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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Cyber Cynic

If it's animation or special effects, it's Linux

34 comments

TAGS:animation, cluster, Linux, movies, special effects
IT TOPICS:Emerging Technology, Hardware, Linux, Open Source, Operating Systems, Servers & Data Center

When I was a kid, I used to make crude little animated cartoons in my notebooks using the flipbook technique. Walt Disney had nothing to worry about. I was awful even by the 3rd grade standards of White Pine elementary. Today, I could be great, because almost all top animation and special effects artists are Linux users.

My colleague Eric Lai discovered recently that while top animation and FX (special effects) programs are run on Macs and some of them, like RenderMan Pro Server are being ported to Windows, it's on Linux clusters that the really serious movie and television visual effects are created. As Robin Rowe writes at LinuxMovies.org, "In the film industry, Linux has won. It's running on practically all servers and desktops used for feature animation and visual effects."

Rowe's not just being a Linux booster. It's the Gospel truth. The animation and FX for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; Star Wars: The Clone Wars; WALL-E; 300; The Golden Compass; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; and I Am Legend, to name but a few recent movies, were all created using Pixar's RenderMan and Autodesk Maya running on Linux clusters.

The really short version for why this is so comes down to Linux clustering enables you to put massive computational firepower into rendering 2D and 3D images. It's ironic. While getting the most out of NVIDIA and ATI graphic cards on a Linux desktop is still a pain and there's always some trouble dealing with proprietary video formats on Linux, the top animated and FX-heavy videos usually have their start on Linux systems.

Specifically, most photo-realistic special effects are created with programs using Pixar's RISpec (RenderMan Interface Specification) compliant programs. RISpec is an extremely detailed open-standard set of APIs (application program interfaces) for 3D graphics rendering programs. To be more precise, RISpec isn't quite an open standard. While Pixar, the animation giant owned by Disney, has published the specifications for all to use, and no longer even requires a no-charge license to create a RISpec-compliant rendering program, Pixar doesn't go out of its way to specify exactly how developers can, or can't use RISpec.

That said, there are open-source RISpec-compliant programs like Pixie and other rendering programs such as Blender, which can be used as a source for RISpec software. Pixar's RenderMan software suite itself, while it relies on Linux in most animation and FX shops, is unlikely ever to be open-sourced.

So, while you can't point to animation and special effects software as a major win for open-source software, there is absolutely no doubt that every time you gasp at a breath-taking escape by Indy or grin at a particularly clever visual bit of fun in Ratatouille, you're appreciating the power of Linux.

I wonder if I could get a few million or pre-production money for The New Adventures of StickMan? Nah. I better stick to writing rather than try moving to animation.

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RenderMan for Linux

Submitted by Breno Leitao on August 21, 2008 - 3:07 P.M.

Weird Enough, there is no RenderMan for Maya being sold by Linux.
https://renderman.pixar.com/store/

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Renderman Linux

Submitted by Radim on August 25, 2008 - 1:27 A.M.

https://renderman.pixar.com/products/techspecs/index.htm

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Great for editing home movies too

Submitted by Anonymous on August 19, 2008 - 8:40 P.M.

I use kino, grip, and dvd video creating tools for editing home videos and burning to dvds. It's not fancy, but it gets the work done.

Linux is pretty useful for multimedia authoring if you know the tools.

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its usage would be even greater...

Submitted by stgt on August 20, 2008 - 2:43 A.M.

its usage would be even greater if Adobe released Linux versions of its flag products.

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DO YOUR RESEARCH! Major

Submitted by Anonymous on August 19, 2008 - 3:17 P.M.

DO YOUR RESEARCH! Major linux distributions know HAVE solid driver support, and my nVidia card works GREAT on my linux OS. I can bet everyone dissing linux right now has never used it, or knows how it works. Linux may have some tiny flaws here and there, but for Christ's sake, its main contributions are from hobbyists and engineers around the world, but look; Linux is still so great. You can't beat it. You can't beat a mass of highly intellectual computer engineers and programmers ALL OVER THE WORLD. As for all you "its not compatible" proclaimers, you can emulate windows software and linux; guess what; IT WORKS! Linux has been, FOR YEARS, the number one server software on many big sites, and is now on a rapid uprising as the best desktop OS. So all you who don't know jack about Linux, never used it, never harnessed its power, dont diss this wonderful OS!! -_-

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You're wrong. Even those

Submitted by Voltron on August 19, 2008 - 5:02 P.M.

You're wrong. Even those who have used Linux know that drivers on are still terrible, with bugs and half supported features. Even Nvidia's driver does NOT offer full OpenGL support, nor does it provide things available on nearly every other desktop, such as basic Vsync support for 2d drawing. Try getting MAME to draw 60 FPS in perfect sync.... it won't happen.

Linux is a polished rehash of Unix, which was never that spectacular to begin with, but works well enough for a situation like a render farm or large scale data processing, where you are essentially splitting up a large number crunching operational between several machines. For general desktop computing, where you need a machine with much more variety to do everything from emailing grandma to high end CAD work, Linux is a poor choice for a majority of users. In particular artists and designers who have real creativity, and wouldn't even think of using their preferred Windows supported programs on a half baked OS.

You are no different than the journalistic troll that Vaughan-Nichols is. You love Linux and it's groupies so much you will lie and misrepresent every situation possible in favor of Linux. While your ignorance is your problem, lying to others makes you pretty despicable in my view. The Last Starfighter was rendered on a Cray XMP, does that mean it would have been an awesome system to use for everyday life? No, but fanboys like you just don't get it.

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Not sure where you get your information from

Submitted by Daniel Jarick on August 20, 2008 - 2:32 A.M.

You are right about the driver issue, however that is more nVidia's fault than linux developers. They (nVidia) are the ones, after all, that write the drivers.

However, I do not understand why you think linux cannot be used for general computing. True, CAD support is lacking, however almost everything else works fine. But emailing? Are you serious? Which program did you use?

If you are going to dis linux, at least be particular about which desktop environment and which app you have a problem with. Generalising does not help anyone.

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Give credit to Linux!

Submitted by Rick Stanley on August 19, 2008 - 2:15 P.M.

I wish the studios would give credit to Linux in their on-screen credits at the end of the film. It would be the least they could do, considering all that Linux has done for the animation industry. I have yet to see ANY studio do it in any partial or fully animated film I have seen.

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For renderfarms yes, for creation, far from linux OR mac.

Submitted by Anonymous on August 19, 2008 - 12:05 P.M.

"My colleague..discovered recently..top animation and FX (special effects) programs are run on Macs.."
Um, not true by a long shot, lol.

"...it's on Linux clusters..."
By clusters you are talking about the render process, i.e. farms.
Running farm hardware using linux is common but far from dominating and the point of your, highly flawed, article is the CREATION of the animation & post work.
Sorry to burst your linux/mac fanboi heart, but for CREATION, linux & mac are most definitely not the dominating OS my friend:)

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OK, so where is the

Submitted by Anonymouse on August 22, 2008 - 8:38 P.M.

OK, so where is the information showing that Linux is not the top animation development desktop? Maya had been ported to Linux in part because it was such a dog on WinDuhs (at the time, W2K - frequent crashes being the most common complaint).

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