Hi
I always come across discussion about gnu/linux not being good for design and animation, here is some eye opener . Dreamworks, the worlds largest movie production house uses gnu/linux more than anything else. Check out
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9653 http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4803
Cheers
On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 9:44 AM, shreekant bohra skbohra123@gmail.com wrote:
Hi
I always come across discussion about gnu/linux not being good for design and animation, here is some eye opener . Dreamworks, the worlds largest movie production house uses gnu/linux more than anything else. Check out
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9653 http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4803
Thanks for the links; however the use of open source in SFX and Animation goes back a long way, to name a few block busters Titanic, Shrek, .... In fact, when Titanic was released, one of the main stream weekly mags in the US carried an article on how the special effects of the movie had been done along with a picture of the HP render farm (blade servers). I'll venture most high quality work has been done on open source platform - workstations and render farms.
IIRC, Houdini releases it's new versions first on Linux.
Local to Mumbai, Rhythm N Hue (sp?) and another 3 studios (known to me) run on open source platform and Python is the favorite programming language. The graphics artists are non geeks and they are comfortable with both the GNOME and the KDE desktops.
IMO, the problem with the nay sayers to FOSS is their unwillingness to learn something new. There is always some learning curve involved irrespective of the OS - they are perfectly willing to expend the time and energy to learn the new UI of every release of Windows but not on the Linux desktop.
-- Arun Khan
On Saturday 05 June 2010 10:18 AM, Arun Khan wrote:
IMO, the problem with the nay sayers to FOSS is their unwillingness to learn something new. There is always some learning curve involved irrespective of the OS - they are perfectly willing to expend the time and energy to learn the new UI of every release of Windows but not on the Linux desktop.
What is the reason for that?
On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 9:44 AM, shreekant bohra skbohra123@gmail.com wrote:
Hi
I always come across discussion about gnu/linux not being good for design and animation, here is some eye opener . Dreamworks, the worlds largest movie production house uses gnu/linux more than anything else. Check out
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9653 http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4803
While your point is valid, the usage scenario of rendering/animation for movies is quite different from the usual DTP shops and the gimp/inkscape/photoshop debates. The former is a very specialist domain, where budgets are much larger due to which they tend to have their own in-house animation apps and in some cases, even drivers. The kernel is powerful, fast and clean enough to handle whatever is thrown at it. Add to it, the kernel can be modified to suit their needs perfectly. This is why FOSS is such a brilliant alternative for them.
When people complain of FOSS alternatives not being good for multimedia, they generally talk about the small studio and dtp alternatives, where their budget is only enough to acquire these application and use, not modify them to suit their needs. Either their budgets are not big enough for it or they simply _don't_ want to get into those details. So they might use gimp and/or audacity, but will not pitch in to improve it if there is a feature missing due to the above constraints. They will drop it and move on.
So the statement gnu/linux not being good for design is very subjective and has to be put into context. In the latter context it is probably true to an extent, since there are no big spenders using (and hence contributing to) it.
On Saturday 05 June 2010 13:19:07 Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 9:44 AM, shreekant bohra
skbohra123@gmail.com wrote:
So the statement gnu/linux not being good for design is very subjective and has to be put into context.
In the latter context it is probably true to an extent, since there are no big spenders using (and hence contributing to) it.
No it isnt. The closed apps have fenced in their users minds through the UI and via patents. I am quite sure that one would be able to do everything that the closed apps do.
Eg. ecad. I know of innumerable engineers who continue to use closed tools. We switched over 2 years ago, with the same mental blocks. It took some effort to change our work pattern and discover the "lack of features" were actually a blessing in disguise that actually uncovers subtle design issues. The power of scripts within the application slashes development time enormously. The textfile storage format actually allows you very precise and complex shapes and cutouts, a very painful task in closed apps. And the icing is freedom from the forced upgrade treadmill. Of course everyone would have loved to port their old designs, but from a developer viewpoint, a translator is a waste of time given the sheer number of ill documnetd ecad formats.
It also makes me wonder about the motives of companies using such formats, and the daftness of customers working hard to pay an extortion racket.
