Slashdot Mirror
Film Gimp
gosand writes "DesktopLinux.com is running this story about Film Gimp. It is a movie editor based on The Gimp that movie studios have been developing for their own use for a while now. The article is an interview with Robin Rowe about Film Gimp's use, and includes some interesting info about the film industry's use of GNU/Linux desktops. One quote worth noting: 'Studios have become the leading desktop users of Linux. Three hundred Linux desktops at Dreamworks. That's amazing! While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source. Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues.'"
While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source.
I initially read the tite as "Film Gump" and thought that Jon Katz was back writing his inane drivel once again.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Editing films is like a box of chocolates....
- Forrest Gimp.
... movies make the Gimp!
...because it helped to generate that atrocious looking dog in the scooby-doo movie. ;)
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source
It seems to be implying that the studios are doing it out of love, but methinks that they are finding that it's cheaper, and more flexable (their programmers can get their hands on all the code)...
Not that this is a bad thing, just that it's not because they hate MSFT...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I wonder what the studio workers position is on MPAA/Palladium/TCPA et al.
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
But other than having Linux on the "inside" where does this get us?
I remember, about eighteen months ago, really trying very hard to enjoy my hobby - music. I can't believe that sequencing really is that much of a minority activity and yet it was damn near impossible to do anything. Will there be a day when music/film studios release their programs?
Alas, I doubt it.
Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues
Not likely. They're in the movie business to make money, anything their customers use for free is a threat, anything they use for free is more money.
Sig is on vacation
FilmGimp? Can they not change the name to something more politically correct? ie:
- FilmChallenged
- FilmSpecial
- FilmJerrysKids
- FilmTheres"Abilitity"In"Disability"
- FilmDroolingTard
Hmm.. no, on second thought "FilmDroolingTard" is out.
Trolling is a art,
Of course, Scooby Doo would have been overpriced at "free", but that's completely beside the point.
John
Studios have become the leading desktop users of Linux. Three hundred Linux desktops at Dreamworks. That's amazing!
I know that typical Slashdot math (49 + 2 - 1 = 49) is a bit "creative", but I hardly see how a dozen (or even two, three, or four dozen) movie studios with a couple hundred Linux boxes measures up to the predicted number of Linux desktop users (18,000,000) from the folks who run the Linux Counter Web site.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Is it strictly correct to call this a movie editor, or should it be called a frame editor or something, since it's not for true editing or compositing (like Avid), but for frame-by-frame clean-up?
AWESOME! I would never have guessed that Dreamworks would be using Open Source. This is definately a BIG step in the right direction for the Open Source movement. Now with the possible onset of a Film GImp, I am sure Apple is shaking in their iBoots! Now it would be nice to see Dreamworks make a "sizeable" contribution to the Open Source community, but some how I see them using more than 300 systems as more than enough.
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
I'm really glad to see that Film Gimp work (which seemed dead or at least very sleepy for a while) is actually continuing. Thanks, Robin Rowe!
... I just hope that any new menu approaches are offered as options rather than The New Way.
:)
As I understand it (can anyone improve my understanding?) a lot of the work done for Film Gimp will likely end up rolled back into Gimp. This sounds great. I hope though that the "right click" menus are not completely replaced; I rather like the way they work. I understand that a lot of people don't like them, though
CMYK is the constant complaint I hear wrt to Gimp vs Photoshop, even from people who aren't sure what CMYK is or why they should want one for the kitchen. So I do hope that film gimp work results in CMYK support.
So after "that awful interface" (not my opinion, but hey) and CMYK support, what's the *next*-biggest complaint people have about the GIMP?
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Film gimp adds lots of support for superior playback. However, the biggest and most importanted different is that it uses 16 bits per channel instead of only 8 like the regular gimp. That means that instead of roughly 16 million colors, you get 16 million squared colors. This adds much less chance of rounding errors on compositing, and gives you more room to play with when adjusting brightness and color balance over 8 bit images.
The downside is that film gimp is based on an old version of the gimp, and it doesn't really look like that is going to change soon. But at least they are talking about syncing up a bit before 2.0 whereas before they seemed to be planning on waiting for the Gimp 2.0.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
Just because dreamworks studio is helping linux with developing, do you really think that it will change the minds of their bosses on copyrights? Nope, all the bosses care about is making more profit, they could care less what it is being made on, just that it puts an extra buck or two in their pockets.
My spelling bad.
Content Restrictions Issue != Linux/Open Source Issues.
