Rendering a movie is more than just handing PoVRAY a set of data and telling it to render. Distributed computing will not be able to handle it for a lot of reasons.
First off, what is rendered by the computer is not what you see on screen. There are perhaps a dozen object layers that are rendered individually and composited in the postproduction phase. So, for example, Shrek might exist on one layer, the donkey on another, the ground on a third, some foreground objects on a fourth, several layers of background objects on the fifth through tenth, et cetera.
Now, each object layer will also be split into several render layers, for color, shadows, specularity, reflectivity, transparency, and probably several others that I can't think of right now. It is not an exaggeration to say that a single frame of a completely CGI scene can be made up of upwards of fifty individual frames, all composited together in post.
Why is this done? First off because it's easier to edit and change one of these layers and re-render it, than to change and re-render the entire scene. If Shrek is too gruesomely gleaming, but Donkey is just fine, you just have to edit Shrek's specular layer. This is easilly done in any professional postproduction software package. Alternatively, if it's completely wrong, you just have to re-render that specific layer -- saves a LOT of time! Some post tools are extremely powerful, which makes rendering to object/render layers very appealing.
Now, while you could conceivably do Shrek@Home, you would need a fairly large render program -- and you're already distributing a very powerful program, which the people who wrote it would be very uncomfortable doing. Secondly, the processing power in even high-end PCs is going to be jack compared to what they have in render farms, and they have a lot more of those computers besides. Rendering is very processor-intensive, too. It's a complex mathematical process that can take hours. Many computers will chug along at 99% load on the processor because they HAVE to.
Add to the fact the stake in the heart of this idea: that the producers want reliability first and formost. An in-house render farm, or even renting time at a farm (an idea I've sometimes played with) that signs and seals and delivers is going to be reliable and dependable or they will know exactly whose head needs to roll. If you start having half the internet rendering the million or so frames of your blockbuster, who do you hold accountable when the deadline comes and you're short 1000 various random frames?
so when i get up i just have one cup of coffee and i like to have another cup of coffee with my breakfast and on the way to work i like to get a cup of coffee like the kind of cup of coffee that you get with the donuts but i never get the donut i just have the cup of coffee and when i get to work i have a cup of coffee cause i like to have coffee when I'm talking on the phone but it usually grows cold and i need to get another cup of coffee and its lunch, and i have an espresso and when i get back its not morning anymore so i have a diet cola and another diet cola but then I'm feeling fine and I'm feeling pretty sharp and feeling pretty wired and I'm getting things done but right about two i get this little tiny migraine it starts behind my eyes and it moves to the back of my neck and it moves to the bottom of my spine but it doesn't get there until 5 or 6 o clock which is the end of the day so I'm fine, so I'm FINE so I'm FINE, so I'm fine, except when i have to work late, when i have to work late which i usually do -Stress, Big Jim's Ego
Reaching out and clobbering computers is exactly the same thing that the RIAA wants the legal power to do.
The only real solution is an ISP-side one. The ISP says, 'If your computer is spewing out malware broadcasts, we have the obligation to kick you off the internet and then help you clean up your computer. If something happens, contact our customer care department or go to the other ISP down the street.' Yes, it inconveniences users but I'd rather see some users inconvenienced than Big Government give legal power to ANYONE to clobber a node without recourse.
Sorry, guys, but this piece of work utterly destroys Duality. It's not strictly saber-fighting in the SW canon, but quite frankly I think it's miles better than Duality. (And for those of us who care, it uses a hell of a lot less CGI.)
Frankly, I think these guys should have been taken on by LucasFilm, as fight choreographers.
The US only recognizes moral rights in architecture. Music, poetry, prose, and all other creative works are not covered by moral rights.
If Majel Roddenberry produced documented evidence that Gene had signed over all moral rights to Star Trek to her, and she tried to sue Brannon and Braga for violating the moral rights of Gene Roddenberry for the utter perversion of Trek that they've created, a US court would not find in her favor.
To be specific, that first bug was recorded by future Admiral "Amazing" Grace Hopper, a (rare female) Line Navy officer (as opposed to a WAVE or Naval Reserve officer.) Her name has gone on to one of the most modern guided missile destroyers. She was quite a remarkable woman, read up on her career if you get the chance.
I suspect we'll be hearing a lot of slashdotters complain about these answers. A lot of them sound like pretty standard party lines and canned answers. Let's be honest here: they're representatives of a large bureaucracy, not policymakers. There's no other answers they could have given.
