Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Cars (2006)

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-07-2006, 11:51 PM:

I have to say that it's absolutely ridiculous how far ahead of everyone else Pixar is with the level of technical sophistication in their movies. The amount of detail in this film is nothing short of stunning. Even the "cinematography" is great, with bits and pieces here and there looking almost photo realistic. I wish they decided to make THIS movie in 3D.

Story-wise, it's all been done before. Sort of a "Doc Hollywood" meets "Days Of Thunder" or something like that. Despite that, and its predictability, it's still fun to watch. I think this might be my favorite Owen Wilson movie.

The sound mix seemed ok. We watched it in a less than impressive theater, so it's hard to say if the mix will rock or not if complimented with the proper hardware, but it sounded like it might.

All in all, this movie was at least what I expected if not more. I always enjoy Pixar's movies not only for their mind boggling display of CGI wizardry, but also for their movies' stories. Cars was no exception. It should put plenty of butts in the seats this weekend.

Posted by Phil Blake (Member # 2012) on 06-08-2006, 02:59 AM:

Well I thought it was quite an epic animation feature this one. It moved along better than I anticipated it would.
Animation I thought was second to none, and the story was quite entertaining for all ages.

Our print which came out of Technicolor labs in Bangkok was of very high quality,no focus issues with this one. sound in DTS was also great!

Without spoiling anything too much, and being a country feller, my favorite part would be the tractor tipping scene! . And I bet Tim Reed gets a few giggles from the truck scenes.

4 out for 5 from me

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 06-08-2006, 12:27 PM:

Well, let's see. I heard someone say it may be the best Pixar movie ever. Hmmm, don't know. Being a fan of the automobile - it is my favorite Pixar Film. I loved the movie and think it will do stupendous at the box office. 4 1/2 stars outta 5. Perfectly cast on all the voices too.

Now the ONLY drawback on this movie is the running time. I believe it may be about 20 minutes too long for the kiddies under 6. Thier attention span won't last the entire run of the film. That will be the only complaint anyone has on this soon to be classic animated movie. Pixar continues to amaze me with thier animated films. Be sure to stick around ALL the way to the end of the credits. The Drive-In scenes make me want to go out and open a damn Drive-In already!

[beer]

Posted by Don Anderson (Member # 397) on 06-08-2006, 03:16 PM:

Its running time is way toooooooo long, and any little kid will get bored very easily. I found the story boring, and actually walked out and did some other projects during the screening. Cute cars, neat little town, but overall too long. 1.5 hrs would have been enough. Gotta love the little gift inside the shipping cans.

Posted by Kara J. McVay (Member # 1285) on 06-08-2006, 06:55 PM:

Already a set of the trading cards on Ebay [Eek!]

Posted by Ron Curran (Member # 3631) on 06-08-2006, 09:31 PM:

Yes, and it is just like a 50s CinemaScope picture, with the voices being positioned with the images, L,C,R. Surround ES in DTS is excellent.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 06-09-2006, 12:35 AM:

Anyone seen it digitally projected yet? Better yet, anyone seen it in 35mm and in digital and care to offer a comparison?

Digital Cinema Venues Listed Here (Most of 'em anyway. Still sorting out a few conflicting/incomplete details.)

Posted by Allison Parsons (Member # 2728) on 06-09-2006, 01:37 AM:

The only movie I will probably every like that has something to do with Larry The Cable Guy. [Big Grin]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-09-2006, 02:14 AM:

Larry actually makes the movie. Without him, they wouldn't have much comedywise. He has most of the funniest lines (and they manage to work in all of his catch phrases too.) I also enjoyed George Carlin as the VW van.

Visually the movie is stunning. This is one film that will TOTALLY lose it on the TV screen...it needs the big theatre screen to stretch out in. DVD watchers are going to miss out on a lot unless they have huge screens at home.

Writing-wise, I was less than thrilled. The story is OK but the movie is much too long. The ending is lacking the Pixar magic (my favorite Pixar ending of all is from "Finding Nemo.") But, overall it's very enjoyable. The end credits drive-in bonus was awesome!

