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Big Blue to take on Pixar? 277

Posted by michael from the bit-battle dept.
spareacct1 writes "USAToday is reporting that IBM is set to announce a strategic partnership with Threshold Digital Research Labs of Santa Monica, CA. TDRL now hopes it has the deep pockets and computing power to take on Pixar as the undisputed leader in CG animated films. TDRL's spartan website is showing off digital stills. Interesting sidebar at the end of the story, both Pixar and TDRL recently dumped Sun and MS, respectively, in favor of Linux."
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Big Blue to take on Pixar? More

Big Blue to take on Pixar?

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  • Talent, not clock cycles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25, 2003 @09:44PM (#6537737)
    Pixar's movies are good because of their people, not their computers. They've got good artists, good directors, and amazing writers. Without those, you end up with movies like Final Fantasy: technically adept, but ultimately empty and pointless.

    • Re:Talent, not clock cycles (Score:5, Funny)

      by capt.Hij ( 318203 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @09:56PM (#6537798) Homepage Journal

      They've got good artists, good directors, and amazing writers.

      How come nobody ever says that about pr0n? That industry seems to be doing okay. Then again they rely on a different kind of hardware.


      • May be that means that IBM should concentrate on doing VR porn using their super-fast computers? Then in a few years the technology could be deployed in games that would run on a standard desktop computer...

    • Re:Talent, not clock cycles (Score:4, Interesting)

      by SIGFPE ( 97527 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:04PM (#6537828) Homepage
      You think they have good writers. Finding Nemo had Yet Another Sucky Disney Story Like All The Others. Tedious crap.


      But they have amazing artists. Finding Nemo was an awesome feast for the eyes. It raised the bar (that's the in phrase right now) in visuals and everything was simply a joy to look at. And yet when you see Pixar people interviewed they always repeat the "Story is King" line and say how animation is nothing without story. I disagree. Beautiful visuals can carry a movie with a lame script. Film is a visual art form. Whether you're an old bastard like me or a 5 year old, pretty images can keep you looking.

      • Re:Talent, not clock cycles (Score:5, Insightful)

        by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbearNO@SPAMpacbell.net> on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:45PM (#6537986) Homepage
        Yet you can point as Final Fantasy: Spirits Within as beautiful visuals with a lame script; arguably it did not carry the movie.

        Finding Nemo isn't *revolutionary*. Like most classic revered Disney films, it's a fable with a moral and message. It does not strive to to challenge the viewer. You don't come out of a Pixar movie and spend several hours with friends arguing the significance and meaning of certain symbols or events. Everything in a pixar film is clear and concrete: The ending is already determined by the conflict in the first 10 minutes, and all the character growth is predictable.

        For you it's tedious. For the many people who have not yet achieved certain milestones, Pixar movies (and Disney movies) reinforce certain norms and belief systems through analogy and example.

        There are certainly movies that force growth by expanding your consciousness and awareness, but Pixar movies are not those kind of films.

        • Re:Talent, not clock cycles (Score:5, Insightful)

          by diersing ( 679767 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @11:09PM (#6538050)
          I agree with everything you said, but I don't believe the parent was trying to say Pixar/Disney movies are trying to compete with the type of film you describe.

          Pixar/Disney are about box office and merchandise, which they do very well at. I like their movies because when my 4 year old drags me into a theatre, I get some entertainment out of it as well. They do a great job of adding enough for the adults which many animated features (big screen or small) don't do.

          I'm not the movie buff I'm betting you are, but I'd love to hear what movies for you sparked a debate amongst you and your friends. Of course I have my own list, but I think many are because of the place in my life I was in and the events of the world around me at that time.

          • For [animated] movies that are perhaps more morally challenging than Pixar's films, how about Hayao Miyazaki's movies? I'm no particular fan of anime, but I thought "Spirited Away" was wonderful, and after seeing it I went back to see "Princess Mononoke", which was also pretty good. I'm told that Miyazaki's other movies are also good ("Kiki's Messenger Service", "Castle in the Sky").

            "Spirited Away" & "Princess Mononoke" both had an interesting, shifting, relativistic sense of morality that seemed more

          • I'd like to add to the interesting discussion. The suggestion of Hayao Miyazaki's films is a good one. I think in general that Mr. Miyazaki's films have more emotional depth and character depth than Pixar's. He, however, rarely attempts to ponder deeper more open-ended philosophical/societal issues. Some animated films which to try to do this are:

            Ghost in the Shell a kick ass action with an open ended look some serious philosophical problems posed by cyborgs and real AI entities.

            Jin-Roh: The Wolf B

        • FF had good quality visuals as far as realism went, but as far beauty went, it was not beautiful really. Aki Ross may have been hot, but that aside, the imagery was just standard sci-fi fare, albeit rendered in CG. Beauty and accuracy are two different things.
          • to use a cliche, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. an accurate rendition of something done by something other than a photograph is an impressive feat. the way they accurately (re)produced scenery, vehicles, and people the way they did was amazing to me. i find things that amaze me beautiful.

