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A Tour of Pixar
Jellybob writes "A little something for those of you who aren't happy with where you work: just go and work at Pixar." This is apparently part of the Finding Nemo hype machine; here's a BBC story talking about deploying metal detectors and night-vision goggles to stop people from camcording the movie.
When Pixar started in 1985, Greenberg says, it took 8 hours to render one frame (or 1/24th of a second) of computer animation. Now, it still takes 8 hours, because the artwork in each frame is far more complex.
...the RenderFarm. Behind a large window is a wall of blinking lights, a collection of some 300 machines, each with eight processors. Together, Greenberg says, they perform 400 billion computations per second.
105 minute movie (approximation)
105 * 60 = 6300 seconds in the movie
105 * 60 * 24 = 151200 frames in the movie
151200 * 8 = 1209600 hours to compile complete movie (?!?!)
1209600 / 24 = 50400 days
50400 / 365.25 = 137.9 years
I suppose however assume that..
105 minute movie (approximation)
105 * 60 = 6300 seconds in the movie
105 * 60 * 24 = 151200 frames in the movie
151200 / 300 = 504 (one frame per machine) 504 * 8 = 4032 hours to compile movie with one machine per frame 4032 / 24 = 168 days to compile movie with one machine per frame (46% of a year)
Ok, so I suppose it could work...
Informatus Technologicus
Deploying metal detectors and night vision goggles will not help. Given a few days, movies are ripped with high quality sound and video without any audience being heard. This means that there are people that run the projectors, or even possibly the owner themselves ripping the movie after the theatre has shut down.
Think an employee is going to turn themselves in when they can bypass the checks and go directly to the film reel or digital stream themselves?
Render farms... hundreds of computers... hundreds of frames in 8 hours
It's federal vs state laws.
Depending on the state, violent crimes will be treated differently. Murder is practically legal in California, but Texas is another story.
Now, kill, rape or beat someone while wearing a policemans uniform, you've just violated their civil rights, and the feds will execute you. Kill, rape or beat a federal employee - same thing. This is why the DC snipers are facing the death penalty. They cant get it based on MD law (where most of their killings took place), but they took out a fed, so they'll fry.
Laws are crazy and varied all over. Get caught with a half a joint in some states, you probably wont even be charged. Get caught in Nevada, its 5 years manditory for any amount of marijuana. Even an unsmokable hemp stem.
Clusters.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Taken from vcdquality.com Finding Nemo - TELESYNC - FTF FTF Presents: Finding Nemo RlS.DaTE....: 29th May 2003 FoRMat......: Telesync VCD
some 300 machines, each with eight processors.
That "8 hours per frame" would be for a single CPU.
168 days / 8 CPUs = 21 days.
However, they don't just render the final version of the movie once & then release it. There are countless test renders, animation tweaks, re-renders, texture adjustments, further re-rendering, alternate lighting setups, re-rendering, slightly different camera angles, yet more re-renders, the script for that scene is rewritten from scratch and the whole process repeats until finally the scene is cut for pacing reasons.
It all takes a god-awful amount of CPU time, and it's all completely necessary :-)
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
what is this boycott?
Losing Nemo describes three boycotts against The Walt Disney Company: one by the church for gay-friendly policies, one by labor groups for producing merchandise in sweat^H^H^H^H^H substandard labor conditions, and one by concerned geeks for extending both the scope and duration of copyright.
Losing Nemo. Losing the greed.
Will I retire or break 10K?
http://www.adidas-salomon.com/en/sustainability/_d ownloads/adidas_Salomon_SER_2002.pdf
You can believe them or not, but their reports are there, mid 30's for numbers I think.
Only reason I bring this up is my new brother in-law works at the US headquarters in portland(germany based hq exists also) and this issue was presented to him. He responded with the answer that their conditions do concern them. This report summarizes their answer as I heard it personally and in paper.
Anyway, my point was that living conditions and lifestyles being the focus of a company produce different results. It doesn't matter who they exploit, if they exploit them to get their posh courts/etc.
As for the caste system at Pixar, the disparate culture doesn't surprise me, either. From your less-than-thrilled-with-Pixar-attitude, I'm assuming that you weren't in production. I work at a software company, production apps, not consulting, and the culture, albeit not as extreme as you describe, is similar. I wear jeans to work and can work my own hours so long as my projects are done on time. Certainly there's more of a creative atmosphere fostered on this side of the pond. The accounting and HR people have to wear business casual (at least), and work strict 8 to 6 hours. Legal and sales are even more formal. It's just the nature of the beast. Although, I think it was 'Fire in the Valley' that describes Job's carefully orchestrated tension between the Mac and Apple groups. It wouldn't surprise me if he did the same thing at Pixar.