I'll give it 4 out of 5. Would have been 4 1/2 if it had been 30 minutes shorter.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 06-09-2006, 03:31 AM:

..and loved the tribute to Steve McQueen ("Lightning McQueen") and the great tribute to "the Mother Road" - Route 66

Yes, "Mater" stole the show..as does all of the side characters of practically any movie does..

One needs to see this on a BIG digital screen (as we did at the screening of this film at ShoWest in March..) Pix was sharp and bright, and clear. (hey, had a hard time looking for cuemarks and splices..they weren't there..my first digital feature that I witnessed..)

..bit of a toughie on this one.: "Monsters, INC", "the Incredibles", or "CARS" .. which one was the best of the recent PIXAR releases.. you decide on this..

Yes, the short, "One Man Band" and the new Pixar movie "Ratatouille" that was advertised on the front of the short..we're excellent as well.

I thought that the running time was about right -kept the attention span going..but I can see why it would dissolve the attention span for the kids..

4 out of 5 stars for me.. - Monte

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-09-2006, 06:32 AM:

Agreed the movie was too long, even though I thouroughly enjoyed it. I do have a major beef with the fact that Lightning McQueen's hood wasn't dented to match it's annoying voice. [Razz]

From the trailers, I hated the fact that Larry the Cable Guy was voicing over one of the cars. After seeing the movie, I wanted more of Mater. Freakin' hilarious!

I spent much of the time just looking for background car items, such as the tire markings in the clouds and the car shapes in the landscaping.

The picture on my print was magnificent, and this is probably THE steadiest image I have ever seen on a 35mm general release print. It quite literally was just as steady as PA35. Major kudos goes out to the Technicolor lab for the phenomenal printing work.

The sound mix was excellent as usual, and they really put the EX to good use in many of the scenes. The panned dialogue was also a refreshing change of pace from the usual mixing style of today's movies.

Other than the fact that Owen Wilson annoys me with his whiny voice and that the movie seemed 20 minutes too long, I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
[thumbsup]

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 06-09-2006, 09:57 AM:

My review:
http://www.bigscreen.com/ReaderReview.php?movie=44829

quote:
See Now!

Cars is an excellent movie that continues the fine Pixar tradition of making Disney look really good! While I can't say that it is as good as Toy Story or Finding Nemo, it is very close, and certainly much better than many other movies in the same genre.

Much like Toy Story gave life to classic toys, Cars brings life to all kinds of cars, from race cars to a lovable tow truck and a "hippie" VW bus, among others.

The nice thing about this movie is that it hits quite a few targets that will resonate with audiences young and old. Starting out with an adrenaline-filled NASCAR-style race, the sound systems of theaters around the country will be put to the test. It firmly establishes the lead character of Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) and is a lot of fun. The animation is top-notch, as always.

So you've got talking cars, check. NASCAR, check. Likable characters, check.

On the way to the next big race, Lightning finds himself without his transport truck and stuck in the middle of the desert. Landing in the sleepy town of Radiator Springs, a once-bustling town on Route 66 that was bypassed by the new freeway, Lightning is forced to slow things down and pay attention to things other than his own fame and fortune. A majority of the movie is spent in Radiator Springs, and for good reason, it's the most interesting setting.

The cars that he meets that are still living in Radiator Springs include Doc Hudson (voiced by Paul Newman), a 1951 Hudson Hornet who appears to be pretty sedate and uninteresting to a fast race car like Lightning McQueen, but whose past experiences make him credible and someone definitely worth listening to. As with many of the Pixar movies, there is a large cast of colorful characters that are very entertaining in their own right.

The nostalgia factor of Route 66 and a town which peaked long ago, along with some very recognizable cars and a landscape that will take several viewings to completely appreciate, makes for another checkmark on the list of things that Cars gets right.

If there is any criticism that I have, it is that the movie drags for a few minutes near the halfway point. That was the only part of the movie where I felt like they needed to get moving and pick up the pace a little. Whether this would be noticeable to most is up for debate, but it's the only negative I can find with the movie.

Any review that I could write would not do this movie justice. It's exactly the kind of movie that theaters need right now, because the best way to fully appreciate it is on a big screen. A good sound system, while not absolutely necessary, certainly bumps the enjoyment factor up a notch in the racing scenes. Even more subtle sound cues are present, as is usually the case with Pixar movies. Be sure to stay through the credits, as there are some clips that are funny and worth watching.

