If one is looking to build a render farm, you need to have a rack mount system. This adds price overhead. Also, as I have stressed, memory is important too. For a large chunk of money, again, a premium need to be paid.
You could do this on a machine cheaper than 3k, but I don't think it can get much cheaper, believe me, I tried. I know that what we looked at and did a price comparison, it came to be about 3k+ a box and that was building it ourselves.
It might be possible to use a 1k-2k box, but I think that the price/performace ratio favors the 4k boxes. With 2 procs, it is able to do to renders at a time, or when the multi-threaded renderer is ported, it will be 2x faster (in theory.) This reduces the price to 2k per proc, which is closer to your numbers. The frames per minute is important as well. Without access to bench marks (or the ability to report those that I have) it is hard to compare machines and find the optimum price/percormance.
I disagree. We use the maya renderer exclusively. It can be used in a profesional environment. It may not be the best, but it is not as bad as you make it sound.
We could export to renderman and other renderers. We don't want to. We would have to hire many shader writers and that makes no sense.
Unless you can provide more information, don't make hasty judgements.
Agreed. Some of the SGI Linux OpenGl workstations are slated to release durring the 2nd or 3rd quarter. They appear to be using a standard NVIDIA card that will be even more accelerated (if only a bit) in the SGI Linux desktops. I am allready trying to get people where I work as anxious as I am for the new machines to come out.
The Maya port deadline also seems resonable from what I have heard.
I agree with all the above points. We have textures in the 100's of mbs. Also, the average home machine is no good for this. As I have perviously stated, 500+ mb of ram is desired and even more is better. Swapping while rendering sucks.
I don't see any real studios taking advantage of this, but I do see some home users or maybe, but I am doubtfull, some small shops wanting something like this.
There are places that allow you to render on their machines, but it does cost a premium. If other studios are as cautious as we are, using a distributed home renderer will never happen. We protect all of our data and would never let it out in the wild.
Just a guess, but this was done on A|W user's behalf, not because SGI has started suporting linux. Trust me, the users have spoken loudly on this... at least those in my studio.
A 1k linux machine for rendering will get you no where. I know that you will need at least 3-4K a box. What we are going with are dual procs with 1gb of ram. Still much cheaper than our 18k Octanes. With the scenes that we render, we look at at least 500 mb of ram devoted to the render process. It is cheaper... and it is a big deal, but still more expensive than you had guessed.
I have been using the beta version for a while. Extremely nice. We actualy started ordering a linux render farm before we knew when it was going to be released for linux. As with NT, the images will differ slightly due to floats and rounding and all that jazz. The images will be similar enough to mix shots but not individual frames.
Also, along the SGI and Linux front, I will post a tad of what I had tried to post as a story... no hard feelings here, just infot I thought you all would like to know.
This is from my review of SGI's Spring Linux University.
"Linux OpenGL The presentation on Linux/OpenGL discussed the opening of OpenGL and the release of IRIS Performer for Linux. The current Mesa/OpenGL hardware model was presented, with and without GLX (also opened by SGI). The statement was made that SGI was working with NVIDIA on video cards for 3D graphics workstation level quality. It was also implied that the card would work with other Intel motherboards as well, but in an SGI Linux system one would see an improvement. SGI has been working on the direct interface for OpenGL to hardware for a while and has had to go through kernel modules to achieve the results that they are looking for. No mention of DRI or XFree86 4.0. "
and
" Final Thoughts:
All in all, this was a good experience and I would suggest it to anybody. I learned about where SGI stood and where they were going with Linux. SGI is not taking Linux lightly. We were assured that IRIX for MIPS was going to be continued to at least 2010, but that SGI was going to go into Linux without looking back. Several mentions of open sourcing parts of IRIX for Linux were made. I would say that SGI might become a Linux powerhouse in the near future and that what they have learned from previous business ventures has not been wasted."
*Note: If anyone is working on migrating their render farm to support both SGI's and Linux boxes, I would love to get in contact with you. We use LSF on both platforms with a heavy perl backbone.
After doing investigation of several companies that sell linux boxes, I have come to the following conclusion.
VA is worth the premium*.
I say this because they have the best product support for hardware/software computability, the sales staff is wonderful and they give back to the community.
