The ornery, mud-loving creature morphs into a romantic hero through some of the richest digital animation yet created. Producer DreamWorks SKG gives considerable credit for the performance to another transformation--animators' use of the free Linux operating system instead of software from the likes of Microsoft and Silicon Graphics.
"Linux is becoming a significant force for how movies are being made," says Ed Leonard, DreamWorks' chief technology officer. "For a certain amount of investment, you get dramatically increased returns."
Linux is indeed going Hollywood. Industrial Light & Magic, the division of George Lucas's production empire that created special effects for Star Wars, says it is preparing to replace nearly half of its 1,300 SGI workstations with a variety of Linux-based hardware still to be decided.
Pixar Animation Studios, which helped bring Walt Disney into computer-generated animation with "Toy Story," is also converting its workstations to Linux. The studio was in the process of switching from SGI technology to Microsoft's Windows NT platform, but shifted to Linux in midstream as it gained momentum and credibility, says Ed Catmull, president and chief technology officer.
Though not a huge market, movie-making technology has always carried prestige. SGI cites a seven-year string of Academy Award winners and nominees in special effects. Sun Microsystems gloats about Pixar's longtime use of its servers for features that include the coming "Monsters Inc."
But Linux is being used on an increasing number of animators' workstations, as well as the rendering servers that apply shades and textures to images that the artists create. The trend is a public-relations coup for a technology that still has a somewhat anticorporate image.
Linux is free in two senses. It can be obtained on the Internet without charge, and its underlying source code can be freely studied and improved through a process known as open-source development. That helps studios tweak the operating system and update key programs they have written themselves.
"Although we're a shop of 1,300 people, we don't have the clout to get Microsoft to change their operating system," says Andy Hendrickson, director of systems development at Industrial Light & Magic. "With Linux, we can do it all ourselves."
Microsoft's Windows 2000 Professional operating system lists for US$319, although companies typically pay less under volume-discount programs. SGI sells a variant of the Unix operating system called Irix with its machines, adding about $300 to the price.
Customers also can save on hardware. Linux or Windows NT can run on a $5,000 workstation that uses chips from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices. In comparison, some SGI machines using the company's high-performance MIPs processors can easily exceed $20,000.
Those prices may lead makers of specialised animation programs to lower their prices, too. "It's going to be very hard to charge $40,000 for a license to run software on a $5,000 machine," Hendrickson says.
Good news for Linux fans, but you are being a bit unfair on SGI ...
"Linux or Windows NT can run on a $5,000 workstation ... some SGI machines using the company's high-performance MIPs processors can easily exceed $20,000."
And Linux machines can cost the earth too if you option them up with similar performance to the SGI box.