Linux Movies Group Advancing Linux motion picture technology

Linux Movies Conference on Feb 18th in Los Angeles

Disney, DreamWorks, and ILM Experts Reveal Linux Techniques

Feature films 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. 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. An operating system created a decade ago as a hobby by a university student has taken over Hollywood.

Why did this come about? How are the studios using Linux? And, what are the future implications?

Get each studio's story with behind-the-scenes insights. Learn about the technology of Hollywood feature film animation and special effects as related by studio experts. Discover 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.linuxmovies.org/press/creative.cow.html

http://www.mevmedia.com/cowwest/registration.php

http://www.creativecow.net/cow_conference/index.html

Robin Rowe, conference chair, Robin.Rowe@MovieEditor.com