The "Killer App" for the G5

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Ok Apple just bought out 'Nothing Real', a company that does very advanced graphics for movies. Do you really think that a dual or even quad G4 would be the ideal machine to run some of this stuff on? BINGO! I bet Apple bought them just to show off there new PowerMac G5 later this year. Programs like 'Shake' would run awesome on a 64bit RISC chip, with a whole bunch of memory bandwidth. Imagine a render farm of G5s connected with GigaWire... rendering movie effects. :eek: :eek:



or am i just crazy?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    nx7oenx7oe Posts: 198member
    um, this thread belongs in software discussion, um <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
  • Reply 2 of 18
    [quote]Originally posted by nx7oe:

    <strong>um, this thread belongs in software discussion, um <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>



    WRONG! This might be a creditable reason for Future Hardware. Final Cut Pro is geared for the G4, Shake could be geared for the G5. You need massive hardware to do this kind of stuff.... if anyone wants to guess on just what that hardware might be then go ahead...
  • Reply 3 of 18
    thentrothentro Posts: 231member
    [quote]Shake is a general-purpose image manipulation toolset that provides users with a low-cost, high performance compositing solution without the need for specialized hardware. It features a graphic user interface that emphasizes intuitive "process-tree" control features for the most complex image manipulation tasks. This interface, in combination with its speed and quality, enables creatives in film, HDTV, broadcast, post-production and multimedia a powerful and interactive tool to quickly manipulate high-resolution images in conjunction with the creation of composites, effects and animations. TREMOR marks the most significant new compositing system to be introduced by Nothing Real. It is modeled as a front room, client-based solution, engineered to handle the most demanding needs of HDTV, commercial video and broadcast production professionals. Tremor features real-time I/0 in 601 and HDTV format, including 1080p24. The technology for Tremor is built around a new, simplified and streamlined interface. It incorporates mature and production proven technology based on the rendering engine of Nothing Real's flagship product Shake? - considered to be one of the industry's fastest and most powerful rendering engines. Tremor is an integrated software/hardware solution running on Hewlett-Packard computers with storage supplied by Ciprico. <hr></blockquote>



    imovie 3? FCP 4? FSW not hardware
  • Reply 4 of 18
    [quote]Originally posted by imacman287:

    <strong>Do you really think that a dual or even quad G4 would be the ideal machine to run some of this stuff on? BINGO! I bet Apple bought them just to show off there new PowerMac G5 later this year.

    or am i just crazy? </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Er, they probably bought it in order to rebrand it and, y'know, sell it. (And for a nice price--this software could make Final Cut Pro look cheap.) You don't spend millions of dollars and thousands of man hours on nothing more than demoware. When Apple wants to show off the G5, they'll make a commercial.
  • Reply 5 of 18
    They didn't buy Nothing Real to have a reason to make faster hardware -- they already have a reason to do that. They bought them for software technology reasons.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    [quote] <hr></blockquote>

    Shake Used on "The Lord Of The Rings"

    By Laura DiBenedetto

    Dec 17 2001 06:51:00:000AM





    Nothing Real, a compositing software provider to the digital content creation market, announces that WETA Digital, a New Zealand-based visual effects facility, is using its Shake software as the primary film compositing system to handle the enormous visual effects requirements for New Line Cinema's and Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy. WETA is producing all three films in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Rings, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, simultaneously. To date, Shake has helped WETA tackle more than 1,000 compositing intensive effects shots on the projects.



    WETA has installed more than 52 GUI and 100 render-only Shake software licenses since it began building its new state-of-the-art studio and model postproduction environment, nearly three years ago. Shake now serves as the cornerstone of the facility's compositing pipeline. "WETA's massive undertaking in bringing to cinematic life three of the world's literary masterpieces, demanded, and continues to demand, technological innovation at every step of the postproduction process," says Allen Edwards, president of Nothing Real. "Nothing Real is especially thrilled that they have selected Shake as a foundation application to support its digital post production pipeline and successfully create cutting-edge visual effects that will serve these hugely visual and epic stories."



    WETA faced a number of compositing challenges in the creation of more than 570 shots for the first film in the trilogy. The casting of actors of normal stature as hobbits and dwarves required the development of scale compositing techniques to seamlessly integrate them with the larger races on the screen. Thousands of CG elements, including crowds, creatures, environments, digital matte paintings, and digital stunt doubles were also created by WETA for integration by the 27 members of the compositing team. Motion control photography was used extensively on both the live action and miniature stages. A typical shot might depend on twin backgrounds, a digital matte object, multiple blue/greenscreen and CG smoke and creature elements, and miniatures. The most complex shot had over 300 input layers of various types, thousands of operations in the final compositing script, and was nearly 1500 frames in length.