      • Re:Talent, not clock cycles (Score:5, Funny)

        by corbettw ( 214229 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @11:15PM (#6538071) Journal
        "...pretty images can keep you looking."

        Hey, that's the thing that keeps Larry Flynt in business.

      • Re:Talent, not clock cycles (Score:5, Interesting)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 ) <me AT brandywinehundred DOT org> on Saturday July 26, 2003 @02:39AM (#6538596) Journal
        I heard an interview with one hof the big guys at Pixar on NPR. He said that what they can do with the currecnt tech is a factor taken when they do a film.

        Toys are plastic, ALL early CG looked plastic, thus Toy Story.

        He also said that when they felt they could do fur they did monsters inc. Because they wanted to use the fur.

        From the interview it sounded like every part got equal share of the attention, (the directing, the casting, the story, the graphics). All of the Pixar films have been solid childrens movies that would have worked weather CG or animated (most would have been incredibly hokey live action though).

      • Finding Nemo had Yet Another Sucky Disney Story Like All The Others. Tedious crap.

        I disagree. I took my 3.5- and 2.5-year olds to see it last night (their first trip to a theater) and they were mesmerized the entire time. My wife and I laughed hysterically at parts (a 12-step program for sharks who don't want to eat fish? Complete with "denial" and interventions?), but the kids absolutely loved it.

        On the other hand, they just didn't grasp the subtleties of "A Clockwork Orange".

    • Yeah, well you might live in a fantasy land where talent and creativity are the prime components of a good film...

      But IBM is better placed to synergize the business potential of the graphics medium. Personally, I can't wait to see what will happen with the structural dynamics of Rational Rose hits the big screen in an animated short.

    • Re:Talent, not clock cycles (Score:4, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:27PM (#6537915)
      Businesses get talent exactly the same way they get computer hardware. They buy it.

      • Re:Talent, not clock cycles (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Taos ( 12343 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:18AM (#6539643) Homepage
        There's a small difference in this industry (which I am happy to say I work in). There's a definate "king" to the industry, Pixar, and everybody is always shooting for that goal. "One day I will work at Pixar." is heard frequently by those just starting out (I think I've said it myself). But it takes years of experience and an enormous amount of talent to make it there, even in the less artistic sides like programming (which is what I do).

        The problem that other companies have in trying to compete with the talent of Pixar, is that they just can't go out and buy it. Pixar could offer a competitive offer against Threshold for a prospective employee of a nice stack of shiny pennies and most artists would take Pixar. I would. They're the best of the best, and they attract the best of the best.

        But other posters have it right. You compete by having a great story. Right now, I'm working at a company on another project while they're doing the storyboards for their next feature. It's an interesting process to watch. The production crew doesn't even get to look at the movie for many more months (partially due to budget constraints), but they're hammering out this animatic every minute detail they can possibly think of. And the idea is that it can stand on it's own as a movie, it will just LOOK like crap. That's where/when we come in.

        Great talent is a hard thing to come by in this industry. Just running out and buying a few animators and a couple hackers won't get it done.

        Taos

    • Re:Talent, not clock cycles (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Goalie_Ca ( 584234 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @11:42PM (#6538173)
      This is why i think the new Star Wars films suck. Too much attention has been focused on the effects and everything. You need a nice balence between plot and character development and the visual and audio effects.

      It seems today that a-list actors and visual effects with high-budget action scenes are all that are needed for a film and that the script is there merely to get the two together. Basically, a script serves the same purpose as it does in a porno!
      • It's true, and not just in the animation world too.

        I was listening to the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker commentary to their film Top Secret!, on why they felt that film was less successful than their previous one, Airplane!, despite probably having more jokes. The reason: Airplane! was well-plotted, with a strong classical structure; Top Secret!'s plot was more of an excuse to get from scene to scene.

    • Yup: Pixar's biggest asset is John Lasseter, who knows how to tell a great story.
  • This [threshold-digital.com] looks eeirly familiar. Is that from the Mortal Kombat movie?

  • Skill & Creativity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GNUman ( 155139 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @09:45PM (#6537744)
    You don't just need big computing power, you need design & drawing skills, besides lots of creativity and imagination.

    I could have all the computing power and still not be able to do something worth watching.
    • It's similar to new programmers "needing" the latest & fastest computers to write code.
    • "I could have all the computing power and still not be able to do something worth watching."

      That's basically what it boils down to. Dr. Who didn't drastically improve when its movie budget a few years ago.
      • No, it went down the toilet with a lame story, no good old characters (no matter what they say, eric roberts is _not_ the master), and a tardis that looked like a hotel lobby.

        I'm sorry i every saw that movie. It was worse than the phantom.

