What is Digg?138 Comments
- Latka, on 10/11/2007, -10/+65Buried your comment. Nothing interesting with it.
- strangewill, on 10/11/2007, -1/+45Lemme think...
Order a few hundred copies of Windows or...
Customize Linux for rendering our movie effects...
Hmm...
Anyway, I was reading an article from Pixar awhile ago, apparently they use Macs and Windows for the creation, animation, and general work, but leave Linux to do all the massive brute work of rendering and managing and compiling it all into a movie. IIRC that is. - GawtMilk, on 10/11/2007, -35/+72Now that a large company uses Linux, the consumers should to? They use Linux for completely different reasons than you or I. They use Linux because they have their own programs that they need to distribute of a couple thousand computers. Why is that a reason that I should, too? I'm not rendering millions of 20GB frames to produce a multi-million budget animation.
You're missing some points here.
1) They use Linux and it's not free.
2) They use proprietary and closed source software.
3) They use it for a very technical job.
4) They aren't using Photoshop or playing games.
5) They aren't a home user.
This is like telling Industrial Light and Magic that they should switch to Windows because it's what my grandma uses. Different niches, different software. - drag, on 10/11/2007, -0/+35Yes this is absolutely true that Hollywood uses Linux heavily. The first movie to use Linux in it's production proccess was "Titanic".
There is several reasons for this.
Probably number one reason is because movies started off using Irix Unix workstations to produce movies and those were dominate since the beginning of 3D in movies. Linux is highly compatable with traditional Unix and it provided a cheap and effective upgrade path from Irix and it's expensive MIPS hardware to the much cheaper and faster x86 hardware.
At that time Windows was simply unsuitable for this sort of work and porting software to it would be exceptionally expensive. Windows was/is a loose-loose situation.
The second major reason is because these Movie studios do a lot of internatl development to produce the cutting-edge 3D graphics that they do. This is less true as it used to be with the establishment of scripting languages coming out of Maya and such things, but it's still true to a large extent.
Linux is much easier to program for then Windows, generally. And when I mean 'program for' I mean modify substantial portions of the operating system to suit whatever specific task they want. They'll do a quite a bit of hacking on the Linux kernel and other things to incorporate special features and such things that you typically don't need or don't want in a kernel.
With Linux they are able to actually protect their 'IP' much more effectively then with Windows. Since all the source code and developement tools used in Linux development is freely aviable then they don't have to get into contracts and sign away rights to be able to hack with Linux. With Windows or with OS X they would have to bring Microsoft/Apple programmers into their orginization and would reveil a lot of stuff they do that they probably don't want other studios to have. With Linux this is just much cleaner and easier to do.
But mostly it's just a platform to run their hugely expensive tools. For example Autodesk Discreet Smoke is a high-end composition tool. You'll use it for things like incorporating 3D backdrops and entities into 'live action' video.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=5562809
This is _only_ aviable for Linux, probably Redhat or Redhat clones. A low-end workstation with this is easily going to cost you over 10 grand.
There is a bunch of software like that.
They aren't going to use a lot of open source graphics tools, as you could image.
Some software that they do use is stuff like...
Gimp was used to create textures for the first Shrek movie. They said that it was the best application for doing this (Gimp has a lot of nice scripting capabilities for example), but they were starting to run into the 8bit per channel RGBA limitation.
Blender was used to create the story boards for at least one Spiderman movie. Blender may not be industry-standard, but it is VERY quick for whipping out complex models, probably better workflow for doing that then other 3d suites.
The only application that is regularly used in film editing is Cinepaint (aka Film Gimp)
http://www.cinepaint.org/
Cinepaint is a 'Deep Color' painter.. that is it does ultra high color depths. Upwards to 32bits per channel. This very high color depth is required for editing digital film directly... your computer monitor can only display 8bits per channel, and that is only if it's CRT, LCD displays can't even display that properly. It doesn't matter if Photoshop can do 16bit color channels, your simply _not_going_to_be_able_to_see_it_.
(the reason you use 16bit color depths in Photoshop is because if your a filter feind or your very anal about doing color adjustments it can help you avoid a lot of visual artifacts like color banding you can get from over-manipulating regular 8bit RGBA.)
