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Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar Go Linux
robinsrowe writes "Most of the major studios use Linux -- such as DreamWorks with more than 1,500 Linux desktops and 3,500 Linux servers. The MovieEditor Conference is an all-day event on computer-based filmmaking in downtown Los Angeles on August 3rd. Studio technology chiefs and other experts discuss ongoing work using Linux in feature animation and visual effects. Presented in collaboration with LinuxMovies.org."
So Steve Jobs runs Linux now?
I believe I heard that Pixar released much of their software. Even though these are at steep prices, maybe this will give more companies in the same field a chance to switch to linux.
How much does the selection come down to cost vs customization?
On one hand, renderfarms of ~5k machines get pretty expensive already, and adding another $500k for windows liscences is no small change.
On the other, how much of the software is custom/gets customized, and Linux is a better platform for doing custom software and customization?
Test your net with Netalyzr
For an overview of which distros various studios are using (or are migrating to), along with various hardware solutions: http://www.studio-linux.org
Lameness filter. :)
Look at http://linuxmovies.movieeditor.com/software/index. html
The list is what they can possibly use.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Studios use a lot of clusters, which are much better (in several ways) on Linux than on Windows.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
Probably due more to custimization. It is just a lot easier to strip down Linux and make it processes data then it is to do for windows. Being that it is free doesn't hurt. Because they have aready used a good portion on their 5k systems. I find I use linux most at work when I need to make a custom appliance. Get a system powerful enough to do the job I need to be done. Set up linux and usally a small custom app and it just runs. Unlike windows where it just get in the way.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
From TFA: "Get behind-the-scenes Linux and Macintosh insights into feature animation and visual effects production in the motion picture industry." You'll notice that one of the apps they highlight is Apple's Shake, and they mention Mac OS X as a desktop environment with Linux servers.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Here's a good wiki writeup about the available film editing software available on linux:
Movie Making Manual-Linux in film production
- shazow
On one hand, renderfarms of ~5k machines get pretty expensive already, and adding another $500k for windows liscences is no small change.
The choice wasn't Windows vs Linux, it was Linux vs IRIX. This is why SGI's stock is in the toilet.
I just touched her hand, and her hand touched her boob. By the transitive property, I just scored!
i understand that things like Maya are available for linux, but are there programs out there that are equivalent to say, Final Cut or Adobe Premier... things that an average home movie maker might want?? if Linux is making such big inroads into this area, I'd like to know what apps fill this sector.
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/10/ 1937258&tid=152&tid=181&tid=3
I guess they can create their movies on Linux, they just can't check their work.
That explains their quality.
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
They can do all these fancy graphics on Linux boxes but this same industry still doesn't support Linux users to view the end product. And when someone takes it upon themselves to do so.. they are taken to court and treated like thieves.
Screw Hollywood.. they use OSS software but do they give back.. nope. Not really.
Tell me what you believe...I'll tell you what you should see.
Movies are made with Linux, feature Apple product placement, and are download on Windows machines? Oh, the beauty of 3!
Does anyone else find great irony in this?
I mean, in order for most Linux users to watch these films they have to break some draconian laws when playing DVD's.
Yet, the very thing they use to create these films on is Linux.
Well, if not irony.. some kind of word ending with ony.
Taking a look at the System Requirments for the more well known 3D Animation apps we see Alias's Maya and Softimage's XSI run natively under Linux. Which when you are dealing with animations that can take literally days to render for production it's no wonder they'd want to use a Linux machine instead of a Windows machine, I'm sure it cuts the time by at least 30% (totally grabbed that number out of my ass)
y stem_requirements.shtml/
So is it news that the big animation companies also use OS X instead of XP too? I think the only big name 3d animation company that is Windows only is Discreet with their 3ds Max software, which I think is really only used for games, can't think of a movie that it was used for.
Sys Requirements:
http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/requirements.php
http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/maya/s
http://www4.discreet.com/3dsmax/3dsmax.php?id=966
http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/v42/SysReqs
Ave Molech Setting
I read somewhere that there are a ridiculous number of Nvidia developers working on Linux driver support - hundreds comes to mind - and it is largely due to the fact that Nvidia nailed contracts with the feature film industry.
The proprietary Linux ATI drivers (if you want pixel and vertex shader support, this is a must) now perform incredibly well, though are still an annoyance to install for many. Given that ATI seem to be the card of choice for mobile machines, I look forward to the day ATI competes in the feature film market.