    • Re:Skill & Creativity (Score:3, Insightful)

      by afidel ( 530433 )
      But by the same token you could be a great computer animator and be handicapped by the abilities of your computer. Raytracing takes a LOT of computer time at film resolutions, and the textures can be hundreds of megs per object in a scene. Right now animators often have to layout a scene at lower resolution and with more limited effects during the day and batch it out to the farm at night, if each animator had their own render farm and could get the batch back during the same day then they could tweak thing
  • It doesn't matter if IBM is providing your Linux tech support, and it doesn't matter how pretty the pixels are.. What's important is that the movie is good, and I've never even heard of this company before.

  • Define "take on" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jstockdale ( 258118 ) * on Friday July 25, 2003 @09:45PM (#6537748) Homepage Journal
    After looking at the article and TDRL's website, the more interesting side of the story seems to come from the USA Today article [usatoday.com], specifically IBM's new goal to make computing power a utility such that on demand computing can be purchased just like the power/water/gas utilities of today. The animation stills from TDRL are ok, but nothing spectacular. I've seen more realistic stills come out of a skilled single artist with Maya (see here [digitalblasphemy.com]). The incredible results that Pixar [pixar.com] has been able to achieve through their research into rendering technology (ie. RenderMan) combined with artistic prowess have brought them success, and I fail to see how the Terminator 2 producer merely acquiring processor power brings TDRL into a position to challenge the best in the field.

    • Re:Define "take on" (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:23PM (#6537898)
      Not to be picky, but Ryan (Digital Blasphemy) doesn't use Maya. He uses Lightwave, Vue d'Esprit, World Builder; occasionally some other stuff (like something called XFrog, etc).

      But I certainly agree with you, the artist is a very big factor.

    • Re:Define "take on" (Score:2, Informative)

      by Jmstuckman ( 561420 )
      For an example of what On Demand Computing is all about, see IBM and Akamai's proof-of-concept site. [seneca-on-demand.com] IBM Research is developing technologies that would upload your J2EE applications onto a network of servers distributed around the world. The number of servers in use for an application will actually grow and shrink depending on demand! Server capacity can be rented from other sources during times of high demand. No more Slashdotting!!!

  • we'll see.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by snillfisk ( 111062 ) <mats@noSpam.lindh.no> on Friday July 25, 2003 @09:47PM (#6537752) Homepage
    well, believe it or not, but PIXARs success isn't really because of their rendering power -- true enough, the realism and rendering techniques used in their latest productions has contributed to making images better, but they've always had the edge when it comes down to the thing that matters: storytelling and keeping the audience interested. Look at their older shorts and their more recent feature films, the story is the main driving force.

    While Final Fantasy looked quite amazing, the story and the movie just didn't fit in like most of the PIXAR movies. PIXAR makes movies for the whole family which people enjoy on different levels (best example, toy story 2) -- Shrek was a very welcome break from the PIXAR dominance, but not because it wasn't made by pixar, more because of a great story supported by a nice screenplay and good animation (it's more about how you use the tools, not that the end result has been raytraced with molecular precision)..

    If they're able to produce films that would be entertaining even if they were hand drawn by a five year old, then the rendering power comes to good use; not the other way around.
    • Yep. I looked at their site, and most of their stills had a look that I can only described as "over-produced". It looks like a lot of those dark Enlightenment themes and a lot of the desktop pixmaps floating around on Linux theme sites. It seems as if their goal is to cram as much "cool stuff" as they can into every frame, without regard to the single most important things in art: balance and proportion.

      Furthermore, Michael's assertion that their site is 'spartan' has me very confused. I can only think

  • Sensationalized for the press (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bmetz ( 523 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @09:47PM (#6537753) Homepage
    So IBM's supplying hardware as a showcase of their new initiative. It's hardly 'taking on Pixar'. I bet IBM would love to do business with Pixar, too. Do people say that IBM's "taking on the XBox" by supplying the processor in the Gamecube?

  • Clue for IBM (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tealover ( 187148 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @09:53PM (#6537784)
    Hire some talented writers and storytellers. Contrary to popular opinion, Pixar's success had much less to do with the CGI than with traditional old storytelling skill. Pumping money into the technology side at the expense of people will result in a big financial loss.

    Just ask Sony.

    • Re:Clue for IBM (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:11PM (#6537858) Homepage Journal
      Agreed. Take a look at the extras in Monsters Inc, as well as those for Toy Story 1 & 2. They say this same thing, they reiterate that story is king and I think they don't even touch the computers until after they are happy with the story they wrote. Also, Pixar hired a good share of their staff with talented artists and trained them to the 3D modeling and animation techniques, not just computer people that can operate the software.

  • Business Makes Strange Bedfellows (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @09:53PM (#6537785)
    Steve Jobs is the Chairman of the company he co-founded which just entered an alliance with IBM for microprocessors.

    Steve Jobs is the Chairman of the company he bought from ILM which just entered a battle with IBM for computer procduced films.

    Reality is stranger than fiction.

