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It takes them years to crank out those movies, so it could still be from a few years ago. They might not be too wild about switching software in the middle of projects either.
 
Yeah. It was probably older, I mean, OS 9 is like less stable than... Windows 98.

Surely it must be old or they were in the middle of a project that was to risky to move to OS X (data loss).

That's what it probably is.

Movies take a while to get out, for example, the Matrix took 7 years to make, but, they did have a ton of animation. My point - movies take a long time to create, yet animation, and the thing you saw was probably a recording years ago. :)
 
lilstewart92 said:
Movies take a while to get out, for example, the Matrix took 7 years to make, but, they did have a ton of animation.

Seriously? Wow...

Was Finding Nemo (2nd most recent movie, was released in 2003, I believe) or Monster's Inc.? If it was Monster's Inc., perhaps they weren't willing to switch to an unstable OS (OS X 10.0/1) so they stuck with OS 9.
 
Don't they use their own custom software, they hadn't been ported to OS X yet?
 
I think it takes a least 1,5 years to render a movie after it is finished. So they might have started that movie back in the old days.
 
First, Pixar takes between 4 to 7 years per project. If we are talking about Finding Nemo (2003) or Monsters, Inc (2001) then there would have been nearly no chance of seeing a Mac running Mac OS X in any documentation clips of those films.

Second, Pixar does make much of their own software... their films are also showcasing that software. And because Pixar is platform agnostic, they tend to pick a different platform for each movie (one for their workstations and another for their render farm servers), and then stick with that platform for the life of the project. This means that even though there may be a number of projects going on at once, they are being done on different platforms.

Like ILM, when Pixar was using systems for 3D animation that didn't run boxed software they needed (for example, using SGIs that would not run Photoshop) it was not uncommon to see people with a Mac on their desk right next to some other workstation.

ILM jumped to Mac OS X very quickly... but they were using Apple software in their projections (Final Cut Pro and Shake).

link92 said:
Don't they use their own custom software, they hadn't been ported to OS X yet?
The first version of Pixar's RenderMan software to run on Macs was for Mac OS X... there was never a Mac OS 8/9 version (though there was a version for NeXT computers and a lite version bundled with the OS).

One of the main tools used with RenderMan is Maya, and the two came to the Mac platform at the same time... late 2001, early 2002. Around the time of 10.1.
 
I don't know what things are like in the animation world, but there are a ton of movies, TV shows, commercials, etc., that are edited on Avid workstations running OS 9. Why? Because it still works.


Lethal
 
Tymmz said:
I think it takes a least 1,5 years to render a movie after it is finished. So they might have started that movie back in the old days.


1 and a half years?!

Wow. And I get angry when it takes more than 10 minutes to render any of my projects...

Can you imagine hitting render then going back 1.5 years later and seeing some error message? That would be....fun.
 
Felldownthewell said:
Can you imagine hitting render then going back 1.5 years later and seeing some error message? That would be....fun.

I don't think it quite works like that. ;) If *you* think it'd be "fun," just imagine what the Chief Financial Officer would think when you'd need another year and a half of labor and computer time to redo it! :eek:
 
Felldownthewell said:
Wow. And I get angry when it takes more than 10 minutes to render any of my projects...
LOL, I'm the same way. Im paranoid about these things, but luckily I render as I go (when I add something new i just click render and it only takes a few seconds each time. )
 
RacerX said:
First, Pixar takes between 4 to 7 years per project. If we are talking about Finding Nemo (2003) or Monsters, Inc (2001) then there would have been nearly no chance of seeing a Mac running Mac OS X in any documentation clips of those films.

Second, Pixar does make much of their own software... their films are also showcasing that software. And because Pixar is platform agnostic, they tend to pick a different platform for each movie (one for their workstations and another for their render farm servers), and then stick with that platform for the life of the project. This means that even though there may be a number of projects going on at once, they are being done on different platforms.

Like ILM, when Pixar was using systems for 3D animation that didn't run boxed software they needed (for example, using SGIs that would not run Photoshop) it was not uncommon to see people with a Mac on their desk right next to some other workstation.

Production on Finding Nemo started around November 2000. It was released in Sumer 2003. Pixar is usually in a 2-3 year turn around from production to the big/small screen on their movies. If it were 7 years there would be heads rolling, no studio/production could sit on the amount of money it takes to make these films for 4-7 years.

Pixar makes Renderman and Marionette software, both are used extensively within Pixar. They also have their own proprietary hardware that is made specifically for the above said applications and for rendering farms. Pixar does have set standards of what to use tools wise as far as production work goes, so i am not too sure of where you got your info, but its a bit off :)

They also have *gasp* windows desktops, and Mac desktops that run OS X and i believe a few OS9 machines. Linux, IRIX (SGI), and OS X are the more prevalent OS's for "production" work, with the standard windows fare for office duties.

Ed
 
Ed H said:
so i am not too sure of where you got your info, but its a bit off :)
Then the people I know working at Pixar must be lying to me.

:rolleyes:

But then again... where did you get your information?

Production on Finding Nemo started around November 2000. It was released in Sumer 2003. Pixar is usually in a 2-3 year turn around from production to the big/small screen on their movies. If it were 7 years there would be heads rolling, no studio/production could sit on the amount of money it takes to make these films for 4-7 years.
I said per project... which includes preproduction. Pixar doesn't start putting money into a project until it is ready (the story can stand on it's own)... preproduction is often the most important aspect as it can help contain costs during production.

They also have their own proprietary hardware...
To my knowledge they haven't made their own hardware since the early 90's. Do you have a reference for this? The people I know are software engineers, but I should be able to double check with them (they would, after all, have to write for this hardware if it exist... right?).

Then again, maybe your information is a bit off. :D
 
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