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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...
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.
A friend of mine is an animator at Pixar. He says it's about 45 minutes per frame nowadays. :)
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