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by realmolo ( 574068 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:02PM (#6537819)
    Hewlett-Packard has announced that they will be writing children's novels in attempt to compete with JK Rowling- "With our experience in building and designing excellent printers, as well as photo-grade papers and color inks, we see no reason we shouldn't be able to write great books." Currently HP is working on it's first book, "Harry Plotter and the Unholy Army of Third-party Ink-cartridge Refurbishers". USB cable not included.
  • http://www.threshold-digital.com/visual-fx/fx2.php 3 -- Is that Jon Stewart? WTF movie was that?

  • Processing power (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shplorb ( 24647 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:04PM (#6537830) Homepage Journal
    Sure, processing power is a crucial part of it, but it's only necessary for advancing the state-of-the-art in computer graphics.

    In each movie that Pixar takes, it takes about 8 hours to render each frame (or so I've read in numerous locations) and you can see that with the increasingly "less-computery" look of their movies as processing power has increased for each one.

    This brings me to the point that I'm intending on making: the realism of the graphics is not what makes a great movie, it's the quality of the story and all that. I saw Toy Story again the other week and it looks so dated now compared to say Monsters Inc. It was still a thoroughly entertaining movie though because it was a good story.

    I love CG films, but I admit that the main reason I love seeing them is to see what new effects and advancements have been made, which is why Pixar films are so great to me.. they're always advancing the state-of-the-art.

    Damnit, now I've just contradicted the original point I was trying to make! Hrmm... BRING ON THE CG FILMS!

    • Re:Processing power (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25, 2003 @11:50PM (#6538199)
      "In each movie that Pixar takes, it takes about 8 hours to render each frame (or so I've read in numerous locations)"

      A friend of mine is an animator at Pixar. He says it's about 45 minutes per frame nowadays. :)

  • Pixar may soon be a Mac shop (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ikewillis ( 586793 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:05PM (#6537836) Homepage
    Pixar is porting RenderMan to MacOS X [macworld.com] and having run tests on G5 systems they now claim:

    "After running our RenderMan benchmarks, we can now say that the G5 is the fastest desktop in the world"

    This according to Pixar president Ed Catmull, who is an early booster of the Power Mac G5. An introduction video [apple.com] for the Power Mac G5 posted to Apple's own Web site features Catmull explaining that the G5 allows Pixar animators to show frames at full resolution.

    This comes amid speculation of a Rendezvous-enabled (G5) Xserve rendering cluster, which would allow 3D shops to set up a plug-and-play rendering cluster which works in conjunction with RenderMan. Couple this with the availability of other 3D applications like Maya [apple.com], and of course the sheer number of other production and DV applications like Photoshop, AfterEffects, Final Cut Pro, and Shake and the Mac seems to become an ideal platform for 3D production.

    • Re:Pixar may soon be a Mac shop (Score:5, Insightful)

      by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:21PM (#6537895) Homepage
      "After running our RenderMan benchmarks, we can now say that the G5 is the fastest desktop in the world"

      Regardless of whether the G5 is the fastest CPU for RenderMan, it is not per-CPU performance that matters. If you're setting up a rendering farm, you're buying n computers to render m frames per hour. At the end of the day, what matters is minimising $$$$$$ per m, not n, and I'll bet dollars to doughtnuts that commondity Intel/AMD whips a G5 mac in terms of rendered frames per dollar. Remember, Apple's CEO == Pixar's CEO.


      Finally, for what it's worth, I'm a Mac user and a big OSX fan. But I know what my dollars are paying for and it ain't CPU cycles.

      • Re:Pixar may soon be a Mac shop (Score:5, Insightful)

        by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:49PM (#6537998) Homepage Journal
        Regardless of whether the G5 is the fastest CPU for RenderMan, it is not per-CPU performance that matters. If you're setting up a rendering farm, you're buying n computers to render m frames per hour. At the end of the day, what matters is minimising $$$$$$ per m, not n, and I'll bet dollars to doughtnuts that commondity Intel/AMD whips a G5 mac in terms of rendered frames per dollar. Remember, Apple's CEO == Pixar's CEO.

        Not if apple gives them to you below cost as a 'marketing expense'

      • Re:Pixar may soon be a Mac shop (Score:4, Interesting)

        by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbearNO@SPAMpacbell.net> on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:55PM (#6538018) Homepage
        But m is directly correlated to n, is it not?

        rendered frames per dollar have *two* variables: Cost of computing (including power and maintenance, and number of rendered frames per second. If you buy more computers, cost goes up and frames go up. If you change architectures, number of rendered frames changes as well.

        So why do you suppose that commodity P4s, Athlons, or Opterons will whip a G5 Mac? Because P4s are designed to scale up in clock faster? That's only useful if you've got fast/short purchase and upgrade cycles. Because the AMDs are cheaper? Have you considered that a G5 might suck up less power, and thus have lower maintenance costs? Or that a G5, with it's Altivec units, might actually render more efficiently, and thus increase the value m?

        I mean, it's all speculation, but I'm not willing to bet against the G5 because Apple's CEO == Pixar's CEO.