On Saturday 05 June 2010 02:14 PM, jtd wrote:
It took some effort to change our work pattern and discover the "lack of features" were actually a blessing in disguise that actually uncovers subtle design issues. The power of scripts within the application slashes development time enormously. The textfile storage format actually allows you very precise and complex shapes and cutouts, a very painful task in closed apps. And the icing is freedom from the forced upgrade treadmill. Of course everyone would have loved to port their old designs, but from a developer viewpoint, a translator is a waste of time given the sheer number of ill documnetd ecad formats.
It also makes me wonder about the motives of companies using such formats, and the daftness of customers working hard to pay an extortion racket.
Customers simply want the easiest way to install and use their software and that it is popular with the professional staff they will employ. Cost of the software is recovered from the business profits. Nowadays closed sourse companies too are sensitive to users' needs for lower cost of the software and are providing the same at good rates. For eg. AutoCAD LT. is available for some 15K per user in a 5 user license. For an architect who makes decent profits in multiple projects, this cost is marginal. MS Office 2007 home and students edition is available for less than 3K for a 3 user ( for 3 pcs ) pack. AutoCad guys also provide technical support locally and from my own experience with different licensed versions that are being used, they do not give any trouble at all. So where is the need to change to a software that has no training and support available and whose UI is not as useful as that of AutoCad and there are no professional staff available to run the software daily? Plus, where in India does the parent FOSS software making company have its branches or offices for Indian customers to consult them professionally?
On Saturday 05 June 2010 23:30:30 Rony wrote:
On Saturday 05 June 2010 02:14 PM, jtd wrote:
It took some effort to change our work pattern and discover the "lack of features" were actually a blessing in disguise that actually uncovers subtle design issues. The power of scripts within the application slashes development time enormously. The textfile storage format actually allows you very precise and complex shapes and cutouts, a very painful task in closed apps. And the icing is freedom from the forced upgrade treadmill. Of course everyone would have loved to port their old designs, but from a developer viewpoint, a translator is a waste of time given the sheer number of ill documnetd ecad formats.
It also makes me wonder about the motives of companies using such formats, and the daftness of customers working hard to pay an extortion racket.
Customers simply want the easiest way to install and use their software and that it is popular with the professional staff they will employ. Cost of the software is recovered from the business profits. Nowadays closed sourse companies too are sensitive to users' needs for lower cost of the software and are providing the same at good rates. For eg. AutoCAD LT. is available for some 15K per user in a 5 user license. For an architect who makes decent profits in multiple projects, this cost is marginal.
The exact same logic works for FOSS marketing. If i am making good money selling to xyz, why bother with pita client abc.
MS Office 2007 home and students edition is available for less than 3K for a 3 user ( for 3 pcs ) pack. AutoCad guys also provide technical support locally and from my own experience with different licensed versions that are being used, they do not give any trouble at all. So where is the need to change to a software that has no training and support available and whose UI is not as useful as that of AutoCad and there are no professional staff available to run the software daily? Plus, where in India does the parent FOSS software making company have its branches or offices for Indian customers to consult them professionally?
No need at all - until you get properly shafted in the future. Nothing can subititute that unique experience ;-E. So just be patient.
People will soon feel the pain with Flash - everybody's fav wet dream until recently. And we will see the same with acad, tally, whatever.
On Saturday 05 June 2010 01:19 PM, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
When people complain of FOSS alternatives not being good for multimedia, they generally talk about the small studio and dtp alternatives, where their budget is only enough to acquire these application and use, not modify them to suit their needs. Either their budgets are not big enough for it or they simply _don't_ want to get into those details. So they might use gimp and/or audacity, but will not pitch in to improve it if there is a feature missing due to the above constraints. They will drop it and move on.
So the statement gnu/linux not being good for design is very subjective and has to be put into context. In the latter context it is probably true to an extent, since there are no big spenders using (and hence contributing to) it.
Points well said. May I suggest that big FOSS based companies like RedHat etc. should step into this area of professional media software and come up with some rock solid, user friendly and agile software for the industry. They can provide professional support for the same to big studios and the smaller ones can get the free-of-brand versions for free. Then they can promote the same in colleges and universities, along with training infrastructure. Students going into the industry should go with first hand knowledge of such software.
