :-)
Here's the text from the article:
The Computers of ILM
ILM says they have rarely seen artists get excited by hardware, but artists fought to get the new Linux workstations--Dell single-CPU P4s with NVIDIA Quadra 2 Pro graphics cards. The question became, ``Where's my Linux box?''
Production Engineering Manager Ken Beyer says
More than 350 Linux boxes were deployed during Episode II. Animators and modelers got their workstations first, then compositors. The first group had flat panels because animators lack the desk space for monitors. There were problems with monitor calibration under Red Hat 7.1. We used flat panels to get Linux out there. Last to get workstations were TDs. They push the envelope of what they ask for. An issue was how quickly we could get things ported for them.
``We've changed over quite a bit of our plant here to Linux--half of our desktops and about 30% of our 2,000 CPU renderfarm is now Linux'', says ILM Director of Research and Development Andy Hendrickson. ``We've got 700-plus O2 machines'', adds Beyer. ``But it isn't affordable to replace those with Octanes.'' SGI is recognized for producing high-end workstations and servers but has abandoned competing with commodity PC hardware. SGI seems to be rebounding in the military market but less so in entertainment.
``Our renderfarm towers carry the Deathstar logo'', points out Beyer. A render tower is a stack of 1RU 2-CPU units connected together with inexpensive 100Base-TX. He says:
These are 1RU, 2-CPU P4 units. If we lose a unit it is more convenient now that it is just two CPUs rather than four or eight with SGI 2800. For Episode II we had to double available capacity and power. It's 512 processors. We use dual 225 kVA UPS systems, and have three AC systems that rotate. Power goes out often in the San Rafael area. We can run on UPS for 15 minutes then [on a] diesel generator.
An unexpected snag arose during the upgrade: all the PC fans had to be replaced because they were defective.
Systems R&D Group Manager Mike Kiernan reports a few problems with Linux:
Sometimes when I arrive in the morning a quarter of the Linux cluster is locked up. Fortunately, it doesn't happen too often. VM problems in the 2.4 kernel appear to be at the root of our kernel lockup problem. Recent improvements in the 2.4 kernel may resolve that. Things look promising.
But he adds that ``Linux needs work on NFS big time.''
We won't be going to Linux for our NFS servers. I wish we could replace NFS, but none of the document management systems is flexible enough. And the ones that are flexible have a rather high integration cost. When AFS is distributed natively for all the client platforms we need to support, perhaps we'll consider it.
ILM is comfortable with multiple platforms. Its 1,400 employees use a variety of operating systems. The art department has Macs, with the rotoscopers and painters transitioning to OS X. Hendrickson sees OS X as a possible player. ``What attracts us is the BSD-like Darwin core and network compatibility.'' ILM has few Windows boxes, besides those on business side. ``There's no advantage to a Windows conversion for us'', says Hendrickson. ``We're a UNIX shop and probably always will be.''
R&D Principal Engineer Phil Peterson says ILM chose the Red Hat distro because it seemed easier to go with what's popular. ``At ILM the 2.4.9 kernel is deployed, and 2.4.17 or 2.4.18 is in test. We tweak the kernel--things like shared memory size, number of file descriptors, default stack size--nothing dramatic.'' Open Motif 2.1 did a good job maintaining the look-and-feel of IRIX, so ILM didn't try LessTif. ILM workstations include limited installations of GNOME and KDE. ``No special effort was spent to strip machines down'', says Peterson. ``We just left out unused portions of the full install. We're pretty vanilla.''
An unusual aspect of the ILM Linux workstation configuration is the replacement of the MESA libs with the SGI open source, OpenGL implementation. ``MESA is behind compared to the SGI version in aspects such as libGLU'', explains Peterson. Other studios haven't experienced the best stability using Maya on Linux with NVIDIA drivers. It seems that may be due to MESA and not Maya, NVIDIA or Linux, as previously thought. ILM has replaced the MESA libraries with a combination of NVIDIA's core OpenGL and libraries from the SGI open-source sample implementation.