However, this interview was not a total wash. In particular, I found the fact that they consider the copyright infringement of music downloading to actually be honest-to-Congress theft to be very fascinating and intriguing. This is the words from the "enemy," boys and girls. Send your laywers to take a gander at this article and consider their court arguments very carefully in this light.
Darl McBride during the press conference made repeated invectives against IBM, culminating with his announcement with, "And we will revoke their license if IBM does not pay us... one... MILLION... dollars!" He then put his pinky near his mouth and ran off clutching a big fluffy cat, screaming somthing about the 'SCO Death Star.'
Symantec has long been the victim of people using their name to spam-peddle their software without their consent. It's interesting that they conducted this study. I wonder if Symantec is looking for some way to wipe out spammers, since if a spammer will advertize illegal/unauthorized software sales, they're likely to advertize porn. Maybe Symantec is looking to get some revenge on the entire spam industry by whipping out the 'Think of the CHILDREN!' guns?
I'm mildly concerned about this. Anything that has the rallying cry of 'Think of the CHILDREN!' makes me worried since that's a way-overused excuse for more regulation of a whole mess of things. At the same time, spam is not free speech, it's not socially acceptable, and it's annoying as all frickin' hell. I'd say to watch this very closely and carefully so that (a) it doesn't get out of control, and (b) we can roast marshmellows over the flaming husks of the ex-spammers.
Most people seem to believe that the Matrix is actually a matrix within another matrix, like layers of an onion or those Russian nested-doll toys. This brings up the question: if the "Humans as batteries" theory isn't true after all, that it's a lie as well... then what's outside the matrix which is outside the matrix? Why are humans being kept in the matrix?
Anyone ever see the Wachaowski Brothers' previous movie, 'Dark City?'....
No, you're talking about Prozium(tm). =) And if you don't take it, the Grammaton Clerics come jumping through your door and get all John Woo "gun kata" on you.....
Considering that carrier pigeons used to carry TCP packets are already compliant with IPv4, then I'd say that the evil bit can be set.
Usually, it can be detected for by a specially-designed packet sniffer: a freshly-washed car right beneath the carrier pigeons' flight path.
I think a much more pressing ssue would be making carrier pigeons compatable with IPv6. Perhaps if there were two pigeons, and they carried the packet on a string held between them.....
A MUCH better solution is to outsource training. I know a lot of people here cringe at the term 'outsource,' but consider the advantages: these trainers are just that, TRAINERS. It's what they do. They don't futz with the network all day, they don't use cron to run a grep daily to cat two files. They TRAIN and nothing else. Their people skills will likely be a heck of a lot more impressive than most peoples'.
It also takes the onus of training off your staff. Let me tell you, training is long, hard work and it never works quite the way you want it to. I must respectfully disagree with the belief that you can train a bunch of people, and they'll train their co-workers. Get them *all* trained, and you won't be dealing with second-hand information contaminating the knowledge pool. Plus, if you get a good-enough training center to do the training, the frontline computer users in your company will have resources at that training center to consult for a time after the training takes place. (And, honestly, IT has other things to worry about than people accusing IT of not training the users well enough.)
We did this in my last-ever IT job; get a good reputable training center, set up a training contract with them. Get them to come in according to a schedule and have all department heads give a schedule during which their people will attend training.
One frequent complaint is "I can't spare any people any time, we're always busy!" Then I suppose you can't spare any training for your people to better learn how to use those tools. S eriously, if one of the department managers says this, then you have a sickly department there; have to hope that pressure from above (the dept. head's boss) and below (the people actually using the tools) can pressure the recalcitrant person.
The outsourcing solution really is convenient, and lets people who KNOW how to train people do their job just like all IT people want to be left able to do their job right.
I mean, look at it this way - would you believe that a safe way of disabling a nuclear power station would be to instantly and simultaneously switch off every control system, every safety system, every hardwired multiple backup system - because that is what a weapon like this will do if it works.
Only if there was a mechanical failsafe to scram the reactors. I believe that most US reactors are required to have such a thing. As for non-US reactors... heh, that's anyone's guess. It'll be like playing Russian Roulette with the control rods....
Not really. Not when plutonium is lethal to one part per billion or so. If you vaporize the Pu, you just turned a thermonuclear bomb into a radiological bomb. Might not be as lethal, but it'll be a nightmare to deal with.
Let them go to East Elbonia if they want the logs decrypted.
They will. Look at what happened to anon.penet.fi.
