CASE STUDY 2

DREAMWORKS SKG GOES COMPLETELY OPEN SOURCE

QUESTION 1:

What benefits has DreamWorks enjoyed since migrating to open source systems?

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. today prides itself on being on the leading edge of both creative artistry and technology. The studio's objective is to release two or three 3D animated feature films a year, each that carries its trademark qualities of combining compelling narratives that appeal across generations with striking computer-generated visuals. DWA is located in Glendale, California, and Redwood City, California.

As the dreamWorks started experimenting with Intel-based servers running Linux, the open-source operating system, they had produced Shrek in 2001 on a system that cost half as much and was four times as powerful as the SGI/UNIX system used to produceAntz in 1998.

Previously, the company had used proprietary hardware and software, until it became clear that commodity hardware powered by open source operating systems could give DreamWorks Animation the ability to scale to address the company's growing creative ambitions.

With little Linux software commercially available, DreamWorks has been writing its own. A service-oriented architecture, commonly known as SOA, defines the use of software services to support the requirements of software users. The SOA tasks include tracking copyright, accessing human resources data, and pulling information from back-end ERP systems. They use Jboss as a global leader in open-source middleware software and provide the industry's leading services and tools to transform business to SOA. Then it can provide access to applications and built a new services-based copyright application that provides authorization and authentication for incoming feature film scripts.

Reference: Red Hat 2012
http://www.redhat.com/promo/dreamworks/ 

[accessed on 12/07/2012]

Done By: Hjh Siti

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QUESTION 2:

What price did DreamWorks have to pay for adopting systems that were not standard to the motion picture animation industry?
 

The price that Dreamworks have to pay for adopting systems that were not standard to the motion picture animation industry are, finding the specialty software for for motion picture animation and production running linux, in order to run linux. By using open source , Dreamwork has working with third party software partners and HP, DreamWorks has been translating its software from its old SGI/UNIX system to Linux in order to move from SGI to open source. In process of doing this translating or porting this , Dreamworks do it inside a house eventhough this process are not really suitable enough to do it inside a house because it involves millions line of code. 

Dreamworks also replace its former application by Soa (service oriented architecture).Dreamwork also use soa to update are tasks such as tracking copyright ,accessing human resource data and pulling information from back end ERP systems.Dreamwork also use SOA to make nodes on a network make resources available to network users as independent services that the participants access in a standardized way . The systems that DreamWorks updated using SOA include tasks such as tracking copyright, accessing human resources data, and pulling information from back-end ERP systems. Dreamworks also used the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite for software development.  

 

DreamWorks JBOS to develop a new service that authenticates employee roles and responsibilities against company directories to provide access to applications. It also built a new services-based copyright application that provides authorization and authentication for incoming feature film scripts. 

Reference:
Microsoft Word Document
Title: Info and Communication Technologies - Chapter 2 Classic Cases
Available from: DreamWorks SKJ Goes Completely Open Source


Done By: Nazmi
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QUESTION 3:

Why do you think the SGI special-purpose systems that DreamWorks formerly used were so much more expensive than the Intel/Linux systems it uses now?

SGI (Silicon Graphics) is a leading manufacturer of high-performance computing, data management, and visualization products. SGI workstations and servers are optimized for tasks related to computer graphics processing. The company's products target five key market segments: manufacturing, life sciences, energy, government, and media. Jim Clark (also the founder of Netscape) started SGI in 1982, as Silicon Graphics Inc. The company switched to the use of the acronym SGI in 1999. SGI is based in Mountain View, California, and has offices worldwide 

SGI recently announced a new technology called Visual Area Networking that allows users to interact with advanced visualization programs from any device over standard networks. Using the company's OpenGL Vizserver 2.0 software, users and groups of users will be able to access programs on supercomputers. This is intended to enable users to visualize and work with data as if their systems had advanced capabilities, no matter what their actual situation.

Linux is a Unix-like operating system that was designed to provide personal computer users a free or very low-cost operating system comparable to traditional and usually more expensive Unix systems. Linux has a reputation as a very efficient and fast-performing system. Linux's kernel (the central part of the operating system) was developed by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland. To complete the operating system, Torvalds and other team members made use of system components developed by members of the Free Software Foundation for the GNU Project. 

Linux is a remarkably complete operating system, including a graphical user interface, an X Window System, TCP/IP ,the Emacs editor, and other components usually found in a comprehensive Unix system. Although copyrights are held by various creators of Linux's components, Linux is distributed using the Free Software Foundation's copy left stipulations that mean any modified version that is redistributed must in turn be freely available.

Reference:

TechTarget

Available from: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/SGI-Silicon-Graphics.

[Accessed on 15th july 2012]

Done By: Khairul 

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QUESTION 4:

What do you think is the future of open-source code and animation industry? Any examples? Provide an URL link to justify your answers.

The future of open-source code and animation industry is the Pixar Animation Studio. Pixar started life as a software company and still operates a division selling its RenderMan wares, which have been pressed into service making innumerable films beyond the walls of Pixar itself.

Pixar has he code released as open source is called Open SubDiv, and “... implement high performance subdivision surface (subdiv) evaluation on massively parallel CPU and GPU architectures.” 

A simple translation of the above is that the apps help create very detailed surfaces on animated objects. The image below, for example, shows an object untouched by Open SubDiv at right, and a more detailed and precise version processed by the software at left.

Which means this release is not something for everyone. But Pixar has released the software under a licence permitting any commercial or non-commercial use.

Pixar's Manuel Kraemer told the Siggrpah conference last week that the code is used at Pixar and that a full release is due late in 2012. Kraemer also said the studio has decided to freely licence some of its patents to make it possible to use Open SubDiv without attendant angst about future legal worries.

Kraemer explains Open SubDiv and shows off some of the ways Pixar has put it to use, including in its recent Brave, in the video below.

Most people can probably agree that Pixar is one of the most influential animation studios of all time. Their films have been not only critical and commercial hits, but important to the progression of animation technology as well. The technology Pixar uses in their films is some of the most impressive in the business. Now you can use it yourself for free

Pixar has decided to open source their Subd evaluation code. It’s called Open SubDiv and it’s “a set of open source libraries that implement high performance subdivision surface evaluation on massively parallel CPU and GPU architectures.” With the release, Pixar hopes to “encourage high performance accurate subdiv drawing by giving away the “good stuff”.”
This is a huge deal for both Pixar and the development scene as a whole. By making their software open source, Pixar opens the doors to programmers of all backgrounds to help improve it and change the software

It’s also big news for hobbyist animators and programmers because Pixar has released the code under the Microsoft Public License. Animators and programmers can release work made with Pixar’s code for non-commercial and commercial use. It wasn’t just enough that Pixar released their code, but they’re letting people make money off of it too

The software is currently in beta, but Pixar will keep putting out new updates over time. The source code is available to all at GitHub. If this release goes over well, they might start to release other software as well.

Reference and the links to justify the answer:
The Register 1998-2012
Available from: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/13/pixar_open_sources_open_subdiv/

[Accessed on August 13,2012]

WebProNews is an iEntry Network ® publication - © 1998-2012
Available from:http://www.webpronews.com/pixar-open-sources-its-animation-software-2012-08

[Accessed on August 13,2012]

Done by: Sufi