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Death Star (ILM)
The Death Star is the name of the render farm owned by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). It is a cluster computer originally built by SGI. Since then, it has been converted into a Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ... system built by RackSaver (now Verari Systems) with AMD processors. It is one of the largest render farms. The system originally had 1,500 processors in 750 nodes, this figure was doubled for '' Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith''. ILM tends to be quiet about their supercomputer, so its current configuration is not known. References Graphics hardware Cluster computing Visual effects {{computer-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various films and other media, including television series, video games, novels, comic books, theme park attractions, and themed areas, comprising an all-encompassing fictional universe. ''Star Wars'' is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. The original film (''Star Wars''), retroactively subtitled '' Episode IV: A New Hope'' (1977), was followed by the sequels '' Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back'' (1980) and '' Episode VI: Return of the Jedi'' (1983), forming the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy. Lucas later returned to the series to direct a prequel trilogy, consisting of '' Episode I: The Phantom Menace'' (1999), '' Episode II: Attack of the Clones'' (2002), and '' Episode III: Revenge of the Sith'' (2005). In 2012, Luca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Render Farm
A render farm is a high-performance computer system, e.g. a computer cluster, built to render computer-generated imagery (CGI), typically for film and television visual effects. Origin of the term The term ''render farm'' was born during the production of the Autodesk 3D Studio animated short ''The Bored Room'' in July 1990 when, to meet an unrealistic deadline, a room filled with Compaq 386 computers was configured to do the rendering. At the time the system wasn't networked so each computer had to be set up by hand to render a specific animation sequence. The rendered images would then be 'harvested' via a rolling platform to a large-format optical storage drive, then loaded frame by frame to a Sony CRV disc. The Autodesk technician assigned to manage this early render farm (Jamie Clay) had a regular habit of wearing farmer's overalls and the product manager for the software (Bob Bennett) joked that what Clay was doing was farming the frames and at that moment he named the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Light & Magic
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began production on the original '' Star Wars'', now the fourth episode of the Skywalker Saga. ILM originated in Van Nuys, California, then later moved to San Rafael in 1978, and since 2005 it has been based at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio of San Francisco. In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired ILM as part of its purchase of Lucasfilm. History Lucas wanted his 1977 film '' Star Wars'' to include visual effects that had never been seen on film before. After discovering that the in-house effects department at 20th Century Fox was no longer operational, Lucas approached Douglas Trumbull, best known for the effects on '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968) and '' Silent Running'' (1972). Trumbull declined as he was alre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cluster (computing)
A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Unlike grid computers, computer clusters have each node set to perform the same task, controlled and scheduled by software. The components of a cluster are usually connected to each other through fast local area networks, with each node (computer used as a server) running its own instance of an operating system. In most circumstances, all of the nodes use the same hardware and the same operating system, although in some setups (e.g. using Open Source Cluster Application Resources (OSCAR)), different operating systems can be used on each computer, or different hardware. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and availability over that of a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability. Computer clusters emerged as a result of convergence of a number of computing trends including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and software. Founded in Mountain View, California in November 1981 by James H. Clark, Jim Clark, its initial market was 3D graphics computer workstations, but its products, strategies and market positions developed significantly over time. Early systems were based on the RealityEngine, Geometry Engine that Clark and Marc Hannah had developed at Stanford University, and were derived from Clark's broader background in computer graphics. The Geometry Engine was the first very-large-scale integration (VLSI) implementation of a geometry pipeline, specialized hardware that accelerated the "inner-loop" geometric computations needed to display three-dimensional images. For much of its history, the company focused on 3D imaging and was a major supplier of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which includes the kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy. Popular Linux distributions include Debian, Fedora Linux, and Ubuntu, the latter of which itself consists of many different distributions and modifications, including Lubuntu and Xubuntu. Commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise. Desktop Linux distributions include a windowing system such as X11 or Wayland, and a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma. Distributions intended for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Episode III – Revenge Of The Sith
An episode is a narrative unit within a larger dramatic work or documentary production, such as a series intended for radio, television or streaming consumption. The noun ''episode'' is derived from the Greek term ''epeisodion'' (), meaning the material contained between two songs or odes in a Greek tragedy. It is abbreviated as '' ep'' (''plural'' eps). An episode is also a narrative unit within a ''continuous'' larger dramatic work. It is frequently used to describe units of television or radio series that are broadcast separately in order to form one longer series. An episode is to a sequence as a chapter is to a book. Modern series episodes typically last 20 to 50 minutes in length. The noun ''episode'' can also refer to a part of a subject, such as an “episode of life” or an “episode of drama”. See also * List of most-watched television episodes This page lists the television broadcasts which had the most viewers within individual countries, as measured by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graphics Hardware
Graphics hardware is computer hardware that generates computer graphics and allows them to be shown on a display, usually using a graphics card (video card) in combination with a device driver to create the images on the screen. Types Graphics cards The most important piece of graphics hardware is the graphics card, which is the piece of equipment that renders out all images and sends them to a display. There are two types of graphics cards: integrated and dedicated. An integrated graphics card, usually by Intel to use in their computers, is bound to the motherboard and shares RAM(Random Access Memory) with the CPU, reducing the total amount of RAM available. This is undesirable for running programs and applications that use a large amount of video memory. A dedicated graphics card has its own RAM and Processor for generating its images, and does not slow down the computer. Dedicated graphics cards also have higher performance than integrated graphics cards. It is possib ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cluster Computing
A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Unlike grid computers, computer clusters have each node set to perform the same task, controlled and scheduled by software. The components of a cluster are usually connected to each other through fast local area networks, with each node (computer used as a server) running its own instance of an operating system. In most circumstances, all of the nodes use the same hardware and the same operating system, although in some setups (e.g. using Open Source Cluster Application Resources (OSCAR)), different operating systems can be used on each computer, or different hardware. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and availability over that of a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability. Computer clusters emerged as a result of convergence of a number of computing trends includi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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