Here are a few of the Slashdot posts that are by knowledgable insiders
at PDI, Dreamworks and Big Ideas.
== From a PDI insider:
I work in the R&D department at PDI. We do use some SGI Linux boxes in
our renderfarm, but not on the desktop. The SGI's probably comprise
about 10% of the renderfarm and less during Shrek production. Despite
what you may hear reported in the press, we only used Linux boxes in
our renderfarm during Shrek. We are just starting to deploy desktop
Linux boxes now.
About 80% of our pipeline is proprietary software. The other 20% is
largely made up of Maya, which works on our Linux boxes (so to speak)
and things like PhotoShop where we generally use Macs. We are lucky
that we use proprietary software since it made it feasible to get
the renderfarm ported to Linux quickly. The GUI based tools were
also relatively easy, but it took us about a year to get everything
totally ported and ready for desktop production. Of course our staff of
16 programmers was also doing production support at the same time.
For the details on our Renderfarm setup, check out my webpage at
www.flarg.com
Also, during Shrek, our animators used desktop SGI O2s (yes, O2s, not
Octanes) running IRIX. About half to three-quarters of the renderfarm
was made up of Linux boxes. Of that, only about 10% were HP boxes. We
also had a spattering of V/A Linux, SGI and Atipa boxes. HP just gets
the press.
Daniel Wexler
R&D Staff, PDI/DreamWorks
== Another quote from the discussion from Big Ideas:
This mirrors (but not to scale) our setup. We are curently VA only on
the Linux side, but SGI Octanes (and Octane2's) on the desktop side.
We have no propriatary modeling/animating/rendering software... pure
Maya, which has worked well for us. Our scale has been smaller than
Shrek, so we have been able to keep our heads above water.
Our feature, Jonah,(due out next year) will be done on Linux render
boxes with Maya with SGI desktops (most likely IRIX... don't want to
change mid production) with the strong possibility of rolling to Linux
on the desktop for the next project. We are using LSF (from Platform)
to do the load balancing and custom MEL and perl to interact with the
database, submit to LSF and keep the renders in order. Our group of
programmers also do production support. I, overseeing the render
process, get to play wrangler, architect, sysadmin and programmer.
Fun Fun. We use photoshop and a few other tools, but most of the
paintfixes we do is with the GIMP.
Good to see that we aren't far off of the big boys.
Back to my misbehaving render boxes....
Tim Toll
== Big Picture Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
by vaxzilla on Thursday May 17, @07:37PM EST (#271)
The Linux push is VERY real in the movie industry. There is a certain
irony in the MPAA benefiting from Linux like this, but there's also a
certain disconnect from the upper management levels and the the people
driving the Linux initiatives. The reason Linux has this kind of
presence in major studios is that you've got some very bright people
pushing it at a grass-roots level. This was the case while I worked
at DreamWorks.
The main selling point of course was the bottom-line. The cost of
migrating very large bases of in-house developed software and systems
to Windows from UNIX was just too much. Apart from retraining admins
(well actually re-hiring then because none of us would stand having
to use Windows based systems) and retooling the production pipelines
which were often implemented in UNIX shell scripts, perl, C, and C++,
Windows didn't make any sense. Has anyone ever succeeded at building
a manageable render-farm using Windows PCs?
Another selling point here was one that Microsoft and PC vendors used
to push their products over the like of SGI: "The PC hardware is so
much cheaper, you'll save so much money." So with this, we were able
to add: "But with Linux, the operating system is free, so you'll save
even more." The hardware vendors were happy with this. They can still
sell their PCs. And we were happy because we were able to use
Microsoft's very own selling point of being cheaper to eat their lunch.
In the case of Shrek, I really think PDI should be given the greatest
amount of credit for getting Linux in house and in use. DreamWorks was
closely partnered with PDI but it was only later, after PDI had begun
much of its Linux initiative, did they end up merging with them. PDI's
success with Linux in turn help fostered the adoption of Linux being
used at DreamWorks... along with, I might proudly add, a lot of pushing
from myself and some of my fellow sysadmins--some of whom worked on
Titanic at Digital Domain.
Another modest coup for the Open Source movement. The Gimp was no stranger
to the DreamWorks digital efx and background departments. Adobe stopped
supporting Photoshop on the SGI/IRIX platform, so a lot of our people
turned to using Gimp under IRIX for various tasks. It was easier than
switching over to one of the Macs to use Photoshop there.
The reality of Linux benefiting independent productions is also real.
I'd invite people here to see the website for Major Damage, an
independently produced 3D cartoon. It's a "spare-time" collaborative
project being worked on by employees from a number of large and
competing animation studios.
Ultimately, I think we're going to find that the movie industry will
help legitimize the use of Linux in other business areas. Much of
Craig Mundie's recent mud-slinging against the Open Source movement
seems rather unfounded given the success Linux is finding in Hollywood.