        If Apple can design a solution that meets Pixar's needs, it's also likely that the same solution is applicable to many other sectors. Think of it like Honda's racing division; money invested into design and construction of racecars trickle down into everything else, so if Honda can design things that get the Honda Racing Team to win big, then it'll benefit their consumer products. Likewise if Apple can design something that gives Pixar an edge, why wouldn't Apple do so, and why wouldn't Pixar use it?
        • But [the total cost] is directly correlated to [the number of computers], is it not?

          So long as everything else is held constant.

          So why do you suppose that commodity P4s, Athlons, or Opterons will whip a G5 Mac?

          Because every mega-computing project I've ever heard about used Intel processors? Because of that word commodity usually meaning that the people selling the hardware are shaving profits as tightly as possible to reduce prices, since that's a large buying factor? Because Apple is geared up to bui

      • Re:Pixar may soon be a Mac shop (Score:5, Insightful)

        by curtlewis ( 662976 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:58PM (#6538026)
        Pixar hasn't used Macs every for primary work to my knowledge and Steve Jobs has been CEO there for YEARS. He's smart enough to let them pick the best horsepower to do the job.

        Steve's been back at Apple since 1997 (nearly 6 years), and hasn't mandated a switch to Macs. If he did, you'd have heard an anonymous outpouring of complaints. But what you hear is, the G5 smokes and that they're migrating to Macs. This looks like the people doing the work made the decision.

        Now, that isn't to say that in a year or 2 they don't switch to Itanium 2s or Opterons. I'm sure Pixar will continue to choose the most powerful machines for their type of work as they have done so in the past (SGI, Sun, Linux, Apple, etc)...

      • Remember, Apple's CEO == Pixar's CEO.

        Free G5s, anyone?

      • Heat (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Mark_MF-WN ( 678030 )
        Heat dissipation is a MAJOR, HUGE factor is clustering. The G5's extremely low power output is undoubtedly a big selling point for G5 clusters. You think climate control for a cluster of AMD chips is cheap? It's hard enough to keep ONE Athlon XP cool, let alone a few hundred.

    • Re:Pixar may soon be a Mac shop (Score:4, Interesting)

      by afidel ( 530433 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @11:31PM (#6538133)
      They might use macs running OSX for the workstations and use IBM 4X PPC970 rackmount servers for the renderman farms, why pay for expensive things you don't need in a computer node like graphics cards? And of course rendering is one of those applications where more than 4GB of contiguous ram IS very usefull.

  • PIXAR's Secret (Score:5, Funny)

    by David Wong ( 199703 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:06PM (#6537838) Homepage
    ...is their Story Generating software, which uses a 3rd generation Character Attachment/Sympathy Building scheme, along with a cutting-edge Story Arc generator and a powerful Linux Universal Resonant Story Theme workstation.

    Seriously, their technology is two generations away from a Best Picture Oscar.

    How many reading this cried during Finding Nemo?

    Me, too.

  • Pixar is more than that... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tarvo ( 557992 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:08PM (#6537842)

    Unless you're going to replicate the entire Pixar team, company X (Dreamworks, TDRL, anyone...) is never going to be Pixar.

    As if the bleedingly obvious has to be stated here, but Pixar have a long history of digital animation, and their films have never been about the technology, it's always about telling a great story.

    The technology simply provides a platform from which to elevate their incredibly rich narratives and ideas to another level. Should Pixar ever reach the boundaries of their current technolgies (software and/or hardware) I'm guessin' they will find something else, or some other alliance that will provide them with a powerful platform which will support their creativity.

    There is no doubt that they do this already. RenderMan, provides them with the flexibility to (re)develop their own software when requirements upon it change.

    I wouldn't bind my creativity to anything - would you?

  • Not quite undisputed... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:18PM (#6537889)
    It's a myth that Pixar are uncontested when it comes to digital features (as it states in the article). For example:

    (1) Blue Sky Studios [blueskystudios.com] made a little movie called Ice Age [iceagemovie.com].

    (2) Pacific Data Images [pdi.com] made a little movie called Shrek [shrek.com], and also released the 2nd ever computer generated feature, Antz [pdi.com] (the official site, Antz.com seems dead).

    Here's another myth:

    While Pixar's rendering techniques are *good*, they aren't necessarily cutting edge when it comes to technology. Blue Sky uses raytracing for their images. This gives them features like caustics, global illumination and efficient curved surfaces. Curves in particular had a huge advantage through memory efficiency for their render farm - meanwhile Pixar's render nodes were crashing because of scene complexity simulating curves through polygons. Sure, Pixar's movies are impressive, but I can't help but think they'd do better without clinging to some legacy baggage that comes with Renderman.

