September 12, 2002 at 09:34 AM
Fine... I'll just take my OS and go Home
[Posted by Kevin:]
Ok, I was going ask this question specifically to tdl, but I figured the folks reading this log are intelligent people too, so I'll ask everyone. Also, as far as I know, this is the first question posted to MonkeySpeak (other than the sign question) so I'm being a pioneer.
Here's the deal, I run the graphics production department in a smallish (~35) company that makes theater equipment. We are strictly a Windows production house. Despite our size, we have very beefy system requirements. We focus on making scientific visualizations for our flag ship product - a full dome (think planetarium) hi-definition digital theater (think digital Omnimax). We use 3dsmax for 3d work, Digital Fusion for compositing and Photoshop for still image work. We have 6 terabytes of imagery and content that has to be accessible at all times, render on 30+ dedicated systems, and develop content on 5 dedicated workstations.
I'm getting more and more concerned about vanishing privacy and rights under MS and have always been looking to jump ship. However, until recently there has not been enough application support for film level modeling, compositing, and imaging, that could be had on non MS systems without gobs of cash or dedicated programmers.
The question is, if I want to switch to Linux / derivative (read non-MS), and want to do film compositing, high res 3d and high color depth imagery on Linux based systems, which platform/window interface is best? Should I have one flavor for the serving of our massive amounts of content and another for the production machines? What "big 3" apps can replace the MS based Photoshop, Digital Fusion, and 3ds max? Our rendering plates are 4k x 4k and a typical shot will have 10-30 layers.
Now remember, we cannot afford Shake (whose future is questionable on Linux anyway), nor can we hire a dedicated programmer to port tools for us to Linux. Film Gimp is obvious, possibly Maya, but where else? I’ve considered emulators, but quickly discounted those. More of a concern is the flavor of Linux and window manager. I want to have all the same functionality as a Win machine, without big brother. We can handle reasonable system maintenance, and the stations are pretty up to date with no exotic hardware. I will be trying the setup on my own studio machine to evaluate, so experimentation is acceptable.
Comments
I haven't used many different Linux distributions. During college we all used Slackware, but for the last five years, I've used RedHat exclusively. I've heard good things about Mandrake as well, though I've never used it myself. Those two are the "main" commercial distributions. Debian has a good reputation as well, but primarily because of its adherence to Open Source philosophy; it's not one of the major contenders for commercial use as far as I know.
Just so you know, when a Linux system is running, it's pretty hard to tell what distribution it is. That is, the distribution has very little to do with how the system appears to users. It mostly affects how easy it is to install, upgrade, and maintain the system (from a sysadmin point of view). And even then, the differences are fairly minor. So don't worry too much about which distribution to use.
As far as window interfaces go, you don't really need to choose. The window manager war has basically been won, so you'll probably get Sawfish with whatever distribution you choose. Sawfish is a bit bulky and is ridiculously customizable, but it works just fine. And as far as the windowing toolkit/application framework wars, you also don't need to choose. KDE and Gnome can coexist nicely, and both come with most major distributions.
It's worth noting that you probably won't be able to run a studio on Linux without at least one (probably more) decent unix sysadmin, and if you do have one, then they'll probably be able to handle whatever distribution you throw at them. ('Course, they might already have a preference, which might affect your decision.)
There is no killer Photoshop replacement. You already know about The Gimp, obviously. I'm a really big fan of The Gimp, and use it regularly, but I don't use it for a living. Many people who use Photoshop for a living turn their noses at The Gimp.
(It's free. Photoshop is hundreds of dollars. Go figure.)
As far as commercial offerings, Amazon is a powerful paint system that exists on Linux (and is used for 3-d paint at Pixar, among other places), but I don't believe it's an actual Photoshop replacement. You'd have to look into it. Plus it might be really expensive. Dunno.
I don't know what Digital Fusion is. When I google that name, several dozen different products come up. Which one are you asking about?
As far as compositing packages go, I've heard great things about Shake, but as you mention, it's pricey. I'm pretty sure Combustion is available for Linux, but I don't know the details or the relative price. (I'm pretty sure it's cheaper than Shake, but don't quote me on it.) I'm pretty sure RAYZ was even cheaper, but apparently it was bought up by Apple recently (as was Shake), so I'm not sure what's come of it.
