Cloak Media

There’s been a dream of mine to have multiple cheap machines networked in a way to form a hive mind, so commands on one distribute to all and work together. This is loosely called grid computing. Imagine 3 iMac G5’s, Power Mac G5’s, or PowerBook G4’s networked together to work as one. The future is now!

At NAB 2005, Apple announced Final Cut Studio, which allows distributed Compressor rendering/encoding, so through a dedicated gigabit ethernet or firewire infrastructure, you combine a few machines into a working super computer. Mac OS X Tiger has as it’s base a technology called Xgrid, which is a protocol for clustering machines together out of the box.

The secret to success is the gigabit ethernet connection running at 1 Gbps or 128 MB/s. so now in the new computing model, the CPU comes second to the network connection. In a few years 10 gigabit will be standard, passing 2 Gbps or 4 Gbps fibre channel.

So now that you can grid the machine together, how about storage? Apple has an Xsan solution. Xsan costs just below $1500 a workstation to get the computers to share storage ($999 Xsan seat license, $499 fibre channel PCI-X card). A much more elegant and economical solution, that works on panther 10.3.5 and above is iSCSI.

you remember SCSI? all macs had it before ATA. Storage engineers never gave up on SCSI, and are reintroducing the SCSI protocols, but over gigabit ethernet! On a more modern mac, you already have the port, or can easily get a $20 network PCI card (recommended approach to separate the storage network from the IP network). The beauty of iSCSI it can be entirely software based, so yes you get a performance hit, but imagine sharing all your hard drive on a small gigabit network using software SAN. This is revolutionary. Current vendors that support the Mac are ATTO technology and Studio Network Solutions. These companies are just the beginning to a wonderful marriage of storage, grid computing, and the Mac.

apple Xserve G5 cluster nodes

Apple is moving the Mac to an Intel chipset. Until that day in 2007, where all new Mac machines will be Intel inside, expect many surprises. The glue to any good chipset deployment is not only the underlying semiconductor design, but the application environment to write to the hardware, or application program interface (API). Apple Xcode is the technology that drives the software engine. When the multicore comes out with hyperthreading, then we’re talking a good move toward Intel. The chip will have at least two onboard processors, and two virtual processors. All eyes are watching the Intel Fall Developer Forum, to see the processor roadmap.

Along with advanced processors, comes 64-bit computing, which allows access to more than 4 GB of RAM (the 32-bit limit). Today’s Power Macs can hold 8 GB of RAM. I was told by Adobe, that Creative Suite 2 needs around 2 GB of RAM for all it’s applications, and Apple Motion definitely needs all it can get (4 GB at least). the future is always in flux.

At the end of spring and now into the summer, the GPU market has reached an inflection point. Unlike the 90 nm and 65 nm semiconductor barrier, both NVIDIA and ATI chug along with product announcements and advancements. ATI announced at Computex CrossFire, a method to bond multiple PCI/AGP video cards together for near double the performance. NVIDIA had already announced a similar solution they called SLI. NVIDIA stirred the pot again with the GeForce 7 series. if the GeForce 6 series did not scream enough, we have the latest and greatest with more transistors and higher performance.

NVIDIA spurs on interest in its product and introductions with unique characters, usually buxom women scantily clad to attract the gamers and young folk of the planet. if you recall NVIDIA creates these female persona to demonstrate the real time rendering of characters in cinematic motion. all in all we have luna, nalu, dusk, and dawn (summary below). Will these chipsets make it the Mac?

GPU NVIDIA history

G70
GeForce 7800
luna demo woman

NV40
GeForce 6800
nalu demo woman

NV35
GeForce FX 5900 series
dusk demo woman

NV30
GeForce FX 5800 series
dawn demo woman

NVIDIA digital production pipeline

Apple has historically used Siggraph to announce cool things. This year, on the opening day of the Siggraph trade show, Apple Computer announced its might mouse pointing device. This first ever Apple released multibutton mouse looks like the ordinary elongated apple single clicking device, but has a very small trackball and multiple clicking surfaces.