    "Integrating Shake facility-wide as our primary compositing system was mission-critical to our production efforts on these monumental projects. Shake's speed, flexibility, and scalability make it unquestionably the best compositing tool for complex imagery creation and manipulation," says Jon Labrie, CTO at WETA. "Simply put, we couldn't have completed The Fellowship of the Rings without it.



    "The production-proven experience of Nothing Real's development team coupled with its superior understanding of film compositing technology has been invaluable to our efforts to jointly develop and customize aspects of Shake to our particular production needs," added Labrie. "Our relationship with Nothing Real remains essential as we move forward to complete the following two films."



    "Working closely with WETA and having access to 'real-world feedback' allows us to exchange ideas and information so that we can continue to deliver superior quality and innovative compositing technologies that helps our customers raise the standard by which special effects for high-end film applications are realized," says Arnaud Hervas CFO at Nothing Real.



    For more information, contact Nothing Real, <a href="http://www.nothingreal.com"; target="_blank">www.nothingreal.com</a>

    [quote] <hr></blockquote>





    I can see this running on OSX 10.2 G5's with GeForce4 Ti's. Is his Steveness's next big thing bringing this type of technology to the masses or is this the beginning of Apple's push into high- end 3D/production workstations?



    Shake/TREMOR/Maya... <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />



    [ 02-07-2002: Message edited by: opuscroakus ]</p>
  • Reply 7 of 18
    cindercinder Posts: 381member
    Honestly, this is rather strange.



    I don' t have any idea how this fits in with any of Apple's other software - other than FCP



    but this is even higher end than FCP . . .



    this is super high end mass expensive stuff . . .



    something is amiss
  • Reply 8 of 18
    I imagine they fancy themselves a piece of SGI's action
  • Reply 9 of 18
    eat@meeat@me Posts: 321member
    [quote]Originally posted by Guitarbloke:

    <strong>I imagine they fancy themselves a piece of SGI's action</strong><hr></blockquote>



    See this:

    <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,50078,00.html"; target="_blank">http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,50078,00.html</a>;



    Its called POOCH. You can build your own SuperComputer Cluster. I have built a wireless G4 cluster using a dual system with airport and TiBook in my flat here in London. I am getting 7 GigaFLOPS on multiprocessor, altivec apps running over a wireless cluster. Imaging, rendering, OpenGL, Maya, FCP can all one day be more efficiently utilized. If you have the app or develop one yourself using threads and POOCH, why use a 4, 8 or 16 way system when you can build a cluster from regular G4s.
  • Reply 10 of 18
    ccr65ccr65 Posts: 59member
    I don't think this is strange at all. Apple has time and again set out to make what used to be available only for high dollar budgets, available to the average computer user or not so high dollar professional (iMovie,FCP,iDVD,DVD Studio). Nothing Real charged whatever they thought they could get for their software given the client base they had. They made the investment in development and support for multiple platforms. Apple can do whatever they want with the technology now including add to Final Cut Pro or make a different product all together.



    I would say you may be right in part in this way. For example, IT professionals would tell you that as good as OSX is, if Apple doesn't either have a server version on X86 that can take advantage of current high end Server hardware or build there own high end server hardware they wouldn't make it in that market.



    Apple already has a foothold in pro audio and video but I know there has been some grumbling from sudio and video people about the hardware (myself being an exception). Wintel software and hardware has made some progress in the industry. Putting out new high end software and hardware together for an amazing price would help to shore up this end of the business. It can't just hinge on FPC alone. I don't know for a fact that this is Apple's thinking but it makes some sense. This is some pretty specialized software we're talking about. But strictly demoware? No.
  • Reply 11 of 18
    [quote]Originally posted by CCR65:

    <strong>I don't think this is strange at all. Apple has time and again set out to make what used to be available only for high dollar budgets, available to the average computer user or not so high dollar professional (iMovie,FCP,iDVD,DVD Studio). Nothing Real charged whatever they thought they could get for their software given the client base they had. They made the investment in development and support for multiple platforms. Apple can do whatever they want with the technology now including add to Final Cut Pro or make a different product all together.



    I would say you may be right in part in this way. For example, IT professionals would tell you that as good as OSX is, if Apple doesn't either have a server version on X86 that can take advantage of current high end Server hardware or build there own high end server hardware they wouldn't make it in that market.



    Apple already has a foothold in pro audio and video but I know there has been some grumbling from sudio and video people about the hardware (myself being an exception). Wintel software and hardware has made some progress in the industry. Putting out new high end software and hardware together for an amazing price would help to shore up this end of the business. It can't just hinge on FPC alone. I don't know for a fact that this is Apple's thinking but it makes some sense. This is some pretty specialized software we're talking about. But strictly demoware? No.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    That is exactly my point
  • Reply 12 of 18
    [quote] Tremor is an integrated software/hardware solution running on Hewlett-Packard computers with storage supplied by Ciprico. <hr></blockquote>



    I'd like to hear more about the existing hardware for Tremor. If it's pretty high-end, and uses custom DSPs, we can only presume that Apple has some very pleasant surprises for us on the hardware front.
  • Reply 13 of 18
    macgregormacgregor Posts: 1,434member
    Yes, I hope this means big time hardware additions to Apple, but it also should mean some corporate changes too.



