IMAX, Pixar, Disney, Shrek, Transformers.

[DreadStunLock]

So this is a bit more random than usual, one thing I was wondering, since PS has an animators/r? and 3d modellers, I was hoping to see and read more opinions about, how nowadays CG films are created.

One thing that bugs me the most is the resources, what I mean is, how or what kind of computers do they use to create a film like transformers? As well all know and everyone knows and unless  you don't know

"to render the entire movie on a modern home PC, you would have had to start the render 16,000 years ago (when cave paintings like the Hall of Bulls were being made) to finish for this yearââ,¬â,,¢s premiere"

(If that got you interested go to "http://www.atomicpopcorn.net/cool-facts-on-transformers-2-from-ilm/")

Now we all know that if it takes to 16,000 years to render the whole movie, it will fry your PC instantly from the data overload, or even fry your PC if you load the film with all of the modifications and models.

So what does the company use to render it? Is it somekind of a super computer? One of those gigantic PC's that use like what? 20 CPUs on 1 board?

I just really wan to find out and get this out of my head.


(Also for people that don't believe that your PC can fry by rendering a model, buy Transformers 2 DVD, check the special features of how they built the devastator)

[DreadStunLock]

Is there anything specific on wiki about that? Can they even be bought to be installed on a normal PC? Just 1 Dual Xeon thing? With 24GB Ram? I wonder how long it would last if you had that for gaming?

[frvge]

I'm not sure, but I hope the more enterprise-oriented graphics cards will be able to speed things up in the future. And with GPGPU programs, that will also be possible on normal consumer hardware.

Building lighting for Lakehouse can indeed take quite a while. :-P.

[DreadStunLock]

Wait didn't you say God rays came with UDK? Or the developers actually had to build it themselves?

Also how do you guys render stuff? I mean last time I checked, Frvge you had a crappy Laptop didn't you? I am sure that making a game takes a bit better hardware right?

[frvge]

Static lighting (and maybe dynamic lighting to a degree) is pre-built. It's rendered into textures. That rendering takes time if you have a couple of hundred lights (engine stuff that casts lights... not lightbulbs in the game) and hundreds of static meshes and BSP and materials that are affected by the light.

God rays are in UDK. I think they are dynamic lights, but they could be some kind of solar flares, which would be a lot easier to calculate.

[DreadStunLock]

Ooooh, makes sense I guess. One thing would be nice is to see a good cloud effect.

[VaNilla]

You can render the same thing that they do on any high-end computer, but they tend to use networked computers and render systems to speed up the process.