And for reflective light, like on printouts, they aren't even close to matching what you can see on your LCD for color depth.
But film is the other way.. Projected film onto a black screen will give you the widest amount of color and shading values possible. This is one of the major reasons why theaters are able to give such a high quality image and at home you'll never be able to match it with regular plasma/lcd/crt/hd/etc televisions. So unless you use something like Cinepaint to edit things your going to risk the audiance seeing the editing very easily.
Things they have used Cinepaint for is stuff like painting the arrows during the last Lord of The Rings movie's big battle scene. (in fact through the entire LotR movie they had migrated to a almost totally Linux workflow)
Also another thing that is funny that until very recently nobody ever used any color management in big production movies. NONE at all. They always eye balled it. It's funny stuff. Goes to show that print shop/photography and digital movie making are two entirely different things even though they use some of the same tools.
Linux is also used in the making of South Park. :-P And Apples. Windows was just to unstable for them.
Maybe Vista is better. - regeya, on 10/11/2007, -9/+30@GawtMilk and Corvette: OK, I'm biting.
GawtMilk: Wow, that's a lot of extrapolating. OK, so I viewed schestowitz' past digging history, so I can see that you're an anti-Freedom stalker. Okay, I get that; be it obsession, paid advocacy, whatever the reason may be, there are people who must at all costs hunt down and score points off of Free Software advocates. But in your efforts to score points you've gone well beyond the original comment. So what if there are still areas where Free Software isn't 100% there? The point made was that Linux is filling a niche, which would be, I suppose, replacing IRIX. That's still kind of cool. The example of ILM using Windows is kind of funny, yeah. I'd hope that Lucas would ***** anyone crusading to replace IRIX with Windows.
corvette: I guess you're talking about Cinepaint's GUI. Yeah, it kind of sucks. But *never* be satisfactory? No, it won't, not when the only comment you can get from detractors is "it isn't satisfactory." If you can't give a good bug report, you're part of the problem, and you either need to speak up and be clear, or STFU. Your choice. I just know some of y'all MS fanboys are going to use this as a way to dig on "Linux" because "devs" are "hostile" and use this comment as an example of "what's wrong with Linux." Um, well, I use Linux about 20% of the time (when I use a computer at home ;-D), and the rest is split between MacOS and Windows. I can find you Windows users who'll be just as apt to say 'put up or shut up' as a sweaty Linux-using (not any sort of dev, sorry to disappoint, no points to be scored there) nerd like me.
So I guess your "buds" who rated you up will be rating me down. Bully for you; let me know when y'all grow up and choose to join the workforce. Hopefully you'll apply somewhere I'm working, so I can have the pleasure of "losing" your resumes. - schestowitz, on 10/11/2007, -14/+33This article from yesterday is more interesting.
,----[ Quote ]
| "Linux is the default operating [system] on desktops and servers at major
| animation and visual effects studios, with maybe 98 percent [or more]
| penetration," CinePaint Project Manager Robin Rowe told LinuxInsider.
`----
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/57300.html - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -3/+22"Would you like to know more?"
reminded me of Starship Troopers.
"Would you like to learn more?" - generalloy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+21tobias: Pixar uses and funds a Metacity (GNOME WM) scripting program called devil's pie for desktop workflow. shestowitz's article above also contradicts your assertion that they only use GNU/Linux in rendering farms; they use Linux on "98%" of their desktops.
http://linuxformat.co.uk/waugh.html - generalloy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+19Cinelerra, Blender, Cinepaint, Devil's Pie, Maya, etc.
- Dumbledorito, on 10/11/2007, -0/+18For places that do lots of number crunching (i.e. rendering), Linux makes a lot of sense as your base OS. You don't need anything cluttering up or using memory that's not dedicated to the task you're wanting to accomplish.
- KungFuJesus, on 10/11/2007, -1/+18there's also an image editor (i think it's proprietary though) for linux(also mac/win) called Pixel image editor, i've heard it's pretty damn good, but GIMP suits my needs.
- DimensionalPunk, on 10/11/2007, -6/+21Once Photoshop is running on Linux it will be a fast exodus.