What other company can claim to provide such a strong base and also be generous and give back to the movement that enabled them to be?
Thanks VA.
*note: These are my views, not necessarily that of my manager or my company.
Due to my job, I am interested in OpenGL development in high end app area as well as in the gaming area. Games have been the driving force for good lowend GL drivers, software and hardware and I see that this pattern should continue. My question is: How closely are you involved with the work that VA and SGI (or others) are doing with OpenGL?
I know that when my company is in production, I am lucky to get out with a 10 hour day... and no weekends... most of the time that isn't the case. I also know that members of our IT staff has had to put in similar hours. When production is over though, we are able to have a few weeks at sane hours.
Ok... so south park was an interesting movie. Did it have a best original song, I don't think so... The songs were not *that* original. Same basic level south park humor.... Surely Hollywood has produced better songs this year.
I don't know what would be a bigger draw to me, going to an actively open nerd night club, or going to an actively open nerd night club owned by jwz...
If anybody really thinks that slashdot will change because of some monitary backing, they need to realize that slashdot has had backing for a long long time via banner adds. I see the VA ownership being about as strong. Will they be more leniant on VA, maybe... but since when have we had to worry about them? Will they miss an article on RedHat... maybe, but remember... we have open comments that are community moderated. Will they show us how to run a well trusted and designed web forum? Heck yes... they have not changed a bit.
From what I can tell, overtime it has been the AC's have changed slashdot. Not money, not greed, but morons. These are what we should worry about.
Long live this open forum that many call home. Long death for the morons that ruin it.
To set up the Macintosh for parallel processing in MacOS 8.1 and higher, one must set the AppleTalk Control Panel to use the appropriate Fast Ethernet Adapter and verify in the chooser that AppleTalk is active. Next, a unique computer name must be set and Program Linking should be enabled in the File Sharing Control Panel. Finally, in the Users and Groups Control Panel, one must allow Guests to link. (Recommended: In the Energy Saver Control Panel, set the sleep time to Never (although it is okay to let the monitor go to sleep). This prevents the MacOS from going to sleep while running a Fortran or C program.)"
I did read the article. I may not be the most versed in Mac OS and AppleTalk, but from what I think I understand is that AppleTalk is good for peer to peer, with only a few peers, after that it can get icky. We use appletalk where I work to talk to some of our older macs. The SGI kashare program on our server is a killer. It might be SGI's implementation, or it could be that AppleTalk was not made for large networks. That is why I don't think that this would be a strongly scalable system. The power of parallel is lost with 8 or 16 boxes. The only time that a strong parallel system can be built is when the number of nodes is over 100 or so. Some of this, though could depend on the application as well. I know that in my experience with rendering, having 8 boxes to render on is almost worthless, having 40 is nice. Now adding 8 more boxes... that is even nicer. The power comes from the sheer numbers. Also, if the message passing is poor, the power is lost. From articles I read, using multiple boxes on a single render loses the advantage somewhere near 6 to 8 procs. With 8 processors, you are loosing 2 procs worth of power for message passing. I have seen clevar ways of avoiding this issue with special hardware. The other solution is to take a pre-parallel step and break the task up, before it gets to the cluster. With rendering this is easy, with other applications, it isn't as easy. This is why the quick message passing is important and why I was wondering about the choice in OS. Message passing is indeed an important backbone to any parallel system.
I wonder why they would do this with any Mac OS... and apple talk... wouldn't the scalability be lost with the message passing... and using apples tcp/ip stack isn't the best, either... so I think...
You think that they would have better performance with a better setup... why cripple it from the begining with the Mac OS?
Boy... it seems that a religious post seems to bring out all the nuts.
I think that this is a good idea. I see confession as being important to my faith. Why can't you people enjoy the idea of a relgion taking advantage of a bold new medium instead of making sarcastic remarks and stupid quips.
Live and let live.
Brutal reviews and moronic rants
on
Free Be
·
· Score: 1
All I see are people missing the issue, over simplifying the issue or incorectly stating the issue. Be is going to be free to the home user. Just like Netscape was for some users, just like Solaris is (/was?) for some users. This is good news... free is free is free. Because I gice you a free candy bar, are you not gonna eat it until I give you all the ingreedients, tell you how it was made and then help you figure out how to make it your self? I am glad that a new version of Be is gonna be made. This is a good thing. Even better, it is going to be a free thing. Now with the OS being free, more people can try it with out the initial investment. This is great. The more users, the more apps.