Anyone who thinks that they're perfectly immune from the US legal system just because they live in a foreign (that is, non-US-jurisdiction) legal system needs to realize that there is no garauntee to safety for them from US laws. Money talks, and bullshit walks... and sometimes it walks right accross the border to your front door.
We are pleased to see the strong industry support for PCI technologies and value your response to the issues. We understand this site has been a very valuable tool and are working together to find a solution to make sure that the tool is available to the public in some way.
Translation: "Crap, someone noticed this! We're working with Jimbo now to do damage control and keep our keisters from being bitten off. If so many people hadn't swamped our mail server, we would have gotten away with this and let him die quietly."
Really? That's actually pretty heartening. The experience I was quoting from was from how cable TV used to be pretty much commercial-free, then commercials started appearing. Movie theaters used to be commercial-free.... then commercials started appearing. Hell, DVDs and video tapes used to be commercial-free, then commercials started appearing on them!
But if the media conglomerates are actually being marginalized out of the XM programming, in favor of commercial-free broadcast of specific genres of music that you just don't find on the FM dial... that's really pretty good. In that case, I really do hope that XM can keep out from the heel of the conglomerates. (I took a class recently on media and society, and some of the sheer *sizes* of these conglomerates are really pretty damn scary! Hence my unease with anything that any of them are getting their mitts into.)
It relays a few ClearChannel networks, but not too many (in the neighborhood of 3-5). In addition, CC doesnt own enough stock in XMSR to affect any major business decisions.
For now, at least. If it's one thing we've been forced to learn, time and time again, is that the media conglomerates will never leave any stone unturned in trying to get a line into the consumer's head. They will subvert, suborn, and steal any medium that they need to in order to ram through their popularized tripe that is a type of media DNSO, carrying with it advertising designed to make us feel utterly empty and not-whole without their products.
ClearChannel is only one of the investors in XM. There are others, including some of the biggest names in the media industry. There may be niche channels, but make no mistake: every last channel will be used for one purpose in the conglomerates' eyes: to sell you onto products that you don't really need. That is the ONLY service these companies provide.
Maybe I'm a bit cynical about it, but when you get right down to it, these are corporations whose goals are to make money for their stockholders, and nothing else. Mind you, this is neither a particularly dubious nor especially 'evil' goal, it's just what corporations DO. Just don't let anyone tell you that a corporation is trying to do an altruistic service.
Slashdot Mirror
Rendering a movie is more than just handing PoVRAY a set of data and telling it to render. Distributed computing will not be able to handle it for a lot of reasons.
First off, what is rendered by the computer is not what you see on screen. There are perhaps a dozen object layers that are rendered individually and composited in the postproduction phase. So, for example, Shrek might exist on one layer, the donkey on another, the ground on a third, some foreground objects on a fourth, several layers of background objects on the fifth through tenth, et cetera.
Now, each object layer will also be split into several render layers, for color, shadows, specularity, reflectivity, transparency, and probably several others that I can't think of right now. It is not an exaggeration to say that a single frame of a completely CGI scene can be made up of upwards of fifty individual frames, all composited together in post.
Why is this done? First off because it's easier to edit and change one of these layers and re-render it, than to change and re-render the entire scene. If Shrek is too gruesomely gleaming, but Donkey is just fine, you just have to edit Shrek's specular layer. This is easilly done in any professional postproduction software package. Alternatively, if it's completely wrong, you just have to re-render that specific layer -- saves a LOT of time! Some post tools are extremely powerful, which makes rendering to object/render layers very appealing.
Now, while you could conceivably do Shrek@Home, you would need a fairly large render program -- and you're already distributing a very powerful program, which the people who wrote it would be very uncomfortable doing. Secondly, the processing power in even high-end PCs is going to be jack compared to what they have in render farms, and they have a lot more of those computers besides. Rendering is very processor-intensive, too. It's a complex mathematical process that can take hours. Many computers will chug along at 99% load on the processor because they HAVE to.