``Chances are you will not find solutions in any documentation'', notes Peterson.
We don't have a support line to call. We fix things and extend. It introduces a layer of maintenance we're not used to. We had to use open-source drivers with tablets. With calibrating monitors, the work is ongoing. Still, we've had an easy road. Our artists are technically savvy, able to endure pain. Having the best testers in the world around the corner from you provides quick feedback.
Hendrickson concurs that Linux support can be a problem. He says, ``As we get into Linux we're not finding one company to hand-hold. IBM and HP aren't there, yet. But, before Linux it was out of our control and out of control. [Now] we own our Linux problems.''
Is it possible for Linux to be too fast? ``Due to the speed of Linux, for the first time in my life, 15 years in the business, I'm starting to feel some RSI [repetitive strain injury]'', says Technical Director Robert Weaver. ``Usually you are working the machine, but Linux is so fast it can overwork you.'' Weaver has to remember to take breaks because with Linux he doesn't get any breaks waiting for the machine anymore.
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
What would happen to the gaming world at large if Sony was to start developing games for Linux?
If I had to guess, nothing major would happen except there'd be a few more games for Linux and there'd be a lot of articles about it on Linux Games.
Would developers support Sony?
Probably, but it depends on what you mean by developers. Hardware (read as video and sound card) developers may try and throw Linux gamers a bone in the driver arena (but it'll be a small, closed source one). Since nvidia already does this and most (if not all) Linux gamers opt for their cards because of it, impact would be minimal. Software developers could care less about what Sony does in the software market. It would probably go down as follows:
1.) Sony develops games for Linux.
2.) Other developers develop games for Linux thinking that Sony had some special information.
3.) Sales aren't immediately stellar, other developers back out and snicker behind Sony's back thinking that they're superior.
Would Linux gaming become a very viable option?
IMHO, and don't take this as a flame because I'm a supporter and user of Linux, but I don't think it'll be really great until a brand new/standarized API (a la direct X - so shoot me) is developed (or a current one is seriously overhauled). There's something to be said in an all-in-one multimedia package that doesn't depend on a bunch of other things. Or until there's a working alternative to X which will never happen. *shrug* I'm probably wrong, but that's just my 2 cents.
Not very nice comments in there about SGI. They are true enough though. The O2 is a *great* multimedia desktop machine. Lots of features, small package. Just like the Indy before it.
Compute performance is a real problem though for all but the high end SGI machines. The O2 went EOL this year for all but OEM (Medical and Video apps).
What I find interesting is that the studios are building their own tech to suit their needs. They started this process on SGI machines in order to leverage the rich toolset found in IRIX. Now they are able to build on the open tools found under Linux.
Alias Wavefront (owned by SGI) used to package and sell critical technology to the Studios along with a number of services delivered under NDA. They still do this, but their days are numbered.
Open Source is enabling a new trend toward in-house technology development. Given the high cost of A|W and SGI toolsets plus the added services and consulting required to make them work in creative ways, I am not surprised to find the studios able to just build what they want cheaper. They also are able to create the features that make their workflow better.
Seems like the studios want nothing to do with any sort of lock in with any vendor. Talk about lowering TCO!
Not only does their in-house development allow them to make the most of their time and creative energy, but they get to take advantage of new platforms in the future --without having to re-purchase tools.
They are smart enough to develop common tools that they (and us) can all use while keeping those things that make them special in-house. Too bad more of the mainstream businesses are not able to see this yet. When they do --look out!
So SGI moves back into their niche with IRIX, high end visualization, and parallel computing and serving. What of Alias Wavefront?
They look doomed to me. Maya now is cheap and runs on Linux. Its users develop their own tools with it so A|W maybe gets consulting, but little else. On the Industrial Design side, their Studio Tools package really only appeals to the high end Automotive styling group. Everyone else can use either MCAD tools, or tools like Rhino to get their work done.
This was a great article that does a lot to illuminate just how computing can change under an open platform.
Blogging because I can...