I'm looking forward to seeing it again on opening weekend because it is definitely worth seeing multiple times. Highly recommend for all ages!

It's been since ShoWest since I've seen the digital print, so it should be interesting to go to a local 35mm presentation. Hard comparisons will be difficult due to the time between viewings, but I'm already preparing myself to be disappointed with the sound unless I try to find out if it's being shown on the local AMC's unadvertised THX screens.

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 06-09-2006, 10:21 AM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
hey, had a hard time looking for cuemarks and splices..they weren't there..my first digital feature that I witnessed..

OT: Monte, the digital presentations have never had cue marks or splices. I don't miss them at all for these types of shows. For us projectionists, it doesn't act as a clock to let you know how long you have been watching. Nice! [thumbsup]

Posted by James Nash (Member # 2836) on 06-09-2006, 12:04 PM:

My theater is showing both Digital and 35mm versions of Cars, and i have screened each. Our 35mm prints were in spectacular condition, so presentation was supurb. The digital prints of this film were beyond amazing. I have not yet seen clarity and color this good with digital presentation. every little detail is so crisp and clear, it is extremely photorealistic. It has been quite evident by our nightly box summary that the digital shows are preferred by our customers, as the digital prints consistantly gross much more than the 35's.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-09-2006, 12:21 PM:

quote: James Nash
the digital prints consistantly gross much more than the 35's.

That's probably because you have a big sign saying DIGITAL next to those auditoriums or on your times board. Everyone in the public knows "digital" equals "better" so higher grosses are not surprising.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 06-09-2006, 02:07 PM:

Exactly. If you put a process label on one marquee and nothing on the other except the title, you are stacking the deck and predisposing the patron to think one must be better than the other....this one has something special and the other doesn't. Of course more will chose the one that has an additional perk. Put up a sign that says "Projection Process: Ultra Definition Motion Picture Film" on your marquee for the 35mm room and watch what happens.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 06-09-2006, 04:21 PM:

Uh-oh, do we sense a version of the glory days of 70mm releases - (in which a theatre in Boise, ID is playing "Lawerence of Arabia" in 70mm for one week...) - with the advertising of "DIGITAL"?

Yet, this format will definitely will stick around with us for a while..

-Monte

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 06-09-2006, 04:34 PM:

CINEMA: Cinemark Movies 12, Ames, IA
AUDITORIUM: 7
PRESENTATION: 35mm/Mystery Meat Digital
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: A couple of second-long digital sound dropouts
RATING: Three stars (out of four)

NOTE: This movie was penalized one half star for remaking a Tom Cochrane song into a horrifying soulless piece of crap

WARNING: Ka-SPOILERS!

Carmike has just completed their digital projection rollout in the market at all three plexes (yes, even the converted grocery store slope seating nine-plex that was outdated when it opened.) I considered checking out "Cars" there over the Century's usual shaky, fuzzy, grainy picture. Then I remembered that Movies 12 would probably kick both their asses picture-wise. I wasn't disappointed.

Brad wasn't kidding. The image was so steady I actually looked back to the booth to make sure it was film running. Even the trailers were solid. And aside from the dropouts, this was the best sound this building has had since "The Village". Whoever came in and installed (or prepped for) the digital pre-show equipment must have cleaned up everything else.

This movie has been done before. "Desert Blue" was the story of a small, forgotten town with the "world's largest ice cream cone" that gets unexpectedly visited by a marooned actress from a cable sitcom. This is the same movie, except with a car marooned from a faux NASCAR circuit. I like "Desert Blue" better because Christina Ricci not only pouted through it, she blew stuff up. And I'm not much of a NASCAR fan. But I do love a good Radiator Springs. The animation is so amazing at points I questioned whether I was watching actual filmed landscapes. Just a stunning, beautiful movie.

The story isn't quite on par with "The Incredibles" or "Monsters, Inc", but still a lot of fun. Disney will make millions, if not billions, on toy cars.

STAY THROUGH THE CREDITS! Every minute is entertaining, and the "Special Thanks" list is very generous to spots along the Mother Road.

