“From the beginning, even before Jobs signed on as CEO, Pixar has been at the forefront of technology, said Nick DeMartino, associate director for strategic planning at the American Film Institute. When the company started, its primary claim to fame was a superior rendering engine, called RenderMan, that it licensed to other companies. The company continues to refine RenderMan, and many digital-effects houses and computer-graphics specialists use it,” Elizabeth Millard reports for ECT News Network.
“‘They have deep technical roots,’ DeMartino said. ‘It put them ahead of others in understanding how computer graphics work and can be used effectively,'” Millard reports. “In March, Pixar moved to using Mac OS X and Power Mac G5s for its workflow needs. In a recent speech, Apple senior systems engineer Don Peebles noted that Pixar challenged his company to come up with a way to review HD-quality video on the desktop at a reduced file size, but keeping the same level of quality.”
“The technology that resulted from the challenge was based on wavelet compression and named, fittingly, ‘Pixlet.’ Pixlet lets high-end digital film frames play in real-time with any Panther-driven Mac, without an investment in proprietary playback hardware,” Millard reports.
Full article here.
fanntastic
Macs rule the digital world!
they use windows on MS campus i think too..
i realize this is actually news.. but.. ehm… take it for what it’s worth
One Pixar movie per year.
I wonder if “its workflow needs” means the renderfarm is PM G5/Xserve G5 or just the pre-production and post-production are.
“In March, Pixar moved to using Mac OS X and Power Mac G5s for its workflow needs.”
But does not use them for creative work.
“Workflow needs”…what is this? Secretaries using iMacs to push memos around?
Since RenderMan does run on OS X and G5 Xserve nodes would make perfect components for a render farm, oh and Jobs is CEO of both companies, it’s safe to say Pixar will be rendering movies on G5 Xserves and G6 dual core Xserves in the future.
It’s a matter of IBM getting the new G5 production line cranking. With The Incredibles nearing release and Cars in production, I’m sure Pixar is itching to transition its renderfarm over to the beefier iron of G5s.
It’s also hard to imagine that the creative team aren’t moving to G5s if the animation software and modeling apps they use run on OS X. SGI boxes are slipping behind and NT boxes are just sad and wrong.
Geez, Pixlet. Kewl.
Uh, someone is FINALLY getting around to covering this. Forgive me, but Pixlet has been out now for just about a year….
<scarcasm/>
“Workflow needs”…what is this? Secretaries using iMacs to push memos around?
The article says “Pixar moved to using Mac OS X and Power Mac G5s for its workflow needs”. PM G5 != iMac, but maybe your emotional outburst blinded you from noticing that.
“Pixlet lets high-end digital film frames play in real-time with any Panther-driven Mac, without an investment in proprietary playback hardware.”
Erm, no. When Pixlet was announced, Apple stated a minimum of a 1GHz G4 rather specifically. Panther itself runs on a lot less.
That said, Pixlet IS very pretty.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
Pixar just recently switched to G5’s, there’s several studios using in excess of 500 Dual 2 Ghz G5’s each for their rendering needs.
Steve Jobs sold a lot more of those early G5’s than just to Virginia Tech, Microsoft bought a truckload as well.
mr jacobs my social studies teacher told me that apple is going to buy genentech so they can produce human brains with a bunch of computer chips and wires attached.
Yeah sure,
Are you really that dumb? What a bozo.
Of course.Do you even know what the word “workflow” means?
Didn’t think so.
hey fatboy go hurry up and release the new g5’s
how many g5s you think pixar is using? 25, 50, 100?
bet it ain’t much…
476
with all due respect:
I’d be a lot more impressed with Pixar if they had done anything that was as funny as Shrek2. Perhaps the impending split with Disney will allow them to spread their wings…
‘Shrek 2’ was funny? I must have missed that part.
If anyone at Pixar is watching please don’t take any advice from ‘beatsme’.
Shrek was funny, my kids and sister-in-law saw Shrek 2 this weekend. Not as good as Nemo. Yeah, a couple of funny fart jokes and the like, but as a movie, I doubt that it could hold a candle to just about any Pixar film. Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers are just funny, delivering any lines they can get a laugh. The production values are excellent, but as a lasting bit of digital cineam, sorry, it ain’t happ’nin!
you sure do
What this guy dosn’t say is that Steve Jobs Bought ‘Pixar’ (it was called anothe name then) from George Lucas in the early 1980’s for a measley $10 million.
Of course in those days, Pixar was just a bunch of talented computer nerds with no purpose what so ever.
The whole point of Jobs buying pixar was purely to write programs for his NEXT computer – purley to show what his machines could do to sell em.
I would advise anyone interested in this to read ‘the second coming of steve jobs’ or do what I did and downloaded it from audiable.com and listened it on my ipod at work!
Great one Steve!