This article has nothing to do with the MPAA campaigning for content restrictions. It's all well and good that the movie studios have discovered Linux and have built FilmGimp, but again, what does this have to do with Open Source? Not a damn thing.
Why? Because the various Open Source licenses don't cover content created with their software, unlike the stuff the Evil Empire could pull if it wanted to.
blog |
will be out soon. Watch out.
-
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
> While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source. Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues.
Whoever wrote that has obviously never had a job. Executives don't give a fig what their employees want or need to get their jobs done.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Dreamworks wants to make a profit. The larger the profit they can make, the happier everyone is. One way to increase your profits is to reduce your costs. Simple math right? So how do you reduce the cost of your software? You switch to open source of course.
Just because it's a large company and they chose to use open source software isn't anything special in my book. It's the logical choice for those in the know. But then again I guess it's nice to hear about Linux's ever-increasing acceptance.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
" Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues.'"
If the poster really believes this, he is deluding himself. to the executives, this is all a bottom line issue. They have someone in the know recommend this "free" software, instead of a program that costs thousands, and they obviouslyl are going to go for it on a cost/benefit basis. This doesn't mean they feel grateful, they still don't want their content getting out to the public without wringing every single drop of profit they can from it.
"If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance." -George Bernard Shaw
from working two years trying to sell a piece of technology to the members of the entertainment industry, I have come to realize that there is no group more interested in getting something for nothing than the entertainment industry.
as a result, I'm not at all surprised to find OSS in the major studios, being used to create stuff.
places like ILM exist successfully largely because people give them hardware for the joy of being known as the hardware that ILM chooses. then people ignore the fact that the reason they choose that hardware is largely based on it being free.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
"Digital Domain is transitioning all of its 2D and 3D production workstations to include NVIDIA Quadro4 XGL professional graphics solutions, NVIDIA's Unified Driver Architecture (UDA), and the Linux operating system. The company is also deploying NVIDIA Quadro4 graphics hardware and Linux software drivers in its software development, digital content creation studio and systems administration departments."
There's a difference between movie production studios and other companies/corporations. Studios are extremely "tool-driven" in that the timeliness and quality of their production is extremely dependent upon the quality and flexibility of their tools.
The average corporation, on the other hand, is not as dependent on an extremely flexible desktop computer. All you need is a compter that runs an office suite, and they've already got that in Microsoft.
So the thought that studios might be setting an example for other corporations is a longshot indeed.
Does anybody know if this uses anything from GNU's Free Film Project?
I haven't really heard much about the project myself and so I haven't looked, but from what I read on GNU's info page about it it seems pretty interesting. Also the GNU Octal stuff seems interesting, what about that, every decent film editor has at least rudimentary sound manipulation utilities.
If they're not, can anybody give reasons why? Projects like those and GYVE (GNU Yellow Vector Editor) are things that confirm my faith in GNU and RMS in my times of doubt.
Not to say that it's all bad for the studios or open source. The place I work for shelled out money for an open source developer to finish some of his development work on a program they wanted to use. Cheaper than buying a commercial package, and everyone benefitted.
But the biggest reasons the studios go for Linux is the cheaper/faster hardware (despite all sorts of compatibility headaches -- getting reliable 24 frame per second playback for 1k images is a little touchy) plus reduced porting costs for their legacy IRIX software and avoiding the whole Microsoft headache. The sysadmins really don't want to go there, and the studio doesn't really want to start springing for license packs for a few hundred users and a few hundred renderfarm machines.
How does Film Gimp compare the other big open source video editor Virtual Dub?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
According to the page, the rumor is that the committee saw the Film Gimp effort as the prototype, "the one you throw away" and decided to put their efforts into gegl.
Some good years ago I read an interview from some M$ developer in one serious journal (PC Magazine? Byte? I don't remember) where is showed pride that Windows95 had some piece of code that was taken from some free source. It seems it was something related to those irritating "lemedoitfoyou" wizards that populated Windows since then. Moreover, Windows has some features that were directly taken from X interface.
That's one example taken out of the *NIX world. On *NIX world we have tons of examples on how certain "purities" dissolve in the mass of needs and wishes of its users.
The fact that Warner Bros uses GPL is nothing extraordinary. And, frankly, it has nothing to do with their stances for protecting ownership. The problem of content, information sharing going beyond software is something to be dealt with extreme care. A film, book or other media content is not a product of software exclusively. And the means to share it should be completely different. In our software world, we still may play a barter between programs and things related to them. In the other spheres of activity, like films and books, the author is usually offering something that cannot be retributed in the same way. I am not a writer and I cannot offer a book for every book someone offers me.
