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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."
Unless you're going to replicate the entire Pixar team, company X (Dreamworks, TDRL, anyone...) is never going to be Pixar.
As if the bleedingly obvious has to be stated here, but Pixar have a long history of digital animation, and their films have never been about the technology, it's always about telling a great story.
The technology simply provides a platform from which to elevate their incredibly rich narratives and ideas to another level. Should Pixar ever reach the boundaries of their current technolgies (software and/or hardware) I'm guessin' they will find something else, or some other alliance that will provide them with a powerful platform which will support their creativity.
There is no doubt that they do this already. RenderMan, provides them with the flexibility to (re)develop their own software when requirements upon it change.
I wouldn't bind my creativity to anything - would you?
It's a myth that Pixar are uncontested when it comes to digital features (as it states in the article). For example:
(1) Blue Sky Studios made a little movie called Ice Age.
(2) Pacific Data Images made a little movie called Shrek, and also released the 2nd ever computer generated feature, Antz (the official site, Antz.com seems dead).
Here's another myth:
While Pixar's rendering techniques are *good*, they aren't necessarily cutting edge when it comes to technology. Blue Sky uses raytracing for their images. This gives them features like caustics, global illumination and efficient curved surfaces. Curves in particular had a huge advantage through memory efficiency for their render farm - meanwhile Pixar's render nodes were crashing because of scene complexity simulating curves through polygons. Sure, Pixar's movies are impressive, but I can't help but think they'd do better without clinging to some legacy baggage that comes with Renderman.
Anyway - the technology is overhyped. It's just a better pencil. Story, story, story is what counts. Disney can probably afford to take longer developing scripts. This is why you can have something as gorgeous as the Final Fantasy movie and have it completely suck at the box office; and Disney flicks don't look so great, but sell well.
Like many of the Slashdot crowd, I absolutely love Pixar's movies (and shorts). Not only for the visuals (which are always stunning) but also the great stories.
I recall seeing somewhere, many many months ago, a comment from someone at Pixar saying that part of the key to their success is that they take artists and teach them how to use computers, instead of taking computer people and teaching them how to be artists. Many of Pixar's best people are alums or the California Institute of Arts (including John Lasseter). [There are many in-jokes through Pixar's movies that are refernces to Cal Arts).
Can't wait for "Cars" or "The Incredibles" to hit theaters.
CyberDave
They simply don't have the talent to take on Pixar. It's a "B" movie house. The place is run by a guy named Larry Kassanoff (sp?) who made his fortune with movies such as Mortal Kombat. He has no love for cartoons or animation like the Pixar staff does.
I saw what the projects Threshold had in the development pipeline last year. While I can't give specifics, nothing they had was worth making into an animated feature.
In my opinion, the only two studios that can even attempt to take on Pixar are Dreamworks and Sony.