From what I've heard, Linux and other open-source software is also preferred because of its ability to respond to deadlines. If you're two months from release and an obscure bug in your OS interferes with your rendering, you can't rely on the OS provider to get you a fix in a timely manner, especially if it's a bug nobody else encounters. If it's an open-source system, though, you can fix it yourself.
From about 1997 to 2002 Industrial Light and Magic had been using huge farms of SGI Origin2000 servers. Price to performance ratio would have been better with PCs, but the benefit of the SGI kit was the number of CPUs per single machine. Some of their render servers had 64 or 128 CPUs (the max # of CPUs for an Origin2K without having to use the special XXL kernel). This helped minimize maintainence.
Today things like LinuxBIOS and other clustering advancements have made clusters even more reliable and even easier to admin than big iron SGI/Sun/IBM/HP.
And editing:
Nucoda Film cutter, ifx Piranha and Discreet Smoke.
Having done alot of work on high end Linux (Maya, Blender), Windows (3DSMax, Blender) and OSX (Maya, Blender) workstations, it's safe to say one can't look past Nvidia on Linux for raw polygonal churning power. Linux is an industry standard 3D animation platform, renderfarms aside.
Perhaps with a substantial license deal Apple may deliver a distribution of OSX to fit, but out of the box it's a poor performer. Of note is that the proprietary Aqua interface hits the GPU for fast 2D blitting. The last thing you want is a DE that hogs your precious GPU for mere interface beautification. Similarly relative customiseability is important where mission critical work is to be done, for this reason OSX is significantly less viable. As for Windows, it's barely safe for home users let alone dear Gollum.
Care to elaborate?
Because it's a pain in the ass to run headless Windows boxes compared to headless Linux boxes.
Because Microsoft's idea of clustering is a couple of failover webservers, not a large, highly-parallel computer? (Granted, this makes sense for Microsoft -- "clusters" was a sexy word a couple years ago, before "grid computing" got to be sexy in business rags, and their customers generally have no need for massive parallel computation, but do run web servers and do read magazines that tell them that they need clustering technology deployed yesterday).
Because a minimalistic Windows setup is fatter and eats more disk space and memory than a minimalistic Linux setup, and buying more resources for a couple hundred nodes so that you can run some background crap produced in Redmond is pretty plainly a bad idea.
Because clusters are done by the sorts of smart people that do automation and systems development, and a large chunk of those sort of people can personally benefit greatly from Linux, so they're more familiar with Linux than Windows.
Because there's no reason to bump up your cluster's cost by a significant amount for software licenses when it doesn't help you at all.
Because Linux generally outperforms Windows (especially when you're looking at kernel-level performance), and the sorts of people that get large, expensive systems like this have a lot of interest in getting their code running as fast as possible -- doubling the compute speed means that they require half or less nodes in their cluster. If your kernel can shove more data onto the network more cheaply or context switch a few more times, you're more valuable.
Because they can customize a Linux system much more easily to do whatever they want than the Windows system. I was pretty appalled when someone managed to mess around with an new ATM up at Carnegie Mellon University and left it on the Windows desktop...and the thing was a full-blown Windows box, with all the software installed and whatnot, NOTEPAD, you name it. Not only is that just not professional, it's a sign of the developers having to fight the system to achive the result they want. Linux won't fight you if you want to customize it.
Linux is open source. If you're working on the kinds of projects where a lot of serious large-scale parallel computing is involved, you may well have significant systems expertise available, and hacking your Ethernet drivers or the kernel to speed things up may be reasonable. A large chunk, perhaps a majority of Linux Ethernet drivers started life with Donald Becker, who was working on Linux clustering for NASA, if I remember correctly. The man needed some high-performance networking code, and had the ability to produce it.
And finally, last but not least...Windows isn't fun. Linux is fun. Okay, you can't really put that on a checklist somewhere, but if someone likes what they're doing, they're going to do a better job of it. I'm working on a cross-platform project for my employer at the moment. The Windows developers are kind of apathetic, spend a lot of time chatting and whatnot, but the Linux port guy is a machine. He's *into* what he's doing, he's excited about it. Of course, that's anecdotal evidence, but I've seen a lot more enthusiastic people hacking Linux software than hacking Win32 software. [shrug] Make of it what you will.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.