Anyway, the restrictive politics that MPAA and its cousins play, surely hurt everyone. They are creating a feud out of certain media and they are seriously hindering the chances for people to have a right for information (entertainment is also a form of information) in these environments. Considering this highly restrictive stance and their use of free software tools is surely a paradox. But it does not mean they should free something. Anyway, their money helps a little our world, right? But they should be more democratic and flexible in what relates to the media they work with. Because if they will keep this stance, the consequences will backfire at them. For example, they may produce new fresh laws that will hinder developers from making cheap software they highly depend on...
While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source.
This is highly suggestive. AFAIK Open Source does not equate to being against anti-piracy measures. I am not trying to defend the MPAA here. I am only saying that these are two different things, and mixing them up is bad polics.
Being well balanced is overrated. -- John Carmack
Having Linux on the desktop of three hundred users at a film studio is a nice little step in the right direction. But, it is still a long shot from having Linux on the desktop of large corportions. Large corporations make industries move. If GE says to Micorsoft "we need a feature" then Microsoft delivers. When Boeing says to Dell give this or give me that, Dell delivers. When GE's tens of thousands of desktops, -or CocaCola's, or Procter & Gamble's or any other Dow thirty bell weather company - uses Linux, then there will be parades in the street proclaiming Linux has arrived on the desktop.
Well, if the GNU license is as viral as microsoft claims, all movies are now public domain.
Fight Spammers!
Are you trying to imply the mainstream movie industry isn't evil? Bah!
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Whoa! That means Dreamworks accounts for 42.71% of all the Linux Desktops used which in turn make up 1% of all Desktops used according to Google. That's so pathetic that even Apple has a 400% larger marketshare.
Man, the BSD Troll needs to update his *BSD is dying post to Open Source Desktops are dying.
Moderators: Modding this post down as a Troll only proves this point even more. And it is on topic. The only valid negative moderation would be -1 Redundant.
The thing about Hollywood is that they aren't very cost sensitive. Palladium could be succesful on mainstream machines and not effect the digital editing folks because they use different platforms like Apple, SGI, etc... It would be better if this were an industry like HR which uses extremely mainstream hardware. Other than that I agree with everything you wrote especially about the 5th column.
All that hard work that you've spent coding for FREE on the Gimp project is finally paying off! Now, the same companies that bring us great technologies like CSS and great laws like the DMCA are now PROFITING OFF OF YOUR BACKS!
Okay, maybe my attitude is wrong about the whole thing, but could someone please help me figure out why?
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
"Whoever wrote that has obviously never had a job. Executives don't give a fig what their employees want or need to get their jobs done."
So, is there a position open at your company?
Drop all CSS related lawsuits.
Junis.
In the story it has the link to the project. Hence you can download the software and use it yourself. I'll post it once again so you see for yourself; filmgimp .
The fact is that film production in Canada is lowering the costs necessary to make a movie. So, people are tempted to use software made over crap things like the gimp (yes, gimp sucks, even if you like it) just because it's for free. Some years ago the same people were touting 50k-per-license cool software to do the same things.
"Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues."
If my grocery store has a super friendly cashier then maybe the marketing executives will rethink their privacy-invading club-card discount crap?
If I have a Mac at home then maybe I will become a good artist?
If 18,000 peace activists sit in a stadium thinking about world peace then maybe we'll have it?
You mean that guy in the black leather outfit in "Pulp Fiction"?
Why linux and not BSD ?
the actual irony here is that the studios cannot accept the idea of fair use for their own products, but are more than willing to take from open source. sure they will contribute code, but how about contributing "code?" what a bunch of jerks! i don't have a tv, and i have come across the first movie that will not play in my tibook, since the matrix on my old powerbook: loves of a blonde.
I may have to start calling it O$$!
Didn't just use maya (even though it's expensive)
Actually took the time to develop something that is open and other studios can use for free as well.
I guess the GPL actually does work for the community after all...huh imagine that.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
It seems to me that lots of people are saying that movie studios are inherently against open source because they are big and corporate and, most importantly, against P2P. Everyone needs to stop for a second and realize that P2P and Open Source are two completely different issues that are linked, in this case, by the fact that /.ers have strong opinions on both, which are anti-msft and anti-movie studios respectively. So please think before you equate the two. Are movie studios really publicly against Open Source or are they just fighting P2P, show me....
