dinosaur graphics

[mark23]

does anyone know what kind of graphics cards are used by the film studios for films like dinosaur? and who makes them?{just curios}
i might get one if i win the lottory{hope hope}

[mourikise]

SGI my friend! Silicon Graphics. To be honest, I don't know for sure if Dinasaur specifically was desingned by SGI, but many movies are! Check out there for some AWSOME machines (forget the Intel craps!). http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif

[prexaspes]

Head over to www.3dlabs.com (http://www.3dlabs.com) and check out their new Wildcat II. Supposed to be real good...

[araaraara]

Who knows what PIXAR Studios use? Mayby they borrowed the DOE's 9000 PPros with 1meg cache? Must of had 9000 Voodoo2's in SLI too.

[RobRich]

It depends on how one plans to design and render the animation. For onscreen planned effects using wire diagrams with texture map overlays, the majority of the effects are calculated and rendered by the processor with assisstance from a hardware geometry engine onboard the video card if supported. Triangle and geometry setup rates with large video texturing storage are generally the most important aspects of a professional 3D design system. However, the actual potentia fill rates of higher end video cards are generally rather low. One of the few exceptions is the nVidia Quaddro, as it utilizes a GeForce-based rendering subsystem.

As for my choice in software oriented movie rendering, I prefer Sun. The US-3 is generally well opimitized for these types of applications. Another long time favorite of many is Silicon Graphics. BTW, some SGI workstations are now built with Intel processors.

Catch ya' later,
Robert Richmond