Any reason to get upset, downplay or ignore the announcement is a flaw in character. Accept the free software.
If you want an open source version of Be, write it.
If memory serves me right, when M$ came down and helped out apple, the "community" response was bloody M$, don't stick your wallet where it isn't wanted. Now... when a linux person does it for M$, the response is "Look, we saved megacorp from drowning, aren't we swell". Irony?
I would have to agree with this. We aren't able to put all the time into the videos as Pixar has. We are producing about 2 30 minute videos a year, and have a smaller staff and budget. But, this being said, doesn't mean that we are going to stay this way. We are constantly pushing our limits. Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed is a good example of what we are able to do. Our next project, being done with all new tools, is going to be even better. We are constantly pushing ourselves in both quality of image and quality of story.
VeggieTale corrections and information
on
Review:Toy Story 2
·
· Score: 3
A few corrections... Phil's wife's name is Lisa. Mike Nawrocki and Phil Visher do about 3/4 of the voices, Lisa does her share as well. The rest are friends and family, employees and a few hired guns. It is true that we beat Toy Story to the punch, and we have also had tremendous video sales as well. Most of the studio uses octanes for for animating and rendering. We have a few 02s as well. We currently started using Maya for our new prject, having use SoftImage in the past. I can try to answer any other questions that you might have: ttoll@bigidea.com
I would agree. It happens to us too. Because we have had penguins in our videos, people have called us up asking if it was a Linux reference. It is cool that people that watch our videos are that aware, but unfortunate that it isn't true. Penguins happen to be a favorite arround the office here. On the other hand, the penguin that is at my desk is there to represent Linux, anxious for the day that we can use in in production.
Slashdot Mirror
If one is looking to build a render farm, you need to have a rack mount system. This adds price overhead. Also, as I have stressed, memory is important too. For a large chunk of money, again, a premium need to be paid.
You could do this on a machine cheaper than 3k, but I don't think it can get much cheaper, believe me, I tried. I know that what we looked at and did a price comparison, it came to be about 3k+ a box and that was building it ourselves.
It might be possible to use a 1k-2k box, but I think that the price/performace ratio favors the 4k boxes. With 2 procs, it is able to do to renders at a time, or when the multi-threaded renderer is ported, it will be 2x faster (in theory.) This reduces the price to 2k per proc, which is closer to your numbers. The frames per minute is important as well. Without access to bench marks (or the ability to report those that I have) it is hard to compare machines and find the optimum price/percormance.
I disagree. We use the maya renderer exclusively. It can be used in a profesional environment.
It may not be the best, but it is not as bad as you make it sound.
We could export to renderman and other renderers. We don't want to. We would have to hire many shader writers and that makes no sense.
Unless you can provide more information, don't make hasty judgements.
Agreed.
Some of the SGI Linux OpenGl workstations are slated to release durring the 2nd or 3rd quarter.
They appear to be using a standard NVIDIA card that will be even more accelerated (if only a bit) in the SGI Linux desktops. I am allready trying to get people where I work as anxious as I am for the new machines to come out.
The Maya port deadline also seems resonable from what I have heard.
This is truly a good time for animation studios.
I agree with all the above points.
We have textures in the 100's of mbs.
Also, the average home machine is no good for this. As I have perviously stated, 500+ mb of ram is desired and even more is better.
Swapping while rendering sucks.
I don't see any real studios taking advantage of this, but I do see some home users or maybe, but I am doubtfull, some small shops wanting something like this.
There are places that allow you to render on their machines, but it does cost a premium. If other studios are as cautious as we are, using a distributed home renderer will never happen. We protect all of our data and would never let it out in the wild.
Just a guess, but this was done on A|W user's behalf, not because SGI has started suporting linux.
Trust me, the users have spoken loudly on this... at least those in my studio.
A 1k linux machine for rendering will get you no where. I know that you will need at least 3-4K a box. What we are going with are dual procs with 1gb of ram. Still much cheaper than our 18k Octanes.
With the scenes that we render, we look at at least 500 mb of ram devoted to the render process.
It is cheaper... and it is a big deal, but still more expensive than you had guessed.