ILM is comfortable with multiple platforms. Its 1,400 employees use a variety of operating systems. The art department has Macs, with the rotoscopers and painters transitioning to OS X. Hendrickson sees OS X as a possible player. ``What attracts us is the BSD-like Darwin core and network compatibility.'' ILM has few Windows boxes, besides those on business side. ``There's no advantage to a Windows conversion for us'', says Hendrickson. ``We're a UNIX shop and probably always will be.''
Nice to see ILM is keeping with the times. When Phantom Menace came out, SGI had promotional info up about SGI [origin?] servers and EP I. Fast forward three years and we have come upon another case of Linux and [relativel] commodity hardware changing the heart of a big Iron SGI all-star. ILM did have a JEDI Pact with SGI not too long ago, but as was inferred in the article, its really hard to compete with free (as in beer) in the shrinking-margin world of SFX.
FWIW, On the Ep I DVD Making of Documentary, OS 9 was visible durinag a photoshopping session, Windows (or a GUI clone) for Motion capture and unix (presumably IRIX) for the rest.
Am I the only one who thinks it's rather odd that movie companies are pursuing a law that would effectively outlaw Linux -- while that's the operating system running most of their kick-ass render farms?
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You know I just thought about that a little. The way the laws are intended to work are subtle indeed.
For you and I, Linux would be outlawed. For the Studios, things would work just fine. They have the lawyers to back them up, and they can just use Linux inside their firewalls.
Since they create the content, it is easy for them to say Linux is ok. Nobody is watching unauthorized copies.
They just don't want Joe citizen to have a user programmable system that allows programs they don't like.
Irony indeed.
Blogging because I can...
Since my DSL upload (a puny 15 k/s) is flooded right now, have a shot at my school's fractional T1 (60 k/s).
Here.
"What would happen to the gaming world at large if Sony was to start developing games for Linux?"
I would remove my Windows partition.
hey, a few weeks ago you could win money for a great idea, how to extend google in an attractive way. here is mine: every time, an article is posted to slashdot, google will be automaticly informed a few seconds before (with SOAP) to fetch the links. This would be a great cowork between google and slashdot and i could finaly read all the articles ;)
ciao, Hermi
Of course, performance doesn't suffer when you upgrade from a 5 y/o processor to a new top-of-the-line processor.
Most of the descriptions about speed up seem to be directly attributable to Intel, not Linux...
Do you watch movies by any chance? Or TV? If so, then shut up, because you're helping to fund these guys...
This fallacy has been rebutted numerous times.
The long and short of it is: just because circumstances constrain you to operate within particular boundries, doesn't mean you are in any way wrong or hypocritical in criticizing those boundries, or anything unjust or wrong you find within those boundries. Many of the folk, black and white alike, who criticized apartheid in the United States and South Africa still paid taxes to those governments, watched the television and listened to the radio put out by those governments (or the private corporations profiting from those apartheid systems). Those who advocated communism or socialism still had jobs within those systems, and bought their food, clothing, and housing within those very same systems they so disapproved of. This did not in any way make their criticisms less valid, or make them hyporcrits for having the courage and moxy to stand up and criticize those systems. Quite the contrary.
Indeed, had reformers throughout history been required to operate within the parameters your troll implies ('you cannot legitimately criticize anything that is a part of your lifestyle!') we would be living no differently from people a thousand years ago. In other words, no reform would have been possible, because no criticism would have been possible.
I suspect that, were someone who doesn't watch television or movies to criticize the Hollywood Copyright and Media Cartels, you would be the first to say something to the effect of "That's easy for you to say, you don't use their product anyway!" which is, of course, the flipside of the very same logical fallacy you've indulged in here.
So it is you, not the person you responded to, who really ought to shut up.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Linux is not solely responsible for the five-fold increase in speed. Linux allows ILM to leverage the very high price/performance ratio of the x86 microprocessors produced by AMD and Intel. If SGI ported IRIX to x86, then they might not be using Linux. Of course Linux is free, but ILM had to spend many man hours to port their software.