- prammy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+15@GawtMilk
I think you are missing the point of his article. Nowhere in the linked article does it say that since Motion Picture companies are using linux, that you and everyone else should start using it too. In fact neither him nor his linked article makes any statement as to consumers using Linux.
I understand you have an urge to bash Linux every opportunity you get, in fact a quick peek at your comments in other posts concerning linux confirms it. But before you start spewing your anti-(anything non microsoft) rant, at least stay on the topic. - corevette, on 10/11/2007, -15/+27i say it again, and yet again
your 'special' quotation GUI will never be satisfactory - Haplo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11Note that for example Titanic was designed on SGI boxen (O2 if my memory serves me correctly). GNU/Linux was used on a part of the render farm (Alpha's).
- drag, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10If your using Ubuntu or Debian then Blender packages are aviable via apt-get. In Ubuntu you have to enable the universe repositories.
Blender is one of those things that are very steep learning curve at first. If your used to other 3D applications Blender is uses a quite a different approach to the UI that can be confusing.
If you ever used Vim or Emacs or something like that, Blender is kinda like that. The menus and such are only there if you forget the key combos, to be fast at it you have to play around with it in long enough in order to learn the keyboard shortcuts.. once you get used to that then things can go very quickly.
Modelling with it is in the traditional form of subdivision editing.. people generally start off with a just a plan cube then you start off just extruding the various sides of cube and then 'cutting' them to add more vector points you can manipulate.
So it goes like that extrude, 'cut' to divide up the faces, then extrude, etc etc. Then once you get the general shape, and depending on the look you want then you enable subsurf modelling. (of course it's not good for mechanical items sometimes that need crisp edges) Then you can adjust the weights of the different points and such thing to get the shapes you want.
You end up using it like your playing Quake or something, with one hand on the mouse and the other on the keyboard racing around and hitting keys and such.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
keep in mind that Blender is a modeler. It will do video composition, uv mapping, texture painting, some audio stuff, 3D skeletal animation.
It also has a substantial scripting system revolving around Python. Using stuff like that you can do advanced things like incorporating realistic solid partical physics into your animations and other special effects and things to make your life much easier.
Also it is in the proccess of incorporating a full fledged gaming engine in the form of Celstart from the CrystalSpace project. Using blender and python you can make quick 3d games that you can distribute in the form of zip files that people can run simply by unzipping them.
You can even integrate a Python IDE into Blender with SPE IDE, but it's going to take a long time for people to get into that sort of stuff.
Animation is the thing that people realy realy end up getting hung up on. Getting a model is fairly easy, but after that it starts getting hard.
http://www.elephantsdream.org/ was a short movie designed and made in Blender on Linux. It is a ART film, so don't expect it to make much sense.
One of the things to keep in mind while watching it is that they made it from beginning to end. The 3D artists working on it learned quite a bit about animation in the proccess. You can tell if you watch the end vs watching the beginning that the quality in terms of realistic or life-like movements increase dramaticly as they made the movie. - chrisbarr, on 10/11/2007, -5/+15I thought I did, then I saw "Dante's Peak" as the first item in the list.
Now I'm sad. - Politikil, on 10/11/2007, -6/+15I guess I don't understand this whole OS vs OS vs OS situation; Linux has it's strong points, Windows has its' strong point, and the same with OSX. A major portion of the Internet backbone runs off of *nix systems, and they are certainly strong in many regards, and are certainly a strong operating system for their purpose. Windows has a huge user base in regards to desktops, and I understand why; they are easy to use, and it fits on many different hardware platforms. OSX has a wonderful user base of connoisseurs in the way of operating systems for people who enjoy technology mixed with usefulness and style.
I dunno - appreciate each for what it is, and know where it fits in, and also appreciate the fact that each one just isn't going to fit the role needed for everything. It is however, nice to point out which OS is doing what, and where throughout the digital world. - tdp05, on 10/11/2007, -2/+11Lots of the bigger vfx studios use proprietary software developed in house.
- tolldog, on 10/11/2007, -3/+12@rlahiff - That is funny, because I did all three.
- flamingmb, on 10/11/2007, -4/+12thank god I'm not the only one who thought of starship troopers when they saw that.