I have been using the beta version for a while. Extremely nice. We actualy started ordering a linux render farm before we knew when it was going to be released for linux.
As with NT, the images will differ slightly due to floats and rounding and all that jazz. The images will be similar enough to mix shots but not individual frames.
Also, along the SGI and Linux front, I will post a tad of what I had tried to post as a story... no hard feelings here, just infot I thought you all would like to know.
This is from my review of SGI's Spring Linux University.
"Linux OpenGL
The presentation on Linux/OpenGL discussed the opening of OpenGL and the release of IRIS Performer for Linux. The current Mesa/OpenGL hardware
model was presented, with and without GLX (also opened by SGI). The statement was made that SGI was working with NVIDIA on video cards for 3D
graphics workstation level quality. It was also implied that the card would work with other Intel motherboards as well, but in an SGI Linux system one
would see an improvement.
SGI has been working on the direct interface for OpenGL to hardware for a while and has had to go through kernel modules to achieve the results that they
are looking for. No mention of DRI or XFree86 4.0.
"
and
"
Final Thoughts:
All in all, this was a good experience and I would suggest it to anybody. I learned about where SGI stood and where they were going with Linux. SGI is
not taking Linux lightly. We were assured that IRIX for MIPS was going to be continued to at least 2010, but that SGI was going to go into Linux without
looking back. Several mentions of open sourcing parts of IRIX for Linux were made.
I would say that SGI might become a Linux powerhouse in the near future and that what they have learned from previous business ventures has not been
wasted."
*Note: If anyone is working on migrating their render farm to support both SGI's and Linux boxes, I would love to get in contact with you. We use LSF on both platforms with a heavy perl backbone.
After doing investigation of several companies
that sell linux boxes, I have come to the following conclusion.
VA is worth the premium*.
I say this because they have the best product support for hardware/software computability, the sales staff is wonderful and they give back to the community.
What other company can claim to provide such a strong base and also be generous and give back to the
movement that enabled them to be?
Thanks VA.
*note: These are my views, not necessarily that of my manager or my company.
Due to my job, I am interested in OpenGL development in high end app area as well as in the gaming area.
Games have been the driving force for good lowend GL drivers, software and hardware and I see that this pattern should continue.
My question is:
How closely are you involved with the work that VA and SGI (or others) are doing with OpenGL?
No... from what I understand of the rules....
Divisible by 4, yes, unless
divisible by 100, then no, unless
divisible by 400, then it is.
So...
1900, no
1904 yes
2000, yes
2004, yes
2100, no
2104, yes
I know that when my company is in production, I am lucky to get out with a 10 hour day... and no weekends... most of the time that isn't the case. I also know that members of our IT staff has had to put in similar hours. When production is over though, we are able to have a few weeks at sane hours.
Ok... so south park was an interesting movie. Did it have a best original song, I don't think so...
The songs were not *that* original.
Same basic level south park humor....
Surely Hollywood has produced better songs this year.
No kidding... and it is a ugly thing on SGI's as well... NO JAVA BANNER ADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know what would be a bigger draw to me, going to an actively open nerd night club, or going to an actively open nerd night club owned by jwz...
If only it were in Chicago...
If anybody really thinks that slashdot will change because of some monitary backing, they need to realize that slashdot has had backing for a long long time via banner adds. I see the VA ownership being about as strong.
Will they be more leniant on VA, maybe... but since when have we had to worry about them?
Will they miss an article on RedHat... maybe, but remember... we have open comments that are community moderated.
Will they show us how to run a well trusted and designed web forum? Heck yes... they have not changed a bit.
From what I can tell, overtime it has been the AC's have changed slashdot. Not money, not greed, but morons. These are what we should worry about.
Long live this open forum that many call home.
Long death for the morons that ruin it.
"Step 2: Configuration
To set up the Macintosh for parallel processing in MacOS 8.1 and higher, one must set the AppleTalk Control Panel to use the appropriate Fast Ethernet Adapter and verify in the chooser that AppleTalk is active. Next, a unique computer name must be set and Program Linking should be enabled in the File Sharing Control Panel. Finally, in the Users and Groups Control Panel, one must allow Guests to link. (Recommended:
In the Energy Saver Control Panel, set the sleep time to Never (although it is okay to let the monitor go to sleep). This prevents the MacOS from going to sleep while running a Fortran or C program.)"