Unfortunately, I don't know what major modelling and animation systems are available on Linux. I don't think 3ds Max is, but it's worth checking if you haven't. (Anything's possible.) Maya is the major player, but I imagine it's too pricey.
By the way, as a general rule, if you're wondering what major commercial applications exist for Linux in a given domain, you don't need to wonder what "equivalent" one Linux has. It's not like there's a whole separate industry making commercial applications only for Linux. If there's a major commercial application in Linux, chances are it exists in Windows and you've already heard of it. So just check each of the competing Windows products and see if any exist on Linux.
I think it's pretty safe to say that you won't be able to switch your operation to Linux "without...dedicated programmers". It's possible that Maya and Shake together may be able to provide all the capabilities you need, but not without the "gobs of cash" you want to avoid. And even if you went with Maya and Shake, you'd still probably need to fill in some gaps with custom scripts and applications. Anything cheaper would require even more filling-in-of-gaps.
Comments are now closed on this site. Too much comment spam. Sigh.
I haven't used many different Linux distributions. During college we all used Slackware, but for the last five years, I've used RedHat exclusively. I've heard good things about Mandrake as well, though I've never used it myself. Those two are the "main" commercial distributions. Debian has a good reputation as well, but primarily because of its adherence to Open Source philosophy; it's not one of the major contenders for commercial use as far as I know.
Just so you know, when a Linux system is running, it's pretty hard to tell what distribution it is. That is, the distribution has very little to do with how the system appears to users. It mostly affects how easy it is to install, upgrade, and maintain the system (from a sysadmin point of view). And even then, the differences are fairly minor. So don't worry too much about which distribution to use.
As far as window interfaces go, you don't really need to choose. The window manager war has basically been won, so you'll probably get Sawfish with whatever distribution you choose. Sawfish is a bit bulky and is ridiculously customizable, but it works just fine. And as far as the windowing toolkit/application framework wars, you also don't need to choose. KDE and Gnome can coexist nicely, and both come with most major distributions.
It's worth noting that you probably won't be able to run a studio on Linux without at least one (probably more) decent unix sysadmin, and if you do have one, then they'll probably be able to handle whatever distribution you throw at them. ('Course, they might already have a preference, which might affect your decision.)
There is no killer Photoshop replacement. You already know about The Gimp, obviously. I'm a really big fan of The Gimp, and use it regularly, but I don't use it for a living. Many people who use Photoshop for a living turn their noses at The Gimp.
(It's free. Photoshop is hundreds of dollars. Go figure.)
As far as commercial offerings, Amazon is a powerful paint system that exists on Linux (and is used for 3-d paint at Pixar, among other places), but I don't believe it's an actual Photoshop replacement. You'd have to look into it. Plus it might be really expensive. Dunno.
I don't know what Digital Fusion is. When I google that name, several dozen different products come up. Which one are you asking about?
As far as compositing packages go, I've heard great things about Shake, but as you mention, it's pricey. I'm pretty sure Combustion is available for Linux, but I don't know the details or the relative price. (I'm pretty sure it's cheaper than Shake, but don't quote me on it.) I'm pretty sure RAYZ was even cheaper, but apparently it was bought up by Apple recently (as was Shake), so I'm not sure what's come of it.
Unfortunately, I don't know what major modelling and animation systems are available on Linux. I don't think 3ds Max is, but it's worth checking if you haven't. (Anything's possible.) Maya is the major player, but I imagine it's too pricey.
By the way, as a general rule, if you're wondering what major commercial applications exist for Linux in a given domain, you don't need to wonder what "equivalent" one Linux has. It's not like there's a whole separate industry making commercial applications only for Linux. If there's a major commercial application in Linux, chances are it exists in Windows and you've already heard of it. So just check each of the competing Windows products and see if any exist on Linux.
I think it's pretty safe to say that you won't be able to switch your operation to Linux "without...dedicated programmers". It's possible that Maya and Shake together may be able to provide all the capabilities you need, but not without the "gobs of cash" you want to avoid. And even if you went with Maya and Shake, you'd still probably need to fill in some gaps with custom scripts and applications. Anything cheaper would require even more filling-in-of-gaps.