Add to the fact the stake in the heart of this idea: that the producers want reliability first and formost. An in-house render farm, or even renting time at a farm (an idea I've sometimes played with) that signs and seals and delivers is going to be reliable and dependable or they will know exactly whose head needs to roll. If you start having half the internet rendering the million or so frames of your blockbuster, who do you hold accountable when the deadline comes and you're short 1000 various random frames?
so when i get up i just have one cup of coffee
and i like to have another cup of coffee with my breakfast
and on the way to work i like to get a cup of coffee
like the kind of cup of coffee that you get with the donuts
but i never get the donut i just have the cup of coffee
and when i get to work i have a cup of coffee
cause i like to have coffee when I'm talking on the phone
but it usually grows cold and i need to get another cup of coffee
and its lunch, and i have an espresso
and when i get back its not morning anymore so i have
a diet cola and another diet cola
but then I'm feeling fine and I'm feeling pretty sharp
and feeling pretty wired and I'm getting things done
but right about two i get this little tiny migraine
it starts behind my eyes and it moves to the back of my neck
and it moves to the bottom of my spine
but it doesn't get there until 5 or 6 o clock
which is the end of the day so I'm fine, so I'm FINE so I'm FINE, so I'm fine,
except when i have to work late, when i have to work late
which i usually do
-Stress, Big Jim's Ego
Reaching out and clobbering computers is exactly the same thing that the RIAA wants the legal power to do.
The only real solution is an ISP-side one. The ISP says, 'If your computer is spewing out malware broadcasts, we have the obligation to kick you off the internet and then help you clean up your computer. If something happens, contact our customer care department or go to the other ISP down the street.' Yes, it inconveniences users but I'd rather see some users inconvenienced than Big Government give legal power to ANYONE to clobber a node without recourse.
...
Gods, and I'd thought I'd finally exorcised the Ballmerog out of my brain. Oh, NO! He's BACK!
Developers, developers, developers, developers! IIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Billthulhu Fhtagn!
Sorry, guys, but this piece of work utterly destroys Duality. It's not strictly saber-fighting in the SW canon, but quite frankly I think it's miles better than Duality. (And for those of us who care, it uses a hell of a lot less CGI.)
Frankly, I think these guys should have been taken on by LucasFilm, as fight choreographers.
The US only recognizes moral rights in architecture. Music, poetry, prose, and all other creative works are not covered by moral rights.
If Majel Roddenberry produced documented evidence that Gene had signed over all moral rights to Star Trek to her, and she tried to sue Brannon and Braga for violating the moral rights of Gene Roddenberry for the utter perversion of Trek that they've created, a US court would not find in her favor.
To be specific, that first bug was recorded by future Admiral "Amazing" Grace Hopper, a (rare female) Line Navy officer (as opposed to a WAVE or Naval Reserve officer.) Her name has gone on to one of the most modern guided missile destroyers. She was quite a remarkable woman, read up on her career if you get the chance.
I suspect we'll be hearing a lot of slashdotters complain about these answers. A lot of them sound like pretty standard party lines and canned answers. Let's be honest here: they're representatives of a large bureaucracy, not policymakers. There's no other answers they could have given.
However, this interview was not a total wash. In particular, I found the fact that they consider the copyright infringement of music downloading to actually be honest-to-Congress theft to be very fascinating and intriguing. This is the words from the "enemy," boys and girls. Send your laywers to take a gander at this article and consider their court arguments very carefully in this light.
Remember, the criminals shipped to Australia were only the ones who got caught.
Darl McBride during the press conference made repeated invectives against IBM, culminating with his announcement with, "And we will revoke their license if IBM does not pay us... one... MILLION... dollars!" He then put his pinky near his mouth and ran off clutching a big fluffy cat, screaming somthing about the 'SCO Death Star.'
I bet the ex-execs of Enron agree with you completely. =)
Symantec has long been the victim of people using their name to spam-peddle their software without their consent. It's interesting that they conducted this study. I wonder if Symantec is looking for some way to wipe out spammers, since if a spammer will advertize illegal/unauthorized software sales, they're likely to advertize porn. Maybe Symantec is looking to get some revenge on the entire spam industry by whipping out the 'Think of the CHILDREN!' guns?
I'm mildly concerned about this. Anything that has the rallying cry of 'Think of the CHILDREN!' makes me worried since that's a way-overused excuse for more regulation of a whole mess of things. At the same time, spam is not free speech, it's not socially acceptable, and it's annoying as all frickin' hell. I'd say to watch this very closely and carefully so that (a) it doesn't get out of control, and (b) we can roast marshmellows over the flaming husks of the ex-spammers.
you're gonna sleep wit' da krakens!
That was in Mission to Mars. =)
It's easy to get those two films confused. Mission to Mars was easilly forgettable, and they came out at about the same time.