    Anyway - the technology is overhyped. It's just a better pencil. Story, story, story is what counts. Disney can probably afford to take longer developing scripts. This is why you can have something as gorgeous as the Final Fantasy movie and have it completely suck at the box office; and Disney flicks don't look so great, but sell well.
    • After all, it's easy to take ugly photos. All the images I saw for Ice Age just looked ugly, too much white, and bland colors. I also remember Antz photo image quality wasn't as good as Bug's Life. Shrek OTOH seemed to visualy as good as the pixar stuff.

    • While Pixar's rendering techniques are *good*, they aren't necessarily cutting edge when it comes to technology. Blue Sky uses raytracing for their images.

      Yeah and Ice Age looked like crap, proving, once again, that's it's not about the technology.

  • Artists, not geeks. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CyberDave ( 79582 ) <davecorder@yahoo. c o m> on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:23PM (#6537904)
    Like many of the Slashdot crowd, I absolutely love Pixar's movies (and shorts). Not only for the visuals (which are always stunning) but also the great stories.

    I recall seeing somewhere, many many months ago, a comment from someone at Pixar saying that part of the key to their success is that they take artists and teach them how to use computers, instead of taking computer people and teaching them how to be artists. Many of Pixar's best people are alums or the California Institute of Arts (including John Lasseter). [There are many in-jokes through Pixar's movies that are refernces to Cal Arts).

    Can't wait for "Cars" or "The Incredibles" to hit theaters.

    CyberDave

  • bah (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld.gmail@com> on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:32PM (#6537933) Homepage
    Will you people stop saying "It's the story, not the graphics"? Yes, we know. We knew before you told us. Even if we hadn't known, reading it 3 million times on the posts here would have clued us in. Your 3 million and 1st wasn't necessary.

    That said, if IBM hires good writers then they can make good movies too. Pixar's stories are good. They're very good. They're not, however, the greatest stories ever written, and people don't collapse to their knees at the end of the film, weeping copiously in gratitude for being permitted to see such movies.

  • Their website (Score:5, Interesting)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:40PM (#6537964) Homepage Journal
    May show some 'rendering skills' but it shows zero artistic merit. The page seriously has the esthetic merit of some Geocities page who's proprietor just learned about the 'lenses flair' function in Photoshop...

    Just about everyone in every industry says stuff like "We are going to be the next [industry leader". It hardly ever happens. If these guys actually want to take on Pixar, they are going to need some real artists.

    Btw, has anyone noticed how much poorly done cg is out there in the movies now? I mean, when CG was all new and novel it was always so well done, Jurassic park looked real to me, but the CG in League of Exceptional Gentlemen (not a movie that I had really planned on seeing) was horrible. Even the CG in spider-man was pretty hokey (but there the movie was rescued by a good plot)
  • They've shown they can rip off the matrix [threshold-digital.com] so, I mean, what can't they do!?
    • "They've shown they can rip off the matrix so, I mean, what can't they do!? "

      For the record, that was a parody and not a rip-off.

      Carry on. ;)
  • shows a still from mortal kombat anhilation

    uggh

    this summer is teaching hollywood a lesson: go ahead and waste $$$$$$$$$$$ on special effects, it's the storyline that matters, and that is all

    a film student who racks up $7,000 on a credit card and films in 2 weeks time can offer a more compelling and moving story than centimillions spent on the most dazzling special effects ever seen... so what

    does the story move me? or am i left in a narcotic haze of cgi bullshit that i promptly forget about 10 minutes o
    • " film student who racks up $7,000 on a credit card and films in 2 weeks time can offer a more compelling and moving story than centimillions spent on the most dazzling special effects ever seen... so what"

      The reason for that is a film student would have very strict limitations to work within. I think filmmakers have forgotten that part of the appeal of visual FX is to see something on screen that cannot easily be explained. CG is pertty much watering that down. I mean, who saw previews for Minority Re

  • Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by curtlewis ( 662976 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @10:54PM (#6538015)
    Pixar is migrating to OS X, primarily because of the G5. Pixar's OS/machine of choice seems to vary with the wind, whatever is the most powerful at the time. It seems that they believe the G5 is where it's at in the near future.

    They're posting jobs for techs to assist in a migration to OS X.

    • Have an url to back this up?

      I am not a mac user so I may be ignorant on this but I was under the impression no real 3d cards are available on the mac. I mean real as in professional. Geforce's are fast but they are not accurate and can misrender information that a wildcat or a quadro can not. Quite essential for a movie.

      Correct me if I am wrong.

      Pixar still uses Mac's for Photoshop and texture creation. So in essence they are probably prepairing to upgrade them. Not switch to them for the renderman work.
      • The job is posted here [craigslist.org].

        The job title is: Mac OS X Migration Contractor

      • Re:Actually... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Phroggy ( 441 ) *
        I was under the impression no real 3d cards are available on the mac. I mean real as in professional. Geforce's are fast but they are not accurate and can misrender information that a wildcat or a quadro can not. Quite essential for a movie.

        As far as I'm aware, those types of cards aren't used for this type of work at all. Something like this [digital-solutions.com] might be more appropriate? But I don't work in that industry, so I have no idea.

