Rendering Software Used In LoTR Goes Open Source

donglekey writes "The software used by Weta to output scenes to be rendered on the LOTR trilogy has been made open source under the Mozilla license. Called Liquid, it outputs from Maya to any Renderman compliant renderer. This is extremely good news as it may quickly become a standard in high end 3D, as well as greasing the wheels for Aqsis, a GPLed Renderman renderer."

Comments

oh my gawd first post?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is even the first time ive seen a article with no comments...

Open My HEX CODE

[Anonymous Coward]

00000000 53 75 63 6B 20 6D 79 20 66 69 6C 74 68 79 20 74
00000010 72 6F 6C 6C 20 63 6F 63 6B 20 6C 69 6E 75 78 20
00000020 7A 65 61 6C 6F 74 73 21 21 0A

To decode, pipe through the command
perl -ne 'print chr hex $_ for /\b\w\w\b/g'

Coolness, but think about this:

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is better:

a) Rendering software used in LoTR going Open Source

OR...

b) Sex with a mare?

Re:Coolness, but think about this:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking cock smoking moderators! The parent is on-topic. Read the fucking headline!

Re:Coolness, but think about this:

[Anonymous Coward]

Modding doesn't change the truth, it is just like putting hands over your ears and shouting "LALALALALA!"

Re:Coolness, but think about this:

[Anonymous Coward]

"lalalalalala! I can't hear you, lalalalalala!"

gnulin~1.exe

[Anonymous Coward]

; tiny.asm

BITS 32

org 0x00001000

db 0x7F, "ELF"
dd 1
dd 0
dd $$
dw 2
dw 3
dd filesize
dd _start
dd 4
_start:
mov bl, 42
xor eax, eax
inc eax
int 0x80
db 0
dw 0x34
dw 0x20
db 1

filesize equ $ - $$

Re:gnulin~1.exe

[Anonymous Coward]

mov eax, [hand]
mov ecx, 100
_loop:
sar eax, [cock]
sal eax, [cock]
wait
loop _wait
out jism

Re:Pleasant Endorsement

[Anonymous Coward]

Now all you have to do is stop making Linux. The least you could do is get RMS to wash himself, shave, get a haircut and lose 100 pounds.

SourceForge

[Karamchand]

Why does the SourceForge application's homepage server suck so much today? The main server (http://sourceforge.net/) works nice, but the other one (http://*.sourceforge.net, e.g. k-meleon - and also Aqsis!) - doesn't :-/

GOATSE.cx on alt.ascii-art

[anonymous coword]

The best ascii art ever

The Birth of Anonymous Hero

[Anonymous Coward]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Moderation is a game. The only way to win is not to play.

What is the value of a dollar? The answer is that a dollar is worth as much as the government says it is worth. Money is a game we play to create scarcity in the face of abundance; it is a means of keeping track of something imaginary. So what is a Karma point worth? Well, it's worth whatever CmdrTaco says it's worth. Karma is an imaginary thing that has gained value through an electronic construct. sound familiar? The truth is that Slashdot is in many ways the first of the Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games. Before the first castle in Ultima Online, there was a user with the most Karma to blow.

Slashdot has changed quite a bit since those days. We have a strict levelling system defined now. Here are the various levels you can achieve, and the powers you are granted at each level:

Levelling up

Last I checked, here are the various levels in the vast Role Playing Game that is Slashdot:
(Your score in the game is called 'karma'):

• Score: -24 to -10: Ghost. Ghost players attack (post comments) with a -1 threshold, making them unable to hit any target except those who choose to be hit. Ghost players are limited to two attacks per day, and the label 'Terrible' is placed next to their name.
  
• Score: -9 to -1: Zombie. Zombie players attack with a threshold of Zero, making only their subject lines visible and reducing the effectiveness of their attacks. Zombie players, like ghost players, can only attack twice per day, and the label 'Bad' is placed next to their name.
  
• Score: Zero: Dying player. In this transitional state, a player appears to be a normal player, but the label 'Neutral' is placed by their name to signal that they are close to death.
  
• Score: 1-12: Journeyman. A journeyman player can attack ten times a day with a score of one. The label 'Positive' is placed by their name.
  
• Score: 12-25: Adventurer. An Adventurer attacks with the same effectiveness as a journeyman, but has the label 'Good' placed by their name.
  
• Score: 26-50: Sword Saint. A sword saint can devastate his opponents in combat, attacking with a bonus of +2 and flaming them up to twenty-five times per day. Sword Saint players have a distinct advantage, but they are not invincible.
  

Player killing

So how do you turn a Sword Saint into a Ghost? Well, player killing is alive and well on Slashdot. I'm not going to go into the details of player killing in this article, but suffice it to say that it is possible to defend yourself from normal players but not from Editors. The best way to defend yourself is to create as many separate accounts as you can, and continue levelling them up. This is very time consuming, and it's one way to keep you 'hooked' on the game.

Guilds

Guilds are a recent addition to the game of Slashdot, and they were retro-fitted and bolted on in much the same manner that many MMORPG's added guild support after product launch due to massive player demands. Basically, Guilds allow you communicate more easily with your allies and gain bonuses to your attacks when attacking enemies, though these bonuses are temporary and cannot be used for player killing.

How do I win the game?

Before addressing how to win the Slashdot MMORPG, it's important to look at how other similar games are won. For instance, how do you win at Ultima Online? I believe the answer to that is that if you play, you have already lost. The only people winning in the MMORPG market are Origin, Microsoft, Verant, et al, i.e. the people taking your money. The more time you spend playing, the more time you spend losing. While you are questing for karma, trying to get just one more level, you are losing. Perhaps the only way to win is not to play.

Consider for a moment that when you mark another account as a foe, you assign a numeric penalty to that person's comments which causes you to never view them again. This means you have judged everything this person will ever say in advance, and deemed those future words not worth viewing. You have prejudged them. You are engaging in automated prejudice. How do you explain that to your kids?

The only way to win is not to play

The game is a construct not just to waste your time but to manipulate what you say. If you have ever altered what you post to Slashdot because of fear of karma retribution or the possiblity of a karma reward, then you have bowed to the pressure of an artificial system, a plastic reality placed upon you in order to control you.

I challenge you to break free of the system. You can still post comments to Slashdot without playing the game. You can do it very easily. Just post everything as an anonymous coward. How will people know it's you? Use you public key to sign your comments. If everyone did this, the game would be over, and everyone would win. It's a huge prisoner's dillema, to be sure, but only if you are still worried about getting a high score.

This journal is probably being read by quite a few Sword Saints thinking to themselves 'how can I afford to stop attacking with my +2 bonus??'. Stop thinking inside the box. It's probably harming your brain.

- -s.
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Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org

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5bGq8d2a3WYOIoMG01H4iwI=
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LotR graphics...

[neoform]

I was pretty unimpressed with the zoomed out shots they had in that movie.. either it looked like a cartoon or they purposefully made it look blurry so you couldn't tell how bad the graphical effects were.

Re:Now all we need is an open source cave troll

[Anonymous Coward]

We already have an open sores troll cave: Kathleen Fent's pussy.