Disclaimer: No I don't like msft, studios, corporations, government or anything else you'd like to take a shot at, just broadening perspective here
And, no, I should not have used the goddamn Preview mode first.
It's about the tool. Whatever tool will get them the biggest bang for the buck. If a $5k/seat tool would do it better than a free one (and return a better product/movie at the end), then they'd use that instead.
How many studios are using Blender instead of Maya/3DSMax/Lightwave for real production work? Very, very few, if any. Even though Blender has the potential to save serious $$, it's just not good enough.
It appears FreeGimp is good enough, so that's why they use it.
Haven't you guys figured out that these people are the biggest fucking hypocrites currently sucking oxygen? They'll run Linux on the back end to render "OverTroll 2000" or whatever crap they're working on now, and then pressure the MPAA to ban everyone else from using Open Source because they MIGHT POSSIBLE CONSIDER THINKING ABOUT USING IT to copy DVDs!
Don't believe them for a minute.
"While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source."
This can be nothing but good from a creators perspective as opposed to a "producers" (MPAA/RIAA/MSFT etc.) who seem to have fulfilled their roles as facility monopolists and promotional tools with little if any artistic function.
Hopefully we're witnessing the ascendancy of the artist over the tool/industry(pun intended?)
It dawned on me while using Photoshop 2.0 on an Mac LC (with all of 8 megs ram!) that great software is as great art as the product it may produce, so it's truly artist helping artist here. My point? None, just saying I'm optimistic and hats off the the coders.
Studios are always looking to save a buck or two. If the program looks like Adobe Premiere or Avid MCXpress, or even an EditBox, why not use it? PC technology today facilitates high-powered video work. I'm personally excited since I am a student in production/editing, and I can finally get my hands on some software that'll work on my Sparc at home. I can't possibly see this replacing the Avid or the EditBox any time soon, but if the Gimp was able to convert people from Photoshop, maybe that will be true with Premiere.
I can't wait to give this a test run, and I'm glad that production houses are already making use of it.
The MPAA and Linux...
Does this make Kaiser Soze the "Gimp"?
Chris
Wooopydeedoo
We hear how all these movie companies are using Linux, and yet there isn't one decent (legal) DVD player for Linux.
isn't it a bit odd that movie studios are aparently embracing linux to MAKE movies, but seem to desire it being illegal to VIEW the same movie on linux (via DVD) ?
Jah Rastafari Solasi!
Fiya 'pon da white man!
Fiya 'pon da slashdot!
From the article: "Everybody is onboard. Linux is now the preferred OS for animation and special effects."
I'm curious to know how many copies of DeCSS are floating around on the studios' production machines.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
Silicon Grail and Rhythm & Hues were the only sponsors, and Grail is gone.
My first impression is that these software is like a adobe image ready...so,that software is pretty diffrent Final cut Pro.
"We use Film Gimp on all talking animal jobs"...
Reason enough to pull the plug on this baby right here and now.
**>>BELCH
This must really piss off Apple fanatics, who's life and death are completely determined by the use of Apple's in the "creative industry". The thought that the MOST creative, fast paced, "different thinking" industry is now completely Linux based must really get their goats. Teee hee.
Die and burn in hell, troll.
Actually, the main reason studios/fx houses are using Linux so much is legacy code. Way back when, before nice Geforce cards, SGIs were the only way to create cutting edge CG. Most fx houses have their own in-house 3D modeling programs, renderers, etc. and they wrote the guts for these packages back in the SGI days.
However, since PCs are so much cheaper than SGIs now, and since Silicon Graphics is in dire straits, instead of rewriting their code, they're just porting it to Linux. It's much easier to just do that and production timelines don't allow for time to redesign/debug already existing in-house packages that their artists/animators have mastered already.
Question: What are the implications of Film Gimp?
Film Gimp is the most successful open source tool in feature motion picture work today. Programmers at many studios are helping development, including Rhythm & Hues, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and ILM. This is great cooperation in an industry that historically has been rather secretive.
Studios have become the leading desktop users of Linux. Three hundred Linux desktops at Dreamworks. That's amazing! While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source. Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues.
Movie studios migt be giving back to the community by helping develop the tools but this is completely different from the studios giving away the IP created with these tools. Because the studios benefit from OSS is not enough reason for the studio execs to allow their IP to be freely distributed. Don't expect this to happen anytime soon, if ever.
Perhaps RMS should add a line to the GPL which requires any work created with GPL based tools must be given to the community under the same terms as source code.