        Is their even a MacOSX port for Renderman?

        Not yet, but they're thinking about i [pixar.com]

    • Re:Actually... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 )
      "Pixar is migrating to OS X, primarily because of the G5. Pixar's OS/machine of choice seems to vary with the wind, whatever is the most powerful at the time. It seems that they believe the G5 is where it's at in the near future."

      Not surprised. I can't speak for what Pixar uses, but Lightwave has a pipeline that's like 390 bits wide or something like that. Each pixel value is described to a ridiculous number of decimal places. The reason for this involves color precision as each step of the rendering
      • >Lightwave has a pipeline that's like 390 bits wide

        According to their website, their full precision renderer use 128bits: 32 bits for each component (RGBA).
        I doubt that the integer register are used that much for processing the pixels, so for processing reason the 64-bitness is not so much important.

        On the other hand, for memory adressing the 64-bitness matter: I wouldn't be surprised that a process could use more that 4 GB to do the rendering..

        • "According to their website, their full precision renderer use 128bits: 32 bits for each component (RGBA)."

          I don't think we're reading the same # here. The 32-bit channels are for the final output so you can save HDRI imagery. What I was talking about was the pipeline, i.e. the values that go through the various transformation processes. Here's the blurb from Newtek's site:

          "Over 320 bit IEEE floating point rendering pipeline? the expandable pipeline accommodates a growing list of optional buffers, su

  • No SCO?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @11:03PM (#6538037) Journal
    You mean pixar does not listen to the Gartner group or biased accusations from anyone that *might* somehow hint on liability?

    My heart be still.

    I am shocked. What is this world coming too?

  • ILM (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dfj225 ( 587560 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @11:09PM (#6538051) Homepage Journal
    Its funny, they talk about how they want to be the leader in CG animated films, but most of the stills that they show on their website are taken from movies with CG/film composites. I think there are only three frames from animated movies. As far as I am concerned, ILM seems to be the leader in this field. Just look at Star Wars Ep. II or even more recent is the Pirates of the Caribbean. I would imagine that if ILM was to ever make a totally CGI movie, it would blow most others out of the water as far as effects are concerned. Also, they have years and years of experience in making movies, which is often more important than who has the fastest servers and the best pixel shaders.
    • Actually they kind of already did, all the important stuff in Jurrasic Park was CG, it was so well done that you don't really notice it is CG, to me THAT is the best result you can possibly get.
  • Hardly. It's to IBMs' advantage if they can also 'rent' out processing power to Pixar; it doesn't matter to IBM who makes the better movies, as long as their 'computing on demand' initiative succeeds.
  • But then, they do have the money to buy the best. Maybe IBM can intict Hideki Anno to back into animation and to forget this live action nonsense!

  • I used to work for Threshold (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @12:02AM (#6538225)
    They simply don't have the talent to take on Pixar. It's a "B" movie house. The place is run by a guy named Larry Kassanoff (sp?) who made his fortune with movies such as Mortal Kombat. He has no love for cartoons or animation like the Pixar staff does.

    I saw what the projects Threshold had in the development pipeline last year. While I can't give specifics, nothing they had was worth making into an animated feature.

    In my opinion, the only two studios that can even attempt to take on Pixar are Dreamworks and Sony.

  • PIXAR is in no trouble (Score:3, Interesting)

    by diabolus_in_america ( 159981 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @12:17AM (#6538264) Journal
    PIXAR has what really counts: audience mindshare.

    They also have something else that really counts with the paying public, which is a terrific track record. If a PIXAR movie and a TDRL movie were released on the same weekend, which one would you choose? 99% would go with the sure bet, and that's PIXAR.

    TDRL/IBM would be better served going after the Dreamworks market. Other than Shrek, Dreamworks last couple of animated films were box-office disappointments. Sinbad, in particular, has been a collossal bomb for them. But that just proves my point, Sinbad was released so close to Finding Nemo that the audience for animated features choose the one they knew would not disappoint.

    The dynamics of what makes PIXAR the undisputed king of computer animated movies has very little to do with technology and everything to do with satisfying audience expectations.
  • http://www.threshold-digital.com/visual-fx/fx10.ph p3

    Does anyone know?
  • Threshold Entertainment
    1649 11th Street
    Santa Monica, CA 90404
    US

    Domain Name: THRESHOLD-DIGITAL.COM

    Administrative Contact:
    Wexler, Joshua (JW421) subzero@MORTALKOMBAT.COM
    Threshold Entertainment
    1649 11TH ST
    SANTA MONICA, CA 90404-3707
    US

    Subzero??? :)

  • Technology is the king (Score:4, Insightful)

    by danila ( 69889 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @12:34AM (#6538313) Homepage
    I will try to be original. Everyone here repeats the same argument that story is important, talent is important, technology will get you nowhere. I respectfully disagree.

