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Linux Movies Group
Advancing Linux motion picture technology |
*** News Release ***
Linux Movies Conference on Feb 18th in Los
Angeles
Disney, DreamWorks, and ILM Experts Reveal
Linux Techniques
Berkeley, California - January 30, 2003
- Blockbuster movies produced using
Linux include Star Wars Attack of the Clones, Lord of the Rings
2, Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo and many more. Every major studio
has converted to Linux or has a Linux conversion underway. An
operating system created a decade ago as a hobby by a university
student has taken over Hollywood. Linux has become the most popular
operating system for feature film production, ahead of SGI IRIX,
Microsoft Windows, and Apple Macintosh. The largest Linux desktop
installations in the world are at Dreamworks and ILM.
Why did this come about? How are the studios
using Linux? And, what are the future implications?
Get a unique behind-the-scenes overview of
the technology of Hollywood feature film animation and special
effects related by studio experts. Learn how Linux is changing
the top motion picture studios and effecting the blockbuster movies
everyone sees.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
- Linux Movies - Overview - 8:30am
The rise of Linux
in the film industry, including its advance at Digital Domain,
Disney, DreamWorks, ILM, and Pixar.
Robin Rowe, Partner MovieEditor.com.
Rowe is the founder of LinuxMovies.org and manages the Film
Gimp Project. Rowe writes for many
magazines including Millimeter, Linux Journal, and Computer Graphics
World. Rowe has taught computer science at two universities,
was a research scientist for the Navy, was an NBC-TV technical
director, and founded a video systems R&D division at a Fortune
500 defense company.
- DreamWorks
SKG - Linux beyond the renderfarm
- 9am
Linux has been in use in Hollywood
for many years, but mostly behind the scenes generating images
based on art created on other platforms. DreamWorks led the effort
to use Linux as a complete solution from the artist's desktop
to the final output onto film. What were the problems and solutions?
Where does Linux at DreamWorks go from here?
Nathan Wilson, Software Technical
Lead for Linux. During the studio's transition to Linux, Wilson
developed the desktop user configuration, led the software porting
effort and created the current software build system.NILE software
developer for Prince of Egypt. Software QA lead for The
Road to El Dorado. Pipeline software engineer for Spirit
Stallion of the Cimarron. Current projects: at Glendale studio,
Sinbad, SharkSlayer, and Over the Hedge; at PDI
Redwood City, Shrek 2 and Madagascar.
- Flash
Film Works - Channel-bonded
Ethernet and other capabilities
- 10am
When solely responsible for keeping a large collection of
disparate hardware and operating systems working together nicely
at a boutique studio, how do you do it? By constantly evaluating
new applications and concepts, recycling aging platforms, and
integrating new technologies into the pipeline such as channel-bonded
Ethernet to increase throughput, as well as keeping involved
with developers in the creation of products such as Rayz, Liberty
64, Digital Fusion, and Lightwave.
Dan Novy, Technical Supervisor.
Movie credits include Death to Smoochy, Collateral Damage,
Pluto Nash, Deep Blue Sea, Red Planet and Birds
of Prey.
- Tippett
Studio - Using off-the-shelf
Linux effects software - 11am
All Tippett's artists use commercial
software on their desktops. What are the issues for the studio
using off-the-shelf software? How does Linux compare when using
commercial packages such as Shake and Maya? What is it like to
use the same application on Linux that was popular first on the
Macintosh or Windows? Tippett has a large collection of in-house
tools that glue its pipeline together.
Alan Boucek, Lead Compositor and
creative lead for development of compositing technology. Led
the transition to a floating point image pipeline. Currently
working on The Matrix Revolutions.Credits include Starship
Troopers, What Dreams May Come, Hollowman, and Blade 2.
- Asylum
Visual Effects - Digital
oceans - noon
How does artistry combined with research and development interact
in movie production? How does a boutique effects house develop
a computer-generated ocean?
Mathew Lamb, Digital Artist. Developed
photogrammetry renderer, the integration of motion control photography
to desktop 3D and recently an ocean simulator. Credits include
Fight Club, Minority Report, Black Hawk Down and X-Men.
- Industrial
Light & Magic - What
does "one" mean? - 1pm
What can ILM's recently released open source OpenEXR file
format do for storing high dynamic range images in losslessly
compressed files? How does ILM use greater-than-eight-bit images
in a production environment? With film and video input devices
and high dynamic range rendering programs, how can we get over
the widely held view that 1.0 represents the brightest that a
pixel can possibly be?