Whoops I mean it cuts down on their profit. Its because of Linux that Stan won't get any money for Spider Man.
Somehow an organization that wants to make as much money as possible (not profit) using linux doesn't sound too unrealistic.
Now all we need is the movie studios to improve gnutella.
Their thinking will be "We get the special production tools, and all you theiving scum, er, consumers get are playback systems. We'll just have our lapdogs in congess get that into law." Why would you think that they wouldn't want to keep 'special' tools for themselves, particularly when they see how powerful they can be?
First let's go over what DRM is going to be:
- X86 CPU manufacturers are (in the most likely senario) going to add instruction opcodes, or more likely, additional BIOS interupts, which are used for isolating a segment of memory from all but a "trusted" source, a process of some sort, be it a driver, application, whatever. It will be authenticated by a key, yadda yadda. The point is, the HARDWARE will lock-out access to this memory block by all other processes on the machine. Therefore, program A cannot read, write, touch, smell, send a love letter too, or call program B's protected memory block on the phone to say hello. To the rest of the machine, sans program A, this block does not and never did exist.
- Microsoft is implementing "Palladium" as the software end to this scheme. It will be a system in Windows which does the work of authenticating the use of these features as an abstraction layer in the Windows API. Windows Media Player, for example, might download encyrpted content from the 'net into a protected memory zone, so other programs would be unable to rip it for saving & possible later re-distrobution. It could also be used to completely isolate processes from each other in hardware, which would also prevent many types of viral activity (but not all, imagine a process is taken over by some network exploit and code is saved to the disk, it woudl work in any isolated segement it is loaded into...), and improve general security of sensitive e-mail, documents, data in general.
The way I see it, this scheme offers ADVANTAGES for Linux. For one, Linux won't impose the pay-for-use services I can envision Microsoft and MPAA/RIAA types pushing for (i.e. imagine the MPAA strikes a deal with MS, and each time you watch a DVD in your computer, you are charged a $0.05 fee, with no way around it, in addition to not being able to rip the DVD [well, using the standard driver, anywaysThen there is always the "YEAH RIGHT" crowd, those who insist this is root of all evil and I should remove my head from my ass and smell the reality. Most would also claim the smell before I took my head out of my ass would match this particular reality, but I'm not quite so sure (heh). Think about it, if DRM is going to cripple hardware to the point where it will destroy the open source community, a community which has proven time and again its methods work and its craftsmanship is that of quality - a community which the government (of both the US and foreign nations) has begun to take notice of and actually embrace - a community which competes directly with Microsoft; do you really think they'd get away with it? The NSA has their own Linux distro. Suddenly Microsoft and Intel create a system which only allows Windows to run on previously open hardware?
The DOJ would flush them both down the toilet for extreme monopolistic practices before it would even be reported on Slashdot. The recent court desision also left a somewhat open end for amendments to the settlement, I'm sure that would "get in on the action too".
I really wasn't a big fan of the whole DRM idea when I first heard it, but the Slashdot crowd tends to get a little over-excited at times. Between seeing what this whole DRM project has evolved into, and given the current state of the technology world (and for that matter, the world as a whole), I dont' see how it wouldn't be complete suicide for DRM-supporting companies to lock out potential 3rd-party developers of any kind. The system is meant to protect content, not monopolies.
Unless it's a monopoly on content. But that is a different discussion...
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
So . . . MPAA wins and they get their DRM stuff in like Palladium. Now open source is illegal. Now the studios have no tools to make movies. Now there are no movies. So what would the MPAA then be protecting?
Flim Springfield!
Call 555-6321 today.
I've been reading a couple of strange comments in this thread equating the lawyers and executives of a big media company with the digital artists who produce the films.
Just because they both get their paychecks from the same payroll company does not mean they share the same philosophies, abilities, or motivations regarding open source.
Put another way-- imagine you worked for Dreamworks as a modeler for Shrek 2. You're given a restricted budget and schedule. What tools would you choose to use? You'd use the OS and tools that give you the biggest bang for your buck, and if you're a regular slashdot reader (and don't think there aren't Hollywood tech people here), you might even skew towards Open Source.
The people making technological decisions are in no way the same people making political or marketplace decisions, in just the same way that you may be an American but may have substantial differences with your government.
Put yet another way-- if this slashdot thread was about the domination of Photoshop in Hollywood, you'd be complaining just as loudly that your inflated ticket prices are being used to subsidise pro-DMCA Adobe.
