Linux In Hollywood: Status Report

segment writes "TechNewsWorld is running an article about Linux in Hollywood. The article describes speed advantages, cost advantages, movies in which Linux played a role (including Shrek, Star Wars, and Titanic). Mentions of the embrace for Linux with history on Apple, Microsoft, and other vendors, and how they've adapted to the use.`As a rule, no major studio will rely on a tool without access to the source code. The risk is too great. It's not that the studios want to putter around modifying commercial programs, rather it's insurance -- insurance that they can do so if they must to meet a production deadline.` Very informative article." Robin Rowe (the author) is the project manager for Cinepaint (formerly "FilmGimp"), but writes about 3D applications, barriers to software entry in Hollywood, and more.

Comments

what exactly could they do?

[Anonymous Coward]

to change the source code in order to meet a rendering deadline? are they going to suddenly come up with a miracle optimization because they need to meet a deadline?

Re:what exactly could they do?

[NanoGator]

"are they going to suddenly come up with a miracle optimization because they need to meet a deadline?"

Why not? Movie studios tend to push the limits of the tools they have available. This means that they run into problems that the software wasn't originally designed for. All they'd have to do is massage the code to their particular situation.

I can give you a hypothetical scenario. Lightwave's a kick ass 3d package. It can be used in a wide variety of things. But if you were using it to animate 1,000 monsters coming down a hill, you'd find yourself wishing you had terabytes of memory. Lightwave doesn't have an instancing feature. Thankfully, though, Lightwave has a neat little SDK. So somebody could write a plugin that says "first render this model in this pose here, then move the model over to where the second guy is supposed to be and render it over there, rinse and repeat...". I think it's called instancing. Instead of having 1,000 monsters in RAM, you just have one.

See what I mean? Granted, nobody has the source code to Lightwave but the company who made it, but imagine if they did. A few nights of coding would save a few weeks of render time.

Re:what exactly could they do?

[foandd]

Yes. In fact, DD did exactly this when they ran into a problem while rendering the water for Titanic.

Remember, just because you're not clever enough to imagine a situation where having the source code is useful doesn't mean such situations don't exist.

Hipocrits

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't it the MPAA that said (and I paraphrase) "All Linux users are pirates".

What hipocrits.

Oops my bad

[segment]

Wow can't believe I didn't include something about Revolution OS

The documentary Revolution OS explores the human side of the open source and free software movements, illuminating the behind-the-scenes story of the hackers and programmers rebelling against the corporate machine.

This 90-minute film begins with Richard Stallman's quest to create a free operating system. It then follows the movement through its two-decades-long evolution in interviews with Stallman, Linus Torvalds (creator of the open-source operating system Linux), Eric Raymond (author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar), Bruce Perens (author of the Open Source Definition), Brian Behlendorf (leader of the Apache Web server project), Michael Tiemann (founder of the first open source company) and Larry Augustin (founder of VA Linux Systems). Revolution OS also depicts the culture of the open source movement by documenting the Installfest parties where people can bring their computers to get free, expert Linux tech support; and the Refund Day protest marches, where Linux users demand reimbursement of the extra fees that get tacked onto the purchase price of new computers for pre-installed Microsoft applications.

Didn't even stop to think about the new Sinbad movie from Dreamworks either. Or IBM's General Parallel File System (GPFS) Sorry FYI

Linux Storms Hollywood

Linux in Hollywood a Star is Born

SGI

[rf0]

Well least they make a passing mention of the once great SGI hardware. T2 seemed to be the peaks and its been a bit downhill from there on it. However nice to see linux make inroads into the render farms. I have to wondered if however faster inter-connects would be needed between the nodes?

Is gigabit network really fast enough or would something even higher be needed?

Rus

Funny use of the word rule

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

As a rule, no major studio will rely on a tool without access to the source code.

This is so completely false it's unbelievable. Studios use software such as Renderman, Maya, Filmbox, Mental Ray, RealFlow, Photomodeler, 3D Equalizer, Softimage, Photoshop and Shake all without access to the source. And they rely on these packages. They also rely on OSes such as Irix (still!) and Windows for which they have no source. This statement isn't even a 'stretch' of the word 'rule'. It's just plain false.

I have supplied special effects APPS for hollywood

[Anonymous Coward]

I have supplied special effects APPS for hollywood and they not only do not get the code, they do not have total control of the technology in any form once agreed upon as "acceptable".

Furthermore... if the effect is not what they like... TOO BAD, they cut the scene, and i do not get paid, either credit, nor fee, but they have no choice.

I have also done a code for a few rock concerts on theor giant video walls. Same thing, except that in that case I have a performers contract. I OWN MY PERFORMANCE... in this case the code and all it expresses.

This article is a total lie. Hollywood would not know how to hire programmer if you held a gun to its head.