"Buenos Aires has been wiped off the map!" - burjzyntski, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Most companies use *nix of some sort for their workgroup computers. Go into any Home Depot/Lowes/Grocery store/restaurant and take a look at their computer terminals...you'll notice (if you're familiar with any *nix) that most of them are running it in some form or another. Some use a windows server edition, but many use *nix for it's ease in programmabilty, disguisability, and stability. Most workers don't even know (or care) what they're using in this case - they just know that it gets their job done easier than without it.
- neel360, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7Oh, the irony. "Most big animation and effects movies since 2002 are Linux-based," but the website telling us all about it is among the sh*ttiest the Internet has to offer.
- prammy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7There goes the whole argument that people using linux need to know how to compile kernels to send mail and write assembly to power off their machines.
- gostars, on 10/11/2007, -5/+11This isn't news. Lots big commercial stuff is done on linux. I work for a huge semiconductor company that develops its chips with CAD tools that run on linux.
- drag, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Depends also on what sort of level your working at.
If your working for TV broadcasting station, for example, your going to essentially see zero Linux workstations (this is my understanding).
Final Cut Pro is a non-linear video editor. The sort of things you see with people using Linux is composition video editing, which is a different ball of wax. - L0t3k, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6@ventro
You clearly don't know what you're talking about. You've made an uninformed assumption and asserted it as fact. You are awarded no points, and may god have mercy on your soul. - rfalloon, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6dug cause that was a good read! :-D
- idonthack, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8Book > Movie
- tupperbacharach, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7Actually, the statement that Linux is used more than other OS's for the big creative stuff is accurate, partially due to all the in-house, proprietary effects, "plug-ins" and GUI code that has been written for it. The Linux programs mentioned above and on Robin Rowe's site are certainly standards for the creative production of big films. However, a lot of the big effects and post programs that originated in Linux have probably been ported to other OSs by now.
I am surprised that Piranha was left-out of the programs-for-Linux lists above. It is a serious, big-time production suite. Look at its capabilities and at its client and film lists: http://www.ifx.com/piranha/5.0/ - x0nIMIn0x, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6The 3D assets are developed using tools in a linux environment, including the publishing of modeling, camera, animation, texture, and effects assets. Also the software for managing the versions of these assets can be linux based. The shots are lit in software running on linux, and the rendering is often done with Renderman or Mental Ray on a farm running linux.
Render passes are composited into final shots on software running in linux.
I can't say for sure what gets used in the editing rooms at the big studios. It could very well be windows-based Avid systems, or OS X based Final Cut systems. - tdp05, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5If you read the article, and the other comments in the thread, the topic being discussed is the actual VFX work being done, with the majority being done on linux boxes. I agree that avid and FCP are used for editing, but the creation of the animation and effects assets are done in linux.
- tenderstorm, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5IIRC then Matrix was made on FreeBSD cluster.
- ELCid, on 10/11/2007, -3/+8Guess I'm the 'old dog' then....here goes:
I worked for a fairly well-known Director, with 5-7 other 'generalists'. We did everything from pre-viz, to final shots. Keep in mind, I was the 'Technical' Artist, but here's how it broke down for us:
*Maya/XSI for 3D content - All of us, except for the one guy running the Flame system, modelled, textured, animated, lit, and rendered.
*Shake/Flame for Compositing/Green-Screen extraction - Each of us knew Shake, and it was used quite a bit for pre-comps
*Photoshop - Texture work. This program's King for photo manipulation and 2D texture creation.
*WindowsNT/2000 - Most desktops were running Windows. The Director used a Mac of course ;)
*Final Cut Pro - As I said, the Director used this, not us. I've become quite fond of the HD version of it lately though.
*DeepPaint 3D - Texture work in 3D ...Projection paint!
*zBrush - Detail work on a pre-modelled character (Mudbox is making some inroads)
*Rush - Render/compositing job que software
*Render Farm - Started as a few networked Windows machines, grew to a system of large Blade Racks ;) Here's the only place you'd find Linix.
