A posting over at the MacCentral website indicates that you might need to brush up on your Mac OS X/Unix chops also:
I'll give you guys the **BIG NEWS** that was announced yesterday at Apple's Shake Users' Event in San Diego.
First, Pixar announced that they're bringing prMan over to OS X and will have a beta sometime in August or September.
Second, Pixar announced that they'll be migrating over to... guess what... the Mac!
They based their decision on issues such as performance, code portability, X11 integration, development culture, vender dedication to the fim industry, app availability, audio/video friendlyness and capabilities.
In 1980 Pixar made its first short on a Vax running VMS. Then in the mid '80s they migrated over to Sun workstations running Solaris. In the late '80s - '90s they were running entirely SGI Irix workstations, and in 2000 they moved over to Intels running Linux. An NT migration would've meant exiting the Unix market. But apparantly they were also having issues with Linux such as universal cut & paste, issues synching sound with picture, I think he said color management and other problems. He (a Pixar VP) said that while none of the issues were show stoppers or significant on their own, and they could all be dealt with or worked around, taken as a whole they presented real problems for the company.
Moving to OS X let's them essentially recompile the core functionality of their entire code base without even bothering with higher level UI development. Once they're settled in, then they could port the UI from X to Aqua.
During his slide show, the Pixar VP of something was about to present a list of why they'll be switiching to the Mac. But RIGHT at that time Keynote crashed out, drawing sarcastic applause from the audience. The timing just couldn't be worse. I think it may have been some kind of data corruption in one of the elements in the frame that crashed Keynote if you went BACK to the page from the next page. So from then on the presenters made sure not to go BACK to that particular frame.
Then a Hollywood-based motion design studio called Yu+Co showed their reel and the type of work they do on Shake. Their projects included The Hulk, Italian Job, X-Men2, and many others.
Then another company whose name I don't remember showed some shots of the sequel to Starship Troopers. This particular demonstration of Shake's expansion capabilities was quite impressive. They exported footage from Maya maintaining all the "DOD" data (if anyone knows what this is, let me know... a buncha visual fx artists from work had no idea today) when they used in Shake to create 3D ambient & spot lights. The guy, who had previously used Shake only on a dual AMD box, created a light which he could position anywhere in the scene, including in front, behind, or within the insect. The light behaved just as it would in a 3D environment! He had control over its color temperature, spread, intensity, diffussness, etc... it was quite impressive. He even made a little comment "I've only used this on my dual AMD, this is the first time I've used Shake on a Mac and it's quick [as he's moving the light around the insect]. Yes, my box doesn't do it nearly this fast."
Beautiful news. Apple needs to keep pushing forward. Create a kickass 3D section on Apple.com.
Promote these companies. The Mac is suprisingly strong now in 3D compared to say 4 years ago. I'm amazed at the transformation.
Keep the Powermacs fast Apple and everyone will be happy. I'm hoping for good things. The Consumer Sector is going to be slow for a while. Don't expect to gain much marketshare here but Content Creation will remain big..especially with the consolidation that will occur.
Presuming, (and hoping!) that this info is correct, it could prove that (And I believe it WOULD) that Apple will be introducing a G5 Xserve.... Think about that for a sec.... I so hope this is true! Heh.
Presuming, (and hoping!) that this info is correct, it could prove that (And I believe it WOULD) that Apple will be introducing a G5 Xserve.... Think about that for a sec.... I so hope this is true! Heh.
These are workstations that'd be moving not servers or their renderfarm so it wouldn't confirm anything except that the current G5s are on their way.
I'd be shocked that the G5 would replace SGI iron for a visualization workstation. I want to see some official words as to exactly what is being replaced and what is not.
Comments
Originally posted by ryukyu
Here's a link to the CGTalk forum discussion.
Look at the second post for the scoop.
Pixar Switch
Can't connect - what did the post say?
Architosh
Originally posted by JLL
Can't connect - what did the post say?
This:
A posting over at the MacCentral website indicates that you might need to brush up on your Mac OS X/Unix chops also:
I'll give you guys the **BIG NEWS** that was announced yesterday at Apple's Shake Users' Event in San Diego.
First, Pixar announced that they're bringing prMan over to OS X and will have a beta sometime in August or September.
Second, Pixar announced that they'll be migrating over to... guess what... the Mac!