Just as Sony has a content-making branch pushing for DRM and at the same time has a hardware division making MP3 players, yes, a studio might have an internal inconsistancy in its point of view as well... but the whole point of the GIMP and the GPL is that ANYONE can use it-- in fact, by using Open Source technology, the studio system may be come to understand its benefits which could possibily win a fair-minded executive over and/or lessen their arguing position.
Gimp has quite a shitty interface. Is there an image processing program with a more logical interface out there?
Three hundred Linux desktops at Dreamworks. That's amazing!
I wonder if they use KDE or Gnome? Emacs or vi? Mozilla or Konqueror? I'm in need of a role-model!
Is it too late to change the GPL to prohibit the use of GPL'd code at any company which is a member of RIAA?
With more and more in-house progrmamers, and more and more digital work being done, it only makes sense that some programmer said "We could just add a couple tiny things to The Gimp and it would be perfect, and no negotiating involved"
How does a movie studio using open source software benefit anything other than themselves and the open source software?
The submitter seems to allude that using open source software will cause movie studios to stop protecting their intellectual property and let him leech more free movies.
What "open source and Linux issues" do movie studios have?
heaven also forbids sex before marriage, and killing one another.
What about
Cinelerra
It does a suitable job at NLE.
-- I speak only for myself.
The prose to open the article states that Film GIMP is a movie editor, but that is wrong. It is not an AVID or DigiSuite or anything. The page it refers to says it if for retouching frames at 16-bits per color channel. Very cool for retouching (Adobe After Effects works in 8-bit space and can fake 10-bit cineon space for film). But does it do more?
What software does it compete against? Will it have plug-ins like After Effects or Combustion? Is it just for high-bit-resolution frame fixes? Does it have a time-line for effects over multiple frames or is the effects on a frame by frame basis?
So far I see very little info on its true useability. Anyone can answer my questions?
Maybe the FSF should sniff around and see if any of these studios have been altering and selling versions of GIMP for use by other studios out of line with the GPL.
/.?
What sort of penalty may apply if they had?
Anyone from the FSF read
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
I probably won't ever have a need to hand paint hundreds of thousands of frames in Film Gimp, but by the way he's been promoting this thing it's a good bet that someone is jockying for an award of some kind next April. Evangelism of a free software product as having a major impact on the film industry is just the kind of thing that gets an award.
The exact degree to which "ILM" and "Dreamworks" really use it and the exact number of screenshots of Film Gimp we see outside the Robin Rowe columns in Linux Journal are beside the point. The movie industry is a game and we're seeing someone who knows how to play it.
How many tarballs you make, how many websites you upload to sourceforge, and how much evangelism you preach is what drives the industry.
Well, wake him up!
I hate to run a cold shower on your collective open source hard-ons, but the reason most studios that are Linux based use GIMP as their paint tool is because there is NO OTHER CHOICE. I work at one of the studios listed in the article. The artists on my team doing texture painting will actually go look for a 5 year old SGI octane with Photoshop 3.0 to use because it is faster and easier to use than GIMP. Let that settle in for a moment. These kids love fast machines, they crave them like crack cocaine. However, they will go sit in front of a 250MHz boat anchor and use a product released 8 years ago because it is a better tool. GIMP has a UI that that the Surgeon General should place warnings on for RSI risks (repetitive stress injury for the non acronym types.)
The availability of Deep Paint or Photoshop on Linux would signal the end of GIMPs use in studios. It is not a matter of free as in beer tools, it is a matter of Total Cost of Ownership. If it takes my artists 3 times as long to produce paintings/textures in GIMP as it does in Photoshop/Commercial Tool X, I am walking straight into my Producer's office with a P.O. for Photoshop licenses. Because at the end of the day, our highest costs are labor, not software. And we are not zealots. We, as the rest of capitalistic America, want to make money. And we can't do that with inefficient process.
I agree, this would be the best solution because the menus could be accessed from any point like the current popups but navigating through them would be much more like a gesture.
Until some other choice is available you can always leverage the tear-off feature of the popups so that important subsections of the menus can persist like palette dialogs.
"Yeah well
the execs retire or die and some new blood arrives .... err actually - no. They will never change.
I tell ya, gambling never agreed with me. Last week I went to the track
and they shot my horse with the opening gun.
Well, just last week I was at a Chinese restaurant and when I opened my
fortune cookie I found the guy's check sitting at the next table. I said,
"Hey, buddy, I got your check", he said, "Thanks."
-- Rodney Dangerfield
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