I did read the article. I may not be the most versed in Mac OS and AppleTalk, but from what I think I understand is that AppleTalk is good for peer to peer, with only a few peers, after that it can get icky. We use appletalk where I work to talk to some of our older macs. The SGI kashare program on our server is a killer. It might be SGI's implementation, or it could be that AppleTalk was not made for large networks. That is why I don't think that this would be a strongly scalable system. The power of parallel is lost with 8 or 16 boxes. The only time that a strong parallel system can be built is when the number of nodes is over 100 or so. Some of this, though could depend on the application as well.
I know that in my experience with rendering, having 8 boxes to render on is almost worthless, having 40 is nice. Now adding 8 more boxes... that is even nicer. The power comes from the sheer numbers.
Also, if the message passing is poor, the power is lost. From articles I read, using multiple boxes on a single render loses the advantage somewhere near 6 to 8 procs. With 8 processors, you are loosing 2 procs worth of power for message passing. I have seen clevar ways of avoiding this issue with special hardware. The other solution is to take a pre-parallel step and break the task up, before it gets to the cluster. With rendering this is easy, with other applications, it isn't as easy. This is why the quick message passing is important and why I was wondering about the choice in OS. Message passing is indeed an important backbone to any parallel system.
I wonder why they would do this with any Mac OS... and apple talk... wouldn't the scalability be lost with the message passing... and using apples tcp/ip stack isn't the best, either... so I think...
You think that they would have better performance with a better setup... why cripple it from the begining with the Mac OS?
Boy... it seems that a religious post seems to bring out all the nuts.
I think that this is a good idea. I see confession as being important to my faith. Why can't you people enjoy the idea of a relgion taking advantage of a bold new medium instead of making sarcastic remarks and stupid quips.
Live and let live.
All I see are people missing the issue, over simplifying the issue or incorectly stating the issue. Be is going to be free to the home user. Just like Netscape was for some users, just like Solaris is (/was?) for some users.
This is good news... free is free is free. Because I gice you a free candy bar, are you not gonna eat it until I give you all the ingreedients, tell you how it was made and then help you figure out how to make it your self?
I am glad that a new version of Be is gonna be made. This is a good thing.
Even better, it is going to be a free thing.
Now with the OS being free, more people can try it with out the initial investment. This is great. The more users, the more apps.
Any reason to get upset, downplay or ignore the announcement is a flaw in character. Accept the free software.
If you want an open source version of Be, write it.
Are you suggesting that if MS survives, HAL might be renamed to MSHAL?
Or... you can always edit the /etc/ld.so.conf, assuming that you have such a file, and put the directory in it.
Then run ldconfig.
Much better for me than LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
Tim
If memory serves me right, when M$ came down and helped out apple, the "community" response was bloody M$, don't stick your wallet where it isn't wanted. Now... when a linux person does it for M$, the response is "Look, we saved megacorp from drowning, aren't we swell". Irony?
I would have to agree with this. We aren't able to put all the time into the videos as Pixar has. We are producing about 2 30 minute videos a year, and have a smaller staff and budget.
But, this being said, doesn't mean that we are going to stay this way. We are constantly pushing our limits. Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed is a good example of what we are able to do. Our next project, being done with all new tools, is going to be even better. We are constantly pushing ourselves in both quality of image and quality of story.
A few corrections...
Phil's wife's name is Lisa.
Mike Nawrocki and Phil Visher do about 3/4 of the voices, Lisa does her share as well. The rest are friends and family, employees and a few hired guns.
It is true that we beat Toy Story to the punch, and we have also had tremendous video sales as well. Most of the studio uses octanes for for animating and rendering. We have a few 02s as well.
We currently started using Maya for our new prject, having use SoftImage in the past.
I can try to answer any other questions that you might have: ttoll@bigidea.com
I would agree. It happens to us too. Because we have had penguins in our videos, people have called us up asking if it was a Linux reference. It is cool that people that watch our videos are that aware, but unfortunate that it isn't true. Penguins happen to be a favorite arround the office here.
On the other hand, the penguin that is at my desk is there to represent Linux, anxious for the day that we can use in in production.