    It seems like this is a move Jobs would make to emulate George Lucas with Industrial Light and Magic. But that means supporting other companies, other movie producers, not just Pixar, other platforms perhaps, at least in the short term.



    This is very big for Apple to be attempting. I wonder if Peter Jackson is happy or sad about this. Apple will be fixing his problems for the next 2 years!!!!!!
  • Reply 14 of 18
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 15 of 18
    pookjppookjp Posts: 280member
    [quote] um, this thread belongs in software discussion, um <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" /> <hr></blockquote>



    quiet you.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    Well. I was hoping that someone else would do my research for me about this. Anyhow, this is what <a href="http://www.digitalproducer.com/2001/06_jun/news/06_18/nothingreal_tremor.htm"; target="_blank">digital river</a> had to say:



    [quote]Highlights of Tremor Version 1.0

    Tremor is an open, customizable compositing solution designed to easily integrate into a facility?s existing workflow. Tremor?s initial functionality will include the following:



    Real-time I/O in 601 and HDTV?Tremor?s input and output capabilities are an integral part of the compositing pipeline, which allows users constant access to sources

    and easy versioning and mastering.

    Timeline and Edit Decision List Support?Tremor will support CMX edit decision list (EDL) format. New and innovative non-linear compositing technology coupled with

    EDL support allows artists to work on multi-event projects and easily collaborate with other Shake and Tremor artists, while retaining the complete history of the job.

    True Resolution Independence?Tremor will automatically handle different bit-depths (8, 16, 32) and resolutions (web, 601, HDTV, film, Imax) within the same project

    for maximum flexibility.

    Leading Keying Technology?Two industry-standard keyers, Keylight from the Computer Film Company and Primatte from Photron, will be bundled with Tremor. Other

    third-party keyers such as Ultimatte are also available.

    Asset Management?A custom version of CakeS, the asset tracking system from Unique ID Software Ltd., will be imbedded in Tremor. CakeS is designed to

    significantly increase productivity during compositing sessions by automatically tracking assets for instant access to footage and scripts.

    Color Correction Tools?Tremor will feature an advanced Color Corrector and an extensive suite of color correction tools that will allow creatives the freedom to

    achieve their vision. As an example, a color-matching tool enables artists to easily and quickly color match different elements of source material. A secondary level

    color correction tool is also available to enable selective color replacement.

    Tracking and Stabilization?Tremor will sport fast and powerful technology to track, stabilize, matchmove and otherwise wrestle into submission the most demanding

    shots. Given the open nature of the Tremor work environment, tracking information can also be applied to any parameter in the composite.

    Vector-based Procedural Paint?Tremor will incorporate a vector-based procedural paint node that is fully integrated in the compositing pipeline to provide for

    unprecedented flexibility.

    Distributed Rendering?Leveraging the Shake Render Engine, Tremor includes a fast and simple to use distributed render manager that will allow users to off-load

    renders on multiple machines at a time, thus freeing the Tremor station for its primary creative functions. <hr></blockquote>



    That last line really caught my eye....



    :cool:
  • Reply 17 of 18
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    Actually, it will run the most advance version of the game SNAKE



    SNAKE is a game that is run on a TI Calcualtor. It will require about 10 gigaflops at the least to do the massive calculations it does each second!
  • Reply 18 of 18
    OK, I'm still searching. Hope you don't mind me dumping stuff onto this thread as I find it.



    This next one is very nice indeed. At HP's site I searched for "Tremor" and got no useful results. Then I searched for "composting" which turned up <a href="http://www.hp.com/products1/itanium/future/dcc.html"; target="_blank">this link</a>.



    [quote] Compositing, where different elements of a shot, such as the film background plate and the

    computer graphic foreground elements, are filmed separately and then later pieced together

    into one final composite shot, requires a powerful throughput solution. After all, each frame of

    film might need between 10MB and 100MB worth of memory; at twenty-four frames a second

    throughput and memory addressibility suddenly becomes an issue.



    Not for the Itanium? processor family architecture, however. 64-bit addressability for large

    multi-media sets can take this sort of work in its stride. Good news for editors who need to

    work with real-time effects for live shows or sportscasts. It is equally good news for the

    painstaking compositing that takes place in the digital cutting room for today's film

    production. <hr></blockquote>



    So: does the Nothing Real purchase mean that 64-bit computing is on the horizon? Sure, there have been plenty of rumours about this. But it may not be unreasonable to suppose that the Nothing Real purchase gives a good deal of weight to those rumours.



    :cool:



    [Edit: damn, chose the wrong emoticon.]



    [ 02-09-2002: Message edited by: boy_analog ]</p>
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