Linux Journal: Linux Dreamworks Redux

“Last summer we visited the DreamWorks SKG Glendale studio where
the animated motion picture Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron was in
production using Linux. Spirit, the story of a wild mustang’s
adventures in the untamed American West, will be in US wide release
on Memorial Day, May 27th, 2002. Let’s find out what’s happened
with Linux at DreamWorks since our cover feature in the August 2001
issue of Linux Journal.

“‘For Spirit the Ink and Paint department was entirely Linux, as
was half of rendering,’ says DreamWorks Head of Animation
Technology Ed Leonard. ‘Now all the departments have been
converted. For our current production, Sinbad, every workstation
and the entire renderfarm is Linux.’ Linux gained its first toehold
in the motion picture industry on servers for rendering and has now
become a standard desktop for artists. For Spirit DreamWorks
utilized more than 150 Linux desktops. More than 350 are in use for
Sinbad.

“Leonard describes the DreamWorks Linux conversion as a two-step
process: porting an extensive library of internal proprietary tools
and convincing vendors of commercial tools to do the same.
Alias|Wavefront’s Maya 3-D animation package already had a Linux
port underway, but DreamWorks’ core 2-D system based on Cambridge
Systems Animo came to Linux later. In the DreamWorks production
pipeline Adobe Photoshop is the sole Linux holdout…”

Complete Story