J.R. Hudson
Spirit Animal
Over checking their site to see if they give any kind of tours (going to Frisco in June) and found this...
http://www.ilm.com/ilmshorts.html
http://www.ilm.com/ilmshorts.html
ILM does CGI goooooood.
- Thread starter J.R. Hudson
- Start date
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
How 'bout that Disney/Pixar split? UGGG-LEEE!!!
How 'bout that Disney/Pixar split? UGGG-LEEE!!!
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
John, let us know if you do tour ILM. I read about their supercomputer a while back, called Render Farm, the massive cluster they employ to render movies from Jurassic Park to The Mummy. It is located in San Rafael though.
Dual processors? Try 740! Back in 2001 specifications were 740 MIPS 400MHz R12000 processors, 740GB of ECC SDRAM memory, and 12 TB of storage space. It is an SGI Origin super-computer running IRIX for an OS. Although it is spaced out over several floors, if collected together, Render Farm would occupy some 10,000 square feet.
Takes 18 people just to maintain, and is always being upgraded. I'm sure by now the specifications are even more insane. But back in 2001, Render Farm was capable of rendering 180,000 2000x1000 resolution frames in one night. Can't even imagine what it is capable of today. I'd like to see an update to that article I read.
Jubal, I'm curious to see how that will affect Disney too. I understand Disney will be free to pursue sequels now without permission from Pixar, which could mean more money for them in terms of lame video follow-ups, but I would be kicking myself if I had let Pixar go.
John, let us know if you do tour ILM. I read about their supercomputer a while back, called Render Farm, the massive cluster they employ to render movies from Jurassic Park to The Mummy. It is located in San Rafael though.
Dual processors? Try 740! Back in 2001 specifications were 740 MIPS 400MHz R12000 processors, 740GB of ECC SDRAM memory, and 12 TB of storage space. It is an SGI Origin super-computer running IRIX for an OS. Although it is spaced out over several floors, if collected together, Render Farm would occupy some 10,000 square feet.
Takes 18 people just to maintain, and is always being upgraded. I'm sure by now the specifications are even more insane. But back in 2001, Render Farm was capable of rendering 180,000 2000x1000 resolution frames in one night. Can't even imagine what it is capable of today. I'd like to see an update to that article I read.
Jubal, I'm curious to see how that will affect Disney too. I understand Disney will be free to pursue sequels now without permission from Pixar, which could mean more money for them in terms of lame video follow-ups, but I would be kicking myself if I had let Pixar go.
J.R. Hudson
Spirit Animal
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
That is insane. Damn Lucas.
He was on to something when he took a Directing paycut, points and all rights to the Staw Wars movies.
sigh...................................................
Perhaps I'll do the same with my script about a lesbian couple that works in the business district and discovers more than love...
That is insane. Damn Lucas.
He was on to something when he took a Directing paycut, points and all rights to the Staw Wars movies.
sigh...................................................
Perhaps I'll do the same with my script about a lesbian couple that works in the business district and discovers more than love...
kai
After FX Guru
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
[quote author=Oz link=board=Offtopic;num=1076124058;start=0#2 date=02/06/04 at 20:52:52] But back in 2001, Render Farm was capable of rendering 180,000 2000x1000 resolution frames in one night. Can't even imagine what it is capable of today. [/quote]
That seems a bit high... as far as 3D rendering goes... some times it takes all night just to render one FRAME at Pixar from what i've read lately about their full cg pics...
Maybe i'm wrong.
[quote author=Oz link=board=Offtopic;num=1076124058;start=0#2 date=02/06/04 at 20:52:52] But back in 2001, Render Farm was capable of rendering 180,000 2000x1000 resolution frames in one night. Can't even imagine what it is capable of today. [/quote]
That seems a bit high... as far as 3D rendering goes... some times it takes all night just to render one FRAME at Pixar from what i've read lately about their full cg pics...
Maybe i'm wrong.
PurposeDriven
Well-known member
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
I think the seperation is good for pixar. Disney has been riding on borrowed wings by putting thier name on Pixar's work. It's pixar that writes the films, creates them, and puts all the work into it. Then disney packages it, markets it, and take in a lot of credit.
Pixar is already recieving offers that I think will allow them more freedom from making "kid pictures." Even though they are funny as hell.