Rod Bogart, Principal Software Engineer.
Developed the core engine of the interactive compositing tools
as well as overseeing much of the design and implementation of
ILM's image processing and image viewing techniques. Bogart's
ILM movie credits include Star Wars: Episode II, Harry Potter
and the Sorcerer's Stone, Space Cowboys, Wild Wild West, Star
Wars: Episode I, Small Soldiers, Deep Impact, The Lost World:
Jurassic Park, Speed II: Cruise Control, Star Wars Special Edition,
Star Trek: First Contact, and Indian in the Cupboard.
Prior to joining ILM Bogart was a software engineer at Pacific
Data Images.
- Walt Disney Feature Animation - Using Linux to move to a range of platforms
- 2pm
The conversion at Disney wasn't merely
from SGI Irix to Linux. Supporting a range of platforms at the
same time enables a studio to pick the most effective platform
solution for any particular production challenge. What issues
are faced in the transition to Linux, and how did Disney go beyond
porting to make it easier to support other platforms in the future?
Jack Brooks, Technology Director.
Over the last two years, Disney has transitioned from SGI Irix
to a multi-platform development
group, with Linux as the primary production platform. Brooks
oversees all software developed and maintained for movie production
within Feature Animation and has been with Disney for five years.
Movie credits include Dinosaur, The Emperor's New Groove,
Atlantis, Lilo and Stitch, and Treasure Planet. Currently
working on Brother Bear, Home on the Range, Chicken Little,
and My Peoples.
- Hammerhead
Productions - Color, the
look of film - 3pm
A nagging problem for Hammerhead in
moving its animation system to Linux was control over color to
simulate the look of film. How does Hammerhead's indirect software
colormap, integrated into all of its tools, correct the color
in film images without affecting the color of the rest of the
windows? How does the performance of CPUs, memory, graphics cards,
and an optimized display library enable color lookup to be done
in real time even for film-resolution images?
Thad Beier, Effects Supervisor and
founder. Supervised effects on White Oleander, Blue Crush,
and The Fast and The Furious. Currently working on The
Fast and The Furious 2. Designed all of Hammerhead's in-house
software for animation, compositing, tracking, rotoscoping, and
image processing. Academy Award for Technical Achievement. Using
Linux in production since 1998.
- Film Gimp Panel - 4pm
Film
Gimp is a free open source painting and image retouching
program designed to be more suitable for film work than GIMP
or Adobe Photoshop. Film Gimp is the most popular open source
application in the motion picture industry, used in a dozen feature
films by three studios and growing.
Thad Beier, Hammerhead.
Studio user of Film Gimp and color
expert.
Caroline Dahllöf, Programmer Rhythm
& Hues. A founding developer
of Film Gimp.
Sam Richards, CG Supervisor Sony
Pictures Imageworks. Worked
on Spiderman, Patch Adams, Godzilla, Contact and Joes
Apartment. Part of the Pipeline group setting up Imageworks
for CG feature development and supporting current projcets such
as Polar Express and Spiderman II. Release manager
for Film Gimp.
Robin Rowe, FilmGimp.org.
Project manager for Film Gimp.
Ray Feeny, RFX.
Founded Silicon
Grail which was acquired by Apple
in 2002. Feeney has won four Academy
Awards for Scientific and Engineering Achievement
and is an executive board member of the Visual
Effects Society and a SMPTE Fellow. Founded the Film Gimp project.
- Linux Movies Group Meeting - 5pm
Open forum to discuss issues in Linux
motion picture technology. Free. An exhibits-only badge can get
you in to this session.
* Pricing and Availability
Cost for the whole day: $100. Limited seating.
Schedule and speakers are subject to change. Register
now.
The Linux Movies Conference is part of Creative
Cow West 2003, being held at the Los Angeles International Airport
complex February 18-20, 2003, at the Westin Los Angeles Hotel
& Conference Center. The Linux Movies track is slated to be
in the 250-seat theater.
* Further Information
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT5611327583.html
http://www.movieeditor.com/linux.movies.html
http://www.mevmedia.com/cowwest/registration.php
http://www.creativecow.net/cow_conference/index.html
Robin Rowe, track chair, 510-235-2397, Robin.Rowe@MovieEditor.com
*Note that further session topic details
are still coming. Please check back again later.
###
Questions to rower@movieeditor.com
Created January 30, 2003; updated
February 10, 2003