More of us are switching to Mac's now (I have), especially with Bootcamp. It's the best of both worlds, I can boot into either. I still like writing plugin's for the Windows version of Maya better than it's OSX counterpart, but that's probably due to Visual Studio. And contrary to what's been previously stated, there's no 'Windows' code necessary in modifying these programs thru a plug-in. For Maya, you deal directly with the API or openGL. Learning a scripting language like Mel, or GLSL/HLSL for hardware shaders, would be a prudent thing to due for an up and comer. The API may be a bit much for a start.
Good luck to you all. - BigBadger, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Anyways, cinepaint is a fairly outdated BUT STILL USEFUL application used for editing frames from a movie in a flip-book fashion.
My issue is that Robin Rowe, the developer, has been promising, for the past few years, an updated version of Cinepaint called "Glasgow", but when he finally released an extremely Alpha, and nearly un-functional version, it was only for windows, which was a massive kick to the balls to the Linux community. He was then promising a Linux version for a few weeks on his cinepaint site, but took down the note on that.
Now he doesn't seem to be doing much of anything with Glasgow. What it seems to me is that, after running off with the original design of GIMP and altering it, he hasn't had the ability to do anything ELSE with it, as he probably has no design skills, himself. - yuricurri, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5What software would they use to do all that video work on linux?
- tdp05, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4The funny thing is that the majority of vfx artists barely know how to use Linux. They learn their workflow and the tools they need, but don't use it at home, and barely know any CLI tools outside of what they need for work. There are plenty of those that are geeks, and know what they are doing, but I'd say maybe 75% or more have PCs or Macs at home and don't care what OS they are using at work.
- srg13, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Autodesk's Flame, Fire, Lustre, Flint, Smoke and Inferno. Very high end stuff... Costs a few hundred grand each
Also, there's Maya, Shake and Nuke.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562722&siteID=123112 - repruhsent, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Platform != configuration
- GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Hollywood uses Linux because it runs anywhere and everywhere. They develop their own software in any case so there is little or no need to run a proprietary system. They'll regularly upscale their hardware or have the interface on an x86 and do the grunt work on an UltraSPARC T1 or something. For this they need an OS that they can move. You can't move Windows all too easily.
- srg13, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5"Another thing is that excellent software exists that costs a fortune. things like SoftImage, Maya, and so on."
Don't forget Shake, Nuke, and all the Autodesk/Discreet stuff - eg. Flame (compositing), lustre (grading) etc. Flame is about the highest-end compositing package there is - tolldog, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4@ELCid
Thats mostly my experience as well. I started in the industry when Irix was on its way out, but Linux hadn't been widely adopted yet. I was the first one in the studio to run Linux, on my own desktop even. Eventually the whole studio converted to Linux (minus editing and texturing).
Where my experience differs:
*Use of Rush: that never looked robust enough to me for a full pipeline. Qube! is promising from Pipelinefx, my personal experience has been using Platform's LSF and some custom code.
*Windows use: purely for corporate and production assistants, only use in the studio was the photoshop boxes (I know ESC used windows, I still wonder why...)
*Linux use: This is on every artist's desktop, all tools run either under wine or are Linux native tools. These systems are also used for general purpose rendering after hours.
*Render Farm: Blades are becoming more popular, but its mostly 1u rack mounts.
I don't see the big switch to Macs yet. Its a tempting switch. I prefer Maya under a Unix environment over windows, partly because of pathing issues, the other because I want consistancy between desktop and farm host. If you are running the same install on both farm and desktop, you should see almost exactly the same results. - Haplo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Titanic was done on O2s AFAIK (rendering was done on Dec Alpha's running GNU/Linux, again AFAIK).
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4In case anyone's wondering, part of the reason that you don't have excellent editing software on Linux and they do is because they write a lot of it. Another thing is that excellent software exists that costs a fortune. things like SoftImage, Maya, and so on.
- godd4242, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Damn straight.
Now I'm really upset that I can't get Blender to work, I want to fool around with it. - Moriya, on 10/11/2007, -5/+8Would I like to learn more? Yes. But it looks like this website isn't going to help in that regard.
- arjie, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Who uses Blender?
These people do, and more: http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/testimonials/ - arjie, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Woah GawtMilk, it'll pay to read the article before making dubious statements not related to the thread.
- tolldog, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3That list missed the ever crucial "Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298388/
- GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3FreeBSD powered the Matrix.
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