I think the seperation is good for pixar. Disney has been riding on borrowed wings by putting thier name on Pixar's work. It's pixar that writes the films, creates them, and puts all the work into it. Then disney packages it, markets it, and take in a lot of credit.
Pixar is already recieving offers that I think will allow them more freedom from making "kid pictures." Even though they are funny as hell.
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
1-4 hours per frame.
Here, I get antsy when it takes a couple of hours to compress a sequence to MPEG-2 . . .
1-4 hours per frame.
Here, I get antsy when it takes a couple of hours to compress a sequence to MPEG-2 . . .
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
Oh, sure. I was putting my own piddling problems into perspective . . .
Oh, sure. I was putting my own piddling problems into perspective . . .
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
See the article entitled "Supercomputers: Inside Five of the World's Craziest Power Plants" in the Maximum PC March 2001 issue, page 50 to 56, with the Render Farm listed on page 54.
The 180,000 frames per night was according to Andy Hendrickson, director of systems development at ILM, and quoted from the article above. May have been a typo in the magazine perhaps but just to let you guys know I wasn't making it up ;D I wonder if they meant 18,000?
As Steve noted, these are clustered computers, meaning each CPU acts together collectively. In SGI's case, they take advantage of ccNUMA or cache coherence non-uniform memory access. SGI calls their implementation SGI NUMAflex in the 3000 series.
Here is a page of the updated 3000 supercomputer product:
http://www.sgi.com/origin/3000/
As I mentioned earlier, I wonder what they are using now?
See the article entitled "Supercomputers: Inside Five of the World's Craziest Power Plants" in the Maximum PC March 2001 issue, page 50 to 56, with the Render Farm listed on page 54.
The 180,000 frames per night was according to Andy Hendrickson, director of systems development at ILM, and quoted from the article above. May have been a typo in the magazine perhaps but just to let you guys know I wasn't making it up ;D I wonder if they meant 18,000?
As Steve noted, these are clustered computers, meaning each CPU acts together collectively. In SGI's case, they take advantage of ccNUMA or cache coherence non-uniform memory access. SGI calls their implementation SGI NUMAflex in the 3000 series.
Here is a page of the updated 3000 supercomputer product:
http://www.sgi.com/origin/3000/
As I mentioned earlier, I wonder what they are using now?
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
Well, I'm always amazed by the power clustering provides. Used to enjoy reading up on the Beowulf project and anything cluster related (best I ever put up was a streaming cluster
). In terms of power it's not always the number of CPUs though as the interconnect between the nodes like Myrinet as well. In any case, on a note related to clustering and CGI, guess who is number 44 and 48 in the Top 500 supercomputer list of 2003?
Weta Digital, of Lord of the Rings fame:
http://www.top500.org/list/2003/11/
This is out of the best of the best in the world. Very interesting if you consider what many of these computers are used for. Mostly government, weather, military, and academic installations. Then there's Weta! Must be very fun to go to work for either Weta or ILM.
Well, I'm always amazed by the power clustering provides. Used to enjoy reading up on the Beowulf project and anything cluster related (best I ever put up was a streaming cluster
). In terms of power it's not always the number of CPUs though as the interconnect between the nodes like Myrinet as well. In any case, on a note related to clustering and CGI, guess who is number 44 and 48 in the Top 500 supercomputer list of 2003?Weta Digital, of Lord of the Rings fame:
http://www.top500.org/list/2003/11/
This is out of the best of the best in the world. Very interesting if you consider what many of these computers are used for. Mostly government, weather, military, and academic installations. Then there's Weta! Must be very fun to go to work for either Weta or ILM.
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
One of those jobs, no doubt, that's difficult to call a "job."
One of those jobs, no doubt, that's difficult to call a "job."
Re: ILM does CGI goooooood.
..im just going off of what the WETA Workshop guy stated in a behind the scenes interview which was aired about 3 weeks ago. he stated it was anywhere between 2 min to 13+ hours to render one single frame in LOTR. so, while im not neccessarly saying that it took 13+ hours to render every frame, what im saying is that some frames did take that long... at least according to the guy who heads the dept that did the rendering..
..im just going off of what the WETA Workshop guy stated in a behind the scenes interview which was aired about 3 weeks ago. he stated it was anywhere between 2 min to 13+ hours to render one single frame in LOTR. so, while im not neccessarly saying that it took 13+ hours to render every frame, what im saying is that some frames did take that long... at least according to the guy who heads the dept that did the rendering..