Also at the booth, Apple featured a fully functional studio workstation setup with full Xsan support and shared rendering and storage resources via Xserve RAID. The majority of Apple representatives work out of the Pro Applications Santa Monica Campus, and for all three days showed nothing but respect and loyalty towards their varied customers.

apple might mouse

apple final cut studio station

friendly apple staff

apple shake in use

apple shake users

apple xserve G5 along with xserve RAID

At the Orpheum theater on 2 August 2005, Luxology announced it’s next release of it’s fabulous character modeler, Modo 201. Luxology also divulged how it can generate complex new applications that integrate fully together though an effort they called Nexus. Using the Nexus application engine, Luxology is able to combine modeling, rendering, and in a future release animation. Expect Modo 201 before the end of the year.

luxology announced modo 201

brad peepler onstage

brad peepler demonstrates Nexus

luxology is one year old

During Siggraph 2005, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Cloak Media proudly presented its credentials to the visual communications community. This is what I learned:

Los Angeles is still the world center for rich media and visual delights. Be it the video game industry, the visual communication education arena, or just plain visual entertainment, Los Angeles reigns as its fulcrum.

Over the course of two days, The Arts Institutes sponsored a vendor job fair with the likes of Imaginary Forces, Intel, Papaya Studios, Laika, Activision, and Lucas Arts all willing to talk with animators, compositors, pipeline architects, and programmers about contract or full time employment opportunities.

The bulk of studios and design firms also has regular trade show booths to talk with future clients and future employees. Large studios like Digital Domain, Sony Imageworks, and Pixar had a extra day on the show floor. From what I could count, at least 100 positions were available, for an applicant pool of over 600 who decided to submit a resume for review. Good luck to all who met with employers and may all find future happiness.

eager job hunters review the credentials

curricula vitae of the masses

employers and future employees papers

To a capacity crowd gathered at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles, CA Apple Computer extolled the benefits of Mac OS X in the field of animation, motion graphics, and advanced compositing. Showcasing the latest release of Shake, version 4, experts from South Park animation, Luma Pictures, and the Shake team walked us through the rich feature set.

Apple’s presentation was artfully orchestrated using a full high definition presentation system, which allowed the artists work to shine. Luma Pictures educated the crowd on the ease of deploying advanced PHP web applications to monitor and track visual effect shots for enterprise collaboration.

On 2 August 2005 Apple announced its first ever multibutton mouse, called the might mouse. Expect a full report later on this week on this singular product.

apple shake

apple shake registration area

apple shake sign

apple shake stage

apple shake graphic

apple shake UNIX UNIX UNIX

apple shake H.264 or AVC

apple shake luma pictures

apple shake wilshire grand hotel

Apple Computer and Autodesk showcased their latest offerings in compositing at Siggraph 2005. Apple hosted a Shake User Group Meeting, while Autodesk premiered 3ds Max version 8 along with other applications in their suite of visual effects applications. Apple Computer used the Siggraph event for major news on application development and hardware releases.

Sunday 31 July 2005, at the annual Alias Global User Association (AGUA) meeting in Los Angeles, CA, Alias announced its next release of Maya, version 7. Alias, along with partner companies HP, ATI, and Intel filled the historic Orphium theatre with driving bass rhythms and spry visual effects to the sometimes astonishment of the large crowd. With full body kinematics, realistic floor physical interactions, and more responsive user interface, Maya is once again headed to become the de facto modelers and animator on the Mac OS X platform.

Various presenters from ILM, Sony Electronic Entertainment, and other Maya veterans wowed the crowd with visual effect animations and jaw dropping demonstrations. After the AGUA 2005 rapped, corporate sponsors held a reception, where the Maya faithful talked, laughed and ate a hot meal. See you next year at AGUA 2005.

Please review more pictures from the AGUA 2005 presentation.

alias presents agua 2005

alias users line up outside the orpheum

alias AGUA 2005

AGUA sponsored by ATI, HP, and intel

alias announced mays 7

magiera of noumena digital

orppheum theatre sign

molly connolly HP workstation unit

intel platform roadmap

alias motionbuilder 7

motionbuilder 7 screenshot

jason parks SCEA

rob coleman ILM

AGUA 2005 ends