Posted by Peter Berrett (Member # 672) on 06-09-2006, 09:09 PM:

CINEMA: Lunar Drive -in Dandenong
SESSION: 6.30 P.M. 9 June 2006
RATING: Four stars (out of four)

This film really isn't for kids under 6 as it doesn't hold their attention span. My kids (5+3) got bored and started to play up a bit.

But for us older kiddies this film is an absolute classic.

First the digital rendering and detail put into the movie is absolutely stunning and captures very well the feeling of being in Arizona or nearby states. I count myself fortunate to have been to route 66 and to Arizona and it brought back a lot of happy memories.

The social commentary on the death of small towns along the route with the introduction of freeways and the point made that people who drive along the freeways miss so much, was well made.

The storyline was good but as I indicated earlier younger kids will find it hard to get immersed in this films. The themes are beter suited to teenagers and there is a lot of stuff for an older audience as well.

I missed the final credits so I will have to watch this again on dvd. I did however note that in shots of the town you could see the town drive-in in the background.

But my favourite scene is the tractor tipping scene. This is an absolute classic and will go down as one of the most memorable scenes in animated film history. It is also culturally very American.

The best thing that comes through this film though is the genuine feeling and love the authors/producers have for America and the towns out west. The cars are almost secondary.

I can't help but feeling fortunate to live in a time when so many good animated films are being made. We truly are spoilt.

And as for the film bearing Disney's name, this is the kind of film that Disney would have been very proud of, and one that lives up to the standard of early Disney animated films.

Verdict: Just go watch it and be amazed. I can't wait for Cars 2.

Let's see - Toys, Cars, Monsters - sooner or later we will see Trainz I expect.

Regards Peter

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-10-2006, 09:19 AM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
(in which a theatre in Boise, ID is playing "Lawerence of Arabia" in 70mm for one week...) - with the advertising of "DIGITAL"?

Well, it is in DTS... The screen at the Egyptian is wayyyyy toooo small for that sort of film!

Mark

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-10-2006, 03:53 PM:

I watched Cars at the Carmike 8 (screen #4, DTS).

The storyline isn't quite as good as that of The Incredibles or Finding Nemo. And I agree, the cover version of Tom Cochrane's Life Is a Highway kind of sucks compared to the original.

Still, there's lots and lots of stuff to like about this movie. Anyone who is a car enthusiast, loves retro neon-signs or a "roadgeek" will love the attention to detail displayed in this movie. There are so many layers of it I'm sure viewers will spot new things they didn't first see in repeat shows. It's obvious Pixar did exhaustive research for the visuals in this movie. Parts of Interstate 40 displayed looked like accurate depictions from specific parts of the country. The road signs even looked reasonably accurate (not quite to MUTCD specs, but at least they got the fonts right). I liked how they turned Cadillac tailfins into mountains -obviously inspired by the Cadillac Ranch art display just west of Amarillo next to I-40.

It was kind of a kick to see lots of actual places Pixar visited along historic US-66 listed in the credits, including several places not far from me here in Oklahoma.

The combination of all the detail and the spectacular quality of the animation makes this a really great looking movie.

I agree with others about the film image being steady. I saw no weaving or anything like that in this film print. The sound quality was also very good. The mix isn't as over the top as Toy Story 2, but there is some pretty good use of surrounds.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 06-11-2006, 02:04 AM:

I am a huge Pixar fan. Toy Story and Toy Story 2 are two of my favorite movies, and I've loved everything else Pixar has ever done, including Cars.

The animation keeps getting better and better. I agree that the story was the weakest link, but that could have been fixed by trimming the running time by 20 min.

Can't wait for the next Pixar.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-11-2006, 03:03 AM:

Ratatouille looks like it might be pretty good. I laughed quite a bit at the teaser for it.

"Y'know if you can sort of muscle your way past the gag reflex all kinds of food possibilities open up."

Posted by Kyle Anderson (Member # 3504) on 06-11-2006, 01:06 PM:

My theater is one of the ones listed as both digital and 35mm projection (probably because it's true [Smile]

)

I have to agree with Brad - the 35 print was/is phenomenal. Super steady, super sharp. Excelénte!

