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Big Blue to take on Pixar?
spareacct1 writes "USAToday is reporting that IBM is set to announce a strategic partnership with Threshold Digital Research Labs of Santa Monica, CA. TDRL now hopes it has the deep pockets and computing power to take on Pixar as the undisputed leader in CG animated films. TDRL's spartan website is showing off digital stills. Interesting sidebar at the end of the story, both Pixar and TDRL recently dumped Sun and MS, respectively, in favor of Linux."
Nope. Most of Pixar's success can be attributed to John Lasseter, the idea guy behind (and director of) the Toy Story movies and A Bug's Life.
Yes, they did the effects for MK as well as Scary Movie, Dogma, Jay & Silent Bob, The Afterlife, The Faculty and soon Foodfight.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
I think John Lassester is an ass for putting himself at the beginning of the spirited away and castle in the sky dvds(and possible other miyazaki dvds)...'You are in for a real treat with this movie and my close friend, hayao miyazaki..blah blah blah'
Not to be picky, but Ryan (Digital Blasphemy) doesn't use Maya. He uses Lightwave, Vue d'Esprit, World Builder; occasionally some other stuff (like something called XFrog, etc).
But I certainly agree with you, the artist is a very big factor.
For an example of what On Demand Computing is all about, see IBM and Akamai's proof-of-concept site. IBM Research is developing technologies that would upload your J2EE applications onto a network of servers distributed around the world. The number of servers in use for an application will actually grow and shrink depending on demand! Server capacity can be rented from other sources during times of high demand. No more Slashdotting!!!
The stuff that comes from Disney itself seems to consist mainly of recycled TV shows, and recycled Disney movies. And their recent animated features have been lame and formulaic.
Yawn.
A friend of mine is an animator at Pixar. He says it's about 45 minutes per frame nowadays. :)
I was under the impression no real 3d cards are available on the mac. I mean real as in professional. Geforce's are fast but they are not accurate and can misrender information that a wildcat or a quadro can not. Quite essential for a movie.
As far as I'm aware, those types of cards aren't used for this type of work at all. Something like this might be more appropriate? But I don't work in that industry, so I have no idea.
Is their even a MacOSX port for Renderman?
Not yet, but they're thinking about it.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
AC, for reasons that will soon be clear...
Jeebus, I can't believe their server survived a slash-dotting. That place is totally Mickey Mouse(TM).
TDRL has been working on "Food Fight" for nearly 8 years now. They've spent over 10 million to generate what amounts to a movie trailer. The quality is miserable. I mean, shear crap. Not only that, but the story is garbage. It is essentially a 2 hour ad for various name brand food and household items. Amazing, really, that anyone would get behind a project like that, but they seem to keep convincing people to "invest" money in the company.
Their relationship with IBM goes back a while. They used to get hand-me-down machines from IBM as a form of sponsorship.
But, as many folks have mentioned already, it takes more then computers to make a decent film.
The producer mentioned in the article is your stereotypical "Hollywood Producer". That is, he is not a nice guy. (Not all producers are assholes, but they seem to have that stereotype...) Think "The Producers"... I really believe that's how the place stays afloat... by bilking investors out of money. The rest of the management is not much better than L.K. The place is a mess.
TDRL is not taken seriously in the industry as a result of the poor quality of their work. Many talented people have passed through the place, and then promptly moved on. They can't hold on to skilled people because the work environment is extremely poor and the projects they end up doing are generally fairly low budget. (which is to say, you are almost guaranteed to not be able to do a good job due to the limited resources and time) People with skill don't need to stay in a miserable place like that.
Don't believe a word of that press release. It is pure hype.
No, Disney and Pixar are vertical partners. Disney is Pixar's distribution and marketing partner. Pixar makes all the films from storyboards to rendering the last frame. Disney has final approval on what they decide to release with Pixar, but they do not have any control over Pixar's creative process. Once the film is complete and meets Disney's approval, Disney handles all the distribution (theater release, DVD, etc) and marketing (promotions, commercials, licensing). Disney and Pixar split proceeds 50/50.
That is until now. The Disney/Pixar deal only lasted 5 films and is now over: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo. In the future, Pixar can stay with Disney or go with another company like Dreamworks SKG. Disney is not in the best shape in the animation dept. Not counting the Pixar films, their last series of animations have been duds. I think their last hit was Mulan in 1998. So Disney needs Pixar more than Pixar needs Disney, but it will be interesting to see what Pixar does next animation wise and business wise
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
According to Pixar, Toy Story 2 does not count as one of the five, being a sequel. So we will get another film: 'The Incredibles' The trailer is here
George Lucas just opened a new division to create fully CG films.
This was mentioned in a previous slashdot post but I am too lazy to surf it up.
The reason they opened a seperate division was that ILM is too heavily structured as a service company and previous attempts to do digital features there (Frankenstein comes to mind) all failed.
You're still not right. Disney and Pixar renegotiated their contract in the early days, following the success of Toy Story. I can't remember at what point, though. There are at least 2 more films coming out. The Incredibles, as you mentioned. I belive the other is tentatively titled Cars.
yes. Also look up stocaistic sampling and you'll find his name mentioned several times.