You're thinking of Red Planet with Val Kilmer. =)
Most people seem to believe that the Matrix is actually a matrix within another matrix, like layers of an onion or those Russian nested-doll toys. This brings up the question: if the "Humans as batteries" theory isn't true after all, that it's a lie as well... then what's outside the matrix which is outside the matrix? Why are humans being kept in the matrix?
Anyone ever see the Wachaowski Brothers' previous movie, 'Dark City?'....
No, you're talking about Prozium(tm). =) And if you don't take it, the Grammaton Clerics come jumping through your door and get all John Woo "gun kata" on you.....
Considering that carrier pigeons used to carry TCP packets are already compliant with IPv4, then I'd say that the evil bit can be set.
Usually, it can be detected for by a specially-designed packet sniffer: a freshly-washed car right beneath the carrier pigeons' flight path.
I think a much more pressing ssue would be making carrier pigeons compatable with IPv6. Perhaps if there were two pigeons, and they carried the packet on a string held between them.....
A MUCH better solution is to outsource training. I know a lot of people here cringe at the term 'outsource,' but consider the advantages: these trainers are just that, TRAINERS. It's what they do. They don't futz with the network all day, they don't use cron to run a grep daily to cat two files. They TRAIN and nothing else. Their people skills will likely be a heck of a lot more impressive than most peoples'.
It also takes the onus of training off your staff. Let me tell you, training is long, hard work and it never works quite the way you want it to. I must respectfully disagree with the belief that you can train a bunch of people, and they'll train their co-workers. Get them *all* trained, and you won't be dealing with second-hand information contaminating the knowledge pool. Plus, if you get a good-enough training center to do the training, the frontline computer users in your company will have resources at that training center to consult for a time after the training takes place. (And, honestly, IT has other things to worry about than people accusing IT of not training the users well enough.)
We did this in my last-ever IT job; get a good reputable training center, set up a training contract with them. Get them to come in according to a schedule and have all department heads give a schedule during which their people will attend training.
One frequent complaint is "I can't spare any people any time, we're always busy!" Then I suppose you can't spare any training for your people to better learn how to use those tools. S eriously, if one of the department managers says this, then you have a sickly department there; have to hope that pressure from above (the dept. head's boss) and below (the people actually using the tools) can pressure the recalcitrant person.
The outsourcing solution really is convenient, and lets people who KNOW how to train people do their job just like all IT people want to be left able to do their job right.
Only if there was a mechanical failsafe to scram the reactors. I believe that most US reactors are required to have such a thing. As for non-US reactors... heh, that's anyone's guess. It'll be like playing Russian Roulette with the control rods....
Not really. Not when plutonium is lethal to one part per billion or so. If you vaporize the Pu, you just turned a thermonuclear bomb into a radiological bomb. Might not be as lethal, but it'll be a nightmare to deal with.
Translation: "Crap, someone noticed this! We're working with Jimbo now to do damage control and keep our keisters from being bitten off. If so many people hadn't swamped our mail server, we would have gotten away with this and let him die quietly."
Really? That's actually pretty heartening. The experience I was quoting from was from how cable TV used to be pretty much commercial-free, then commercials started appearing. Movie theaters used to be commercial-free.... then commercials started appearing. Hell, DVDs and video tapes used to be commercial-free, then commercials started appearing on them!
But if the media conglomerates are actually being marginalized out of the XM programming, in favor of commercial-free broadcast of specific genres of music that you just don't find on the FM dial... that's really pretty good. In that case, I really do hope that XM can keep out from the heel of the conglomerates. (I took a class recently on media and society, and some of the sheer *sizes* of these conglomerates are really pretty damn scary! Hence my unease with anything that any of them are getting their mitts into.)
It might actually be something to look into....
For now, at least. If it's one thing we've been forced to learn, time and time again, is that the media conglomerates will never leave any stone unturned in trying to get a line into the consumer's head. They will subvert, suborn, and steal any medium that they need to in order to ram through their popularized tripe that is a type of media DNSO, carrying with it advertising designed to make us feel utterly empty and not-whole without their products.
ClearChannel is only one of the investors in XM. There are others, including some of the biggest names in the media industry. There may be niche channels, but make no mistake: every last channel will be used for one purpose in the conglomerates' eyes: to sell you onto products that you don't really need. That is the ONLY service these companies provide.
Maybe I'm a bit cynical about it, but when you get right down to it, these are corporations whose goals are to make money for their stockholders, and nothing else. Mind you, this is neither a particularly dubious nor especially 'evil' goal, it's just what corporations DO. Just don't let anyone tell you that a corporation is trying to do an altruistic service.