    Look at the story of Two Johns [amazon.com]. Romero tried the "Design is King" technology and look where it got him. And look what we got - a terrible mess called Daikatana. His friend Carmack, on the other hand, is probably unable to comprehend that there might be things more important than the rendering pipeline or pixel shaders, but all id games still sell like crazy.

    Why do you think the animated movies should be different? Good technology is essential, it empowers the artists, it enables the directors. The story is the cheapest and easiest thing in the whole business. For 1 million you can have the script written by the greatest scriptwriter (whoever he is). And still 1 million is just a small fraction of total costs. Even easier, everyone can use any public domain story like Disney always does. It is even possible to clone other successful films, like the Hollywood industry is often doing.

    Yet, to render the underwater world beautifully you need the technology. To do it cheaply you need extensive technological expertise, you need programmers, you need hardware specialists, network engineers, etc. Consider The Two Towers. Where would that movie be without Gollum (we survived because of ME!), glorified CGI fest called Helm's Deep battle, storming of Isengard and other digital goodies? It would be just another crappy flick (no, it won't be good just because it is based on LOTR, look how they butchered the story and, anyway, remember .Bakshi's film). BTW, regarding Bakshi. Notice how everyone critisized the rotoscopy, which didn't work too well. The story there was on par with PJ's lame effort, but the technology wasn't there and Bakshi lost. Point proven - technology is the king.

    P.S. And don't say anything about Final Fantasy. It was a first attempt, some argue it was too complex for unsofisticated American public and, anyway, it failed to a large extent because the technology failed (as everyone agrees, animation was stiff and unnatural blah-blah-blah).
    • that is a colossal simplification of the events around id and ion storm.

      Romero's efforts didnt blow up because of the "design is law" philosophy he had. They blew up for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that he tried to build a very large game with complex new technological features (like ai backup. that hadn't been done when romero started) in 7 months. In that same time, he tried to build a company, produce 2 other games, grow the company to 100+ people, and court investors. He bit off way
  • both Pixar and TDRL recently dumped Sun and MS, respectively, in favor of Linux

    While it is true that Pixar is replacing their Sun/Solaris rendering farm with Intel/Linux, the comment makes it seem that Pixar has ripped out all of their Sun boxes which isn't quite true. In the article [com.com] the author mentions that the back-end systems (databases, filesystems) are still run in UNIX.

    In another note, Pixar replaced their SGI IRIX workstations with IBM workstations running Linux last year [architosh.com]. It does appear that IB

  • And all of a sudden, they're a "filmmaker"

  • Pixar is switching to Mac OS X (Score:3, Interesting)

    by afantee ( 562443 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @08:28AM (#6539244)
    GabrielBenveniste & BethanyHanson from Pixar Animation Studios are going to talk about Deploying and Maintaining Mac OS X in the Enteprise [oreillynet.com] in this years O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference.

    Pixar president Dr Ed Catmull has said on record that the dual 2 GHz G5 Power Mac is the fastest desktop computer for RenderMan to be released for Mac OS X very soon.

  • Pixar's secret weapon is not its technology. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kobotronic ( 240246 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @02:05PM (#6540770)
    The shading and lighting tech used at Pixar is nice and certainly serves their purpos, but you could argue that the tech itself is nothing special compared to the rendering employed elsewhere in photorealistic CG F/X. The Final Fantasy flick had fine rendering and great tech, but sank like a lead balloon in the box office because of a dumb story and marginal direction. If IBM wants to compete in this market, they have to provide much more than a render farm.

    Look at the IMDB top 50 animation features [imdb.com]. Pixar and Studio Ghibli [nausicaa.net] combined share most of the top ten popular user votes. Disney is further down the ladder, their new stuff fails to captivate the audiences the way the other two studios mentioned do. This is no coincidence -- these studios wins out against their competition because of creative talents and skillful directors, the technology employed is not the answer.

    Studio Ghibli and Pixar are masters at production design and storytelling, and their works have appeal to children and adults alike. You could argue that Pixar has put out a few 'buddy' pictures following a very safe and mainstream formula, but generally both Ghibli and Pixar pursues original works that aren't derivative.

    Disney on the other hand, is content with stealing from other sources [oldcrows.net] and perpetually rehashing their own tired 'success' formulas, often compromising style, pace and adult interest with jarring diversions and noisy, needless extra characters crammed in by accountants and suits in order to sell a few more McDonald's toy tie-ins.

    Ghibli and Pixar's stuff is immensely marketable, but that seems like an emergent property, something coincidental rather than the very reason for the production to exist. Compared to Disney, Ghibli and Pixar's studio structures seem to have much thinner strata of lawyers, accountants and other suits for ideas to percolate through, which means more direct creative control from directors and production designers.

    This produces richer and much more satisfying features than the bland and safe works that always result from too many suits in a creative design process.

    The secret weapon of Studio Ghibli is Hayao Miyazaki. The secret weapon of Pixar is John Lasseter. Tech doesn't have anything to do with it.

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