Slashdot Mirror
Disney Switches To Linux For Animation
EEEthan writes: "It looks like Linux is really the next big thing for movie graphics houses. The New York Times is reporting that Disney has switched over to Linux-based HP workstations for animation. Although Disney has historically been known for their hand-drawn animation, this is a big move to Linux for what might be the world's most famous producer of animated films."
is great. I saw it in action when I went to Disney World for my honeymoon in May. I asked several questions about the software and about GNU/Linux and they seemed to be quite enthusiastic about it in general. It makes sense really. They write all of their own software, so why not have an OS that they can completely manipulate, without paying extra for the code!
The right mouse doesn't really know what the left mouse is doing, does it?
I mean, does Disney's animation department have any idea of the ramifications of the legislation proposed by their government employee (Hollings)?
I guess this is good news... at least there are people within Disney who will (one expects) fight to keep their OWN TOOLS from becoming contraband.
G
Jeffrey cut Steve off when the animation was being demoed. "This is art. I own animation, and nobody's going to get it. It's as if someone comes to date my daughter. I have a shotgun. If someone tries to take this away, I'll blow his balls off." -The Second Coming of Steve Jobs
Apparently Disney felt seriously threatened that Pixar could make full-length animated movies, which could smash Disney's monopoly. They didn't buy the software, and threatened to crush Pixar, until they hired them for a movie, Toy Story. Funny how it seems so different now.
At the Disney Front Page, if you look up in the right hand corner you see the "Powered by HP" Ad.
HP is a Disney Technology partner, and as stated in the NYTIMES article"Disney's animation division is announcing today that it plans to use Hewlett-Packard workstations and data-serving computers running Linux for digital animation work in the future"
Historically, animation has been a Unix environment," said Al Gillen, an analyst at the International Data Corporation. "And what's happening in Hollywood is that another piece of the Unix market is moving into the Linux space."
Indeed, Mr. Carey observed that adopting Linux for part of its animation was part of its migration strategy to move away from its previous "homogeneous technology environment," revolving around SGI's Irix.
The Disney commitment is the second agreement in recent months for Hewlett-Packard systems running Linux in Hollywood. In January, Hewlett-Packard announced a three-year partnership with DreamWorks involving the purchase of Hewlett computers and some joint development of technology.
Hewlett-Packard, to be sure, has a heritage of doing business with Hollywood and Disney. The first product the founders William Hewlett and David Packard sold in 1938 was to Disney, an oscillator used to help produce the rich, textured soundtrack for the animated movie "Fantasia."
This is a deal brokered by Martin Fink, general manager for Hewlett-Packard's Linux systems division.
Disney is moving from Unix to Linux. Quite a smooth move, not only does this appease one of their most voiciferous antagonists, they get mucho positive P.R.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
It's ok but didn't Disney shift away from hand drawn animation a LONG time ago?
Michael Eisner said that he wanted to see Disney put out one animated feature a year and thanks to computers you can.
Disney had fine quality animation in the past because it was all hand drawn but computers can "tween" (generate cels between key frames) thus allowing Disney to continue to put out their crappy versions of popular stories every year now.
I find it rather ironic that a company that tries to squeeze every last cent out of people for the IP it creates is using an OS created by people who have freely donated their IP.
One has to wonder. With Apple's string of aquisitions, and invetiable future string of aquisitions of 3D and other content creation tools.
Will shops starting switching to Mac OS X. I imagine several all ready have Mac OS X in their environments for Photoshop.
So far Apple has kept the Linux versions on most of the applications and dumped NT. What happens if they dump Linux?
What if we added a clause to the GPL and all other OSI licences that said "by accepting possession of this software, you agree to grant technological protection measure access rights that otherwise would be reserved under the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA to any software developer who releases the resulting software under this licence (or any other OSI approved licence) in a way that does not otherwise infringe the copyright"?
Such a clause would immunize open source software developers from DMCA claims by corporations that use *any* open source software. That sounds like a fair trade to me: we work for free to build software for them in return for the right to not be sued under the DMCA.
A few parts in each summer animated movie since Aladdin have been CGI. Dinosaur was the first full CGI film. The magic carpet and cave scene were cgi. The ballroom dance scene in Beauty and Beast was CGI. The wildebest stampede in Lion King was CGI. The street crowds in Hunchback were CGI. The Olympic clouds in Hercules were CGI. The soldier armies in Mulan were CGI. Disney talked about these at the national and L.A. SIGGRAPH meetings.
Disney is NOT losing money on its movies!
Just because the box office receipts for a given film are lower than the production costs, that doesn't mean the film is taking a bath. There are many, many more avenues to revenue than just domestic box office ticket sales.
I would wager a good amount that Disney makes far, far more money overall from video rentals and sales than they do from ticket sales anyway. Hell, plenty of their movies never even make it to the theater. Add to that the fast food tie-ins, the toys and clothing, blankets, sheets and other merchandise, the international sales both in the theaters and on video, etc.
Disney makes plenty of money off their films. If they didn't, they would be a hell of a lot more careful putting them out, and there wouldn't be a shelf full of stuff at your local video store with titles you've never heard of.
This is false. SGI was the high end and has been dying very slowly. For 3D NT and 2000 have really been the mainstay. Mac never had any good 3D programs except for Lightwave, and just recently Maya. Look at the backbones of high end 3D, Softimage|3D/Softimage|XSI, PowerAnimator/Maya and Houdini. First they were on SGI, then SGI and NT, and now they are all on Linux. Mac's aren't a player on the animation side of things, but Apple seems to be trying to change that quickly. What is one tool for Mac that isn't available on windows?
The tools they are using on Linux ARE THE SAME TOOLS they were using on windows. That is why they are switching, because they can port stuff over, and the upper end of 3D and animation (Softimage, Maya, Houdini, Shake, etc. etc.) are available on Linux.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Aside from a few test stations, Windows isn't used at Feature Animation, and only a few people are lobbying for it.
We've seen this before... Linux rarely pushes out Windows, and often pushes out other Unices. I do believe we will soon see Linux squeezing all the profit out of proprietary Unix implementations.
You may see this as a good thing, or not. But once the other Unices die, we'll really see if GPL hobbyists can compete with Microsoft.
This promises to be interesting.
Care to elucidate? In terms of pure technical skill, they are.
Yes, I like anime better.
Doesn't this answer your question? Disney animation 40-50 years ago was incredible. Disney animation now is assembly line crap.
Anime is out-Disneying Disney. There are still background images in CardCaptor Sakura that by themselves are more entertaining than "The Emperor's New Groove" or whatever it is, and certainly are more entertaining than the latest "sequel of the week."
Disney needs to hire and fund some creative people and leave them alone long enough (about 15 years for a start) to come up with something truly new and innovative, otherwise anime is going to eat their lunch.