They based their decision on issues such as performance, code portability, X11 integration, development culture, vender dedication to the fim industry, app availability, audio/video friendlyness and capabilities.
In 1980 Pixar made its first short on a Vax running VMS. Then in the mid '80s they migrated over to Sun workstations running Solaris. In the late '80s - '90s they were running entirely SGI Irix workstations, and in 2000 they moved over to Intels running Linux. An NT migration would've meant exiting the Unix market. But apparantly they were also having issues with Linux such as universal cut & paste, issues synching sound with picture, I think he said color management and other problems. He (a Pixar VP) said that while none of the issues were show stoppers or significant on their own, and they could all be dealt with or worked around, taken as a whole they presented real problems for the company.
Moving to OS X let's them essentially recompile the core functionality of their entire code base without even bothering with higher level UI development. Once they're settled in, then they could port the UI from X to Aqua.
During his slide show, the Pixar VP of something was about to present a list of why they'll be switiching to the Mac. But RIGHT at that time Keynote crashed out, drawing sarcastic applause from the audience. The timing just couldn't be worse. I think it may have been some kind of data corruption in one of the elements in the frame that crashed Keynote if you went BACK to the page from the next page. So from then on the presenters made sure not to go BACK to that particular frame.
Then a Hollywood-based motion design studio called Yu+Co showed their reel and the type of work they do on Shake. Their projects included The Hulk, Italian Job, X-Men2, and many others.
Then another company whose name I don't remember showed some shots of the sequel to Starship Troopers. This particular demonstration of Shake's expansion capabilities was quite impressive. They exported footage from Maya maintaining all the "DOD" data (if anyone knows what this is, let me know... a buncha visual fx artists from work had no idea today) when they used in Shake to create 3D ambient & spot lights. The guy, who had previously used Shake only on a dual AMD box, created a light which he could position anywhere in the scene, including in front, behind, or within the insect. The light behaved just as it would in a 3D environment! He had control over its color temperature, spread, intensity, diffussness, etc... it was quite impressive. He even made a little comment "I've only used this on my dual AMD, this is the first time I've used Shake on a Mac and it's quick [as he's moving the light around the insect]. Yes, my box doesn't do it nearly this fast."
That was cool.
Promote these companies. The Mac is suprisingly strong now in 3D compared to say 4 years ago. I'm amazed at the transformation.
Keep the Powermacs fast Apple and everyone will be happy. I'm hoping for good things. The Consumer Sector is going to be slow for a while. Don't expect to gain much marketshare here but Content Creation will remain big..especially with the consolidation that will occur.
Originally posted by I, Fred
Show me an oficial Pixar and/or Apple link please. I'm not saying it's not possible, only that it currently stinks of hoax.
Well, if you go here:
Pixar Jobs
You'll see that there is a job for a Mac OSX Migration Contractor and one for a Mac OSX Systems Administrator.
This might add some credibility, but I'm sure there are some who would still be skeptical.
Originally posted by JLL
It seems to be the workstations that they changing - the Linux switch a year ago was the renderfarm.
Wasn't the rederfarm migrated to AMD and the workstations to Intel?
Originally posted by xmoger
Wasn't the rederfarm migrated to AMD and the workstations to Intel?
I do think they migrated the farm to Intel. I'll try to see if I find a link here at AI.
As part of the switch to Intel for rendering, Pixar has ported its Renderman software to run on Linux.
Note that this is a thread started on February 8th of this year, and the move did, I remember, stir things up a little.
Originally posted by der Kopf
Note that this is a thread started on February 8th of this year, and the move did, I remember, stir things up a little.
And the move happened a year ago.
From the CNet story:
"Pixar installed the RackSaver system over the last six months and?"
This has turned Apple and 3D on its head. A remarkable 4 year turnaround!
Now that's what I call validation for the G5.
Read it and weep, Wintel. Cos I kinda get the feeling that Steve might have shown Pixar a little of what's coming beyond just the 'G5'...
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by Jeremiah Rich
Presuming, (and hoping!) that this info is correct, it could prove that (And I believe it WOULD) that Apple will be introducing a G5 Xserve.... Think about that for a sec.... I so hope this is true! Heh.
These are workstations that'd be moving not servers or their renderfarm so it wouldn't confirm anything except that the current G5s are on their way.