The engineers behind Phantom and ILM

Chris Siegler wrote in to sent us "An article on the engineering behind the camera work at ILM, including a nice Linux mention. And another on their architectural setup, used for pushing around as much data as AOL (14 Tbytes) on peak days." I got 2 light sabers for our booth at Linux Expo (but no tickets- and I haven't been on my email in several days- eek). I will be glad to see the movie released just so the hype can die out some.

Comments

Re:Lines? What lines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here in Boston.

ALL shows here are still available at the
theatre nearest my house.

I'm worried... no matter how I slice it, I'm
worried.

Re:Lucas = Gates, I don't think so (Saw interview)

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't put it down based solely on what seems to
be what you've seen from the commercials. In an
interview with Lucas, he stated that there was very little action in the first third of the movie, with it being mainly dialogue and story building. Although I'm sure the special effects will be phenomenal, that becoming the norm for many movies of this genre now, you're going to have to accept it sooner or later. I guess some people just have to be downers just for the sake of it.

Payback!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about ILM giving something back to the software community that has obviously helped them out?

Re:The WOMEN can keep geeky by themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see many geeky women around... you must not be doing a very good job at all.

Lucas = Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

Lucas has become enchanted by the sweet song of technology and he has become ungrounded from his character-based, free folicking base of 20 years past.

The soul-less, heartless vehicle for special effects that TPM is, bears witness to Lucas having lost all touch with real story telling.

Lucas is like Gates, surrounded with a bunch of Yes-Men who just want to create cool tools and don't care that what they are working on is a piece of junk.

Re:Lucas = Gates

[sql*kitten]

according to an article on Lucas in last weekend's Sunday Times, individuality is not tolerated in his company, and pay is 33% less than similar companies. All workers exist simply to fulfill the vision of Lucas, and that's it - no dissent is permitted.

Yes, I imagine that working on starwars might be fun, but i would not work for a company like that, no matter what.

Re:Lucas = Gates

[dracosystems]

The standard wisdom in the CG community is that feature movie work is pretty rigid and demanding, and there is little room for creative flexibility on the CG side of the house. The result of this is a steady exodus of CG people from the feature movie side into advertising, where there is more creativity and ingenuity required of them. One comment in particular I remember was from an ILM artist who left after the completion of JP because he had just spent the last 18 months of his life making a dinousaurs butt wiggle realistically and wanted something with more freedom of expression. That said, the cast of technical persona at ILM contains some of the finest CG talent, tech and art. The only real gaffe I can't forget was in the nasty bluescreen bleed/scaling errors that was in the shot oof the plane dropping off the blimp in the last of the IJ movies.

Linux 3D Software

[Anonymous Coward]

i hear that ILM has been using HOUDINI software from sidefx (http://www.sidefx.com), and that they're the first company to start porting their high-end 3D software to linux. things are looking up for 3D on linux. :-)

Re:Linux 3D Software

[Sleepy]

It's not available for Linux yet, and there's nothing on Side's product page even though the press release was carried on Linuxtoday like 2 months ago.

The software I test, SynaFlex, would be absolutely KILLER on Linux, but unfortunately (*personal* opinion) we're NT only. A year ago we were on SGI, someething made easy because the UI is all Java, using Alligator for the Java to OpenGL glue. We let you capture D1 video, turn the footage into 3D (depth WITHOUT layers!) and composite 3D. Wicked cool technology..

Cmdrtaco becoming less geeky

[heroine]

> I will be glad to see the movie released
> just so the hype can die out some.

The GF is having a bad effect on /. First the article about 50's cooking and now the negative comments about StarWars. I know it's the 90's but let's try to keep the women geeky.

Notice the people who develop the software to render these things, just like the guy who developed Sorenson video aren't CS majors but EE's. Interesting how they don't use Linux for any rendering, but as a router, the mainstay of Linux for the last 5 years. They use SGI for rendering.

Re:Cmdrtaco becoming less geeky

[D.Ray]

>They use SGI for rendering.

Actually, they used Mac OS machines running an application called Eletric Image to render at least 50 scenes.

Lines? What lines?

[jafac]

I went down to the Freemont theater yesterday in downtown San Luis Obispo, CA, and bought my tickets for tomorrow. There was no line. If you can't get tickets, 'cmon down here. We're about 3 hours drive South of the bay area, right along 101. Plenty of seats. Don't go paying $100 for scalped tickets, that's ludicrous.

"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law

Re:Lines? What lines?

[Steelehead]

It was the same here in Portland, OR. The lines and the I-have-no-life-so-I'll-camp-out-for-3-days groups were for the midnight 1st showing. AFAIK, in some theatre locations, you can still buy tickets for the 1st days shows, but don't quote me on that.

The WOMEN can keep geeky by themselves

[Wisp]

Thanks a lot for caring....

Small Note

[wesman]

It should be noted that while it is great they use linux, it is replaceable. The Irix machines on the other hand.... I'd like to hear specifically what thier setup is.

Re:cool stuff, drool, drool!

[eponymous cohort]

I don't think the article said the box has a 5 year uptime, just that it's had Linux installed for 5 years.

Re:you poor bitter thing.....

[Shadowlore]

Well, I have seen it.

I can tell you right now, that as a mvie, it was quite good. But for a Star Wars movie, it was less than acceptable.

It was slow to prgress, likely due to all the 'cutsie' stuff, and attempts at being overly-funny. While I would see it again, it is not up to snuff for a Star Wars release. The story is gone, replaced by Disneyisms.

What is wrong with this picture?

[SEWilco]

Me, I was intrigued by Kicker.
What kind of "large file server" would need so many reboots that the Kicker is needed?

Re:What is wrong with this picture?

[look]

Probably the Windows NT kind... ;)

Star Network

[SEWilco]

As when a good star shell goes up...

Ooooh..Aaaahhh...

5 years!

[D3]

A 386 running Linux for 5 years. I'm amazed the hardware of the box has been up that long. Way cool!

you poor bitter thing.....

[Balthasar]

If I remember rightly, it's not released over there till the 19th. Did you manage a near-miraculous pre-opening viewing, or are you yet another one of the mindless masses out to cut it down before you've acually seen it?

cool stuff, drool, drool!

[anticypher]

I've had a tour of Lucas Valley years ago. The place is amazing. Custom built for comfort and the best working environment you could ask for.

I'm intrigued by the linux box Robot, with a 5 year uptime that does routing. I sounds like a DNS server, but the description is a bit vague. Maybe its a comm server thingy to the console of a main machine.

If you ever get a chance for a tour of the place, go! It will fill your geeky dreams for a long time afterwards.