Its a sick technically inept world, full of idiots and throttled by unions and buck-passing.

And the tools used by the CONTRACTORS and employees alike include no source to the popular tools : Apple Shake 3 (a 10,000 dollar app), Alias Wavefront's Maya 5, AVID Xpress, Photo Realistic Renderman 10, Electric Image Universe, FormZ, Filmbox, Cinema4D, LightWave, Mental Ray, 3D Equalizer, Softimage XSI, Photoshop and practically every pro tool in existence that is popularly relied upon.

NONE COME WITH SOURCE.

Thats becasue hollywood does not want to pay the extra costs for source. They want to save all possible dollars on each film s a separate budget with no long term financial viewpoint.

I mysefl have paid for source to many things, for other companies, typically over 100,000 dollars for major tools. Othertimes it is merely in provable escrow and wholly recompilable by 3rd party experts.

BUT HOLLYWOOD NEVER GETS SOURCE nor cares about it. This entire article is a total lie.

Yep: Optimize to a specific type of scene

[danlyke]

As an ex member of Pixar's Graphics R&D group: Yep, exactly that happens. Often times a scene will have some sort of issue that you otherwise wouldn't see, texture memory access patterns, whatever.

There's nothing like having a real world test case to get those optimization neurons working.

New features happen in the slack time, making them work fast happens when the production deadline is fast approaching.

Re:Yep: Optimize to a specific type of scene

[AJWM]

Often times a scene will have some sort of issue that you otherwise wouldn't see,

Remember the "Genesis planet" sequence from Star Trek - The Wrath of Kahn? Dates back about 20 years. Obvious CG -- it was supposed to be -- animation of a planet coalescing, mountains rising, etc as the POV swept in and across the surface. Just one problem, the damn mountain range kept rising right into the flight path. They ended up hacking the software so that a canyon opens up just as the POV gets to the mountain range and can fly through it.

That much I can confirm from watching the video. What I can't confirm, that the ILM programmer who told this story to me said, is that carved onto the canyon walls is (are?) the name(s) of the programmer(s) who did that hack. (Too blurred in the video).

Opera in The Recruit

[H8X55]

Did anyone notice the default broweser in The Recruit?

it was opera.

Re:Alas, poor SGI

[Anonymous Coward]

SGI has done what IBM did, they just didn't market it openly. SGI is the second biggest corporate code-donator to free/open software, only second to IBM, and we're talking about pure lines of code, not lines of code per head. (since SGI is a bit smaller then IBM).
Also SGI didn't quite bet on NT. They wanted to make a intel based workstation, but their CEO was quite the MS fanboy, and made it so (The CEO has been kicked now, and iirc is momentarily hiding under a redmond rock). The intel based machines flopped, but in the deaththroes SGI actually managed to bring out a small series of intel based GNU/Linux only workstations, which have become very rare. Now the complete intel workstation line is dead.

The question that remains is not "One wonders what would have been had SGI done like IBM and embraced Linux" to me , but, "One wonders what would have happened if SGI had kicked out the CEO that ran them into the ground earlier (He did some pretty bad stuff there), and would have chosen GNU/Linux straight away".

At least SGI now selling a nifty cluster computer running GNU/Linux, it hasn't quite got the cool blue/purple reflecting giger-look, but SGI is the only company that can make cool looking yellow machines. I hope they'll survive in the end. For a huge corporation, they've acted really great towards free software, and they make kickass hardware.

Go SGI!

(I don't have any connection to SGI, except that I like and use their hardware. If only there would be a free OS for MIPS I'd be a happy camper )

Re:Linux on artist desktops too?

[Lumpy]

why do they need photoshop?

CMYK seperation? no.. they are not going to print it.

photoshop only has a tight grip on specalized tools that are pretty much useless for the movie-making aspect.

(rotoscoping in photoshop is a major PAIN IN THE ARSE! film-gimp it's damned easy.... I am never using photoshop for anything but making simple graphics for after-effects.

now THAT is an app that has no equal in the entire world... (Ok Commotion for the avid is better)

we can make linux take over video and movie production by simply coming up with decent replacement for aftereffects and a video editing app that isnt very early alpha,unuseable, unstable... (cinderella, mainactor)

I'd pay $500.00 for a video editing app the caliber of premiere 4.0 but can handle DV2...that run's natively on linux (No java, no wine tricks..)

Re:Linux on artist desktops too?

[spitzak]

Suprisingly little is done in photoshop. We usually use Macs for it.

Re:Alas, poor SGI

[gmack]

Sure, we can start with a complaint by Linus about optimising for benchmarks Then we can move onto Linus' rant on how a feature SGI wanted breaks the beauty and design of Linux Followed by An appology from one of the devalopers for submitting the patch in question