On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 10:56 PM, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:
Points well said. May I suggest that big FOSS based companies like RedHat etc. should step into this area of professional media software and come up with some rock solid, user friendly and agile software for the industry. They can provide professional support for the same to big studios and the smaller ones can get the free-of-brand versions for free. Then they can promote the same in colleges and universities, along with training infrastructure. Students going into the industry should go with first hand knowledge of such software.
Companies do not contribute code to Free Software merely out of goodwill. They do it only if they feel that their business can actually gain something out of it. So it does not make sense to expect companies like Red Hat, Novell, etc. to pitch in to improve this -- they have no stake in it, no expertise and hence have no motivation or means to contribute. Multimedia companies on the other hand are a different thing altogether. Maybe some printing house that uses gimp heavily can hire a couple of developers to implement features that they want, and have them pushed upstream. There you have means and motivation since they already have a talent pool that actually *gets* graphics.
I was digging archives related to this topic and got to this interesting post on funding GIMP by Mark Shuttleworth. Worth reading.
http://marc.info/?l=gimp-developer&m=107770842926523&w=2
Cheers
On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Siddhesh Poyarekar < siddhesh.poyarekar@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 10:56 PM, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:
Points well said. May I suggest that big FOSS based companies like RedHat etc. should step into this area of professional media software and come up with some rock solid, user friendly and agile software for the industry. They can provide professional support for the same to big studios and the smaller ones can get the free-of-brand versions for free. Then they can promote the same in colleges and universities, along with training infrastructure. Students going into the industry should go with first hand knowledge of such software.
Companies do not contribute code to Free Software merely out of goodwill. They do it only if they feel that their business can actually gain something out of it. So it does not make sense to expect companies like Red Hat, Novell, etc. to pitch in to improve this -- they have no stake in it, no expertise and hence have no motivation or means to contribute. Multimedia companies on the other hand are a different thing altogether. Maybe some printing house that uses gimp heavily can hire a couple of developers to implement features that they want, and have them pushed upstream. There you have means and motivation since they already have a talent pool that actually *gets* graphics.
-- Siddhesh Poyarekar http://siddhesh.in -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
On Sunday 06 June 2010 11:27:11 shreekant bohra wrote:
I was digging archives related to this topic and got to this interesting post on funding GIMP by Mark Shuttleworth. Worth reading.
Will you trim the junk in your replies. And post a brief summary with your links?
Will you trim the junk in your replies. And post a brief summary with your links?
Sorry for any inconvenience. Will take care in future. The link is about an email to gimp community from Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical where he talks about funding to GIMP and Cinepaint. Its dated in 2004 but I found it highly relevant to the topic we are discussing.
Again apologies for unprofessional posting.
On Sunday 06 June 2010 12:39:23 shreekant bohra wrote:
Will you trim the junk in your replies. And post a brief summary with your links?
Sorry for any inconvenience. Will take care in future. The link is about an email to gimp community from Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical where he talks about funding to GIMP and Cinepaint. Its dated in 2004 but I found it highly relevant to the topic we are discussing.
Gimp imo is far superior to any of the commercial packages. But due to patent issues (afaik - i have never bothered to investigate, and if someone has, please post, it will be most useful to those fighting the standard wars), cant read the closed binary formats of the closed packages. There was one crucial area where FLOSS DTP required a very messy workaround - CYMK. Afaik that was sorted out 2 years ago.
Again imo, the CYMK issue could be sorted out with suitable instruments. I had done a CYMK exercise in 87 for a guy who used it for calibrating automated film processing. Afair this calibration was part of the maintanence of such machines anyway. So It isnt merely a software issue and involves substantial tech skill, which is conveinently brushed under the carpet.
In every case of a floss software having a "shortcoming", closer investigation will reveal a more subtle and involved problem. Solving the problem is a biz opportunity. I am sure that some smart group would be providing a solution and making a tidy sum.
However in these parts we want to sit on our asses and wait for someone else to do the grunt work.
Reminds me of the "linux is not ready for cyber cafe thread" and one other similiar thread on this list - i cant recollect the exact topic.
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Arun Khan -
jtd -
Rony -
shreekant bohra -
Siddhesh Poyarekar