As for the DLP version - Pixar/Disney had Christie tech crews flying all over the country jacking up our light levels to 16 FL. Our brand-new 6k bulb (that was previously running at ~4800W) was turned up to 6.1kW - brightest screen I've ever seen [Razz]

But I'll be damned if it didn't look incredible. Kudos.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-11-2006, 02:56 PM:

Only 16FL? Bah! Get some real light on that screen and take another look. [Cool]

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 06-11-2006, 05:55 PM:

quote: Kyle Anderson
Our brand-new 6k bulb (that was previously running at ~4800W) was turned up to 6.1kW

Which brings up a point...will this theatre go back to using 4.8k after the run? And are these DLP machine-thingies not being installed with the proper illumination from the start?

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 06-11-2006, 08:07 PM:

Today 6/11/2006 @ 1:10PM, Regal Cinema World 8 in Eugene, House #3. I'd guess the attendance was about 125.

I'm pretty sure they played this in SDDS, which has always sounded better than DTS or SR-D in this house, although lately they rarely ever use SDDS. In fact the way the dialog panned smoothly across the screen I was wondering if it was SDDS-8 (which this theater has but I don't know if the movie does - nobody has mentioned SDDS-8). Blah blah blah yak yak yak. Anyway whatever it was it sounded really good to me.

The print quality was mind blowingly good. Superb! If not for a couple lab splices it would have been perfect. The image may not have been ROCK steady, but it was pretty damn good. Very bright and sharp. [thumbsup]

I liked it a lot. So much attention to detail and subtle humor for the adults, this is more an adult movie than a kid flick. In fact the youngest kids in the audience were clearly fairly bored a few times, although something always materialized that got their attention back. It will stand up to repeat viewing to try and catch everything going on. I absolve the director for making it a little too long, because it's obvious a lot of passion went into making this.

4 out of 5 stars as a movie. If I disregard the lab slices, the technical presentation gets a 4.75 out of 5 stars (I'm probably not a harsh enough critic though).

How many generations are these computer-rendered movies from the "master", compared to a typical live-action movie print?

PS: My bike was stolen from the bikerack outside the theater while I watched "Cars". [Mad]

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 06-11-2006, 09:59 PM:

You caught lab splices. [Frown]

No Perfect Presentation award for them by the TAP people.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 06-11-2006, 10:56 PM:

Does a theatre get penalized in a TAP evaluation for lab splices? Seems like whether they leave the splices in, or remove them, they'd be screwed.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 06-11-2006, 11:31 PM:

quote:
The screen at the Egyptian is wayyyyy toooo small for that sort of film!

..agreed. To do proper 70 there, that screen should be twice as big, or even more - from almost the full width of the entire front of the auditorium... and with a decent curve.. - not flat as it is..

-Monte

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-12-2006, 08:38 AM:

No SDDS 8 on this one.

When I watched it the first time, I completely missed the entire opening race scene. Then I wrote my review. Then I managed to catch the opening race this weekend. All I can say is: Holy shit, that looks freakin awesome! Way to go Pixar! That is without a doubt, far and away, the best computer animation I have ever seen. [thumbsup]

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-12-2006, 12:57 PM:

quote: David Stambaugh
Does a theatre get penalized in a TAP evaluation for lab splices? Seems like whether they leave the splices in, or remove them, they'd be screwed.

Generally, a lab splice should only be remade if it falls in the middle of a frame. So three out of four should be remade. If the lab splice is on the frameline and won't be visible to the audience, leave it.

Since Kodak sells print film in 6000-foot lengths, hopefully on average, a lab splice occurs only once per three 2000-foot reels.

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 06-12-2006, 01:04 PM:

Pretty boring with a few good lines thrown in every once in a while. The best animation in the world cannot make up for the lack of a decent/interesting story.

Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 06-13-2006, 09:29 AM:

4/5

Mater was the best character in this. Very funny storyline that appealed to both kids and adults. I convinced the people at my showing, 10:30pm last night, about 10 spread out through the theatre, to stay till the end of the credits because I trusted you guys, that final scene was pretty funny.

There were a few scenes that had me in stitches, most of them with Mater, such as the tractor tipping, absolutely hysterical. Tha animation was STUNNING, almost felt like it was real. Agreed on the lenthginess, but I personally didn't care....Definately a DVD buy...

Oh and Rascal Flatts RULES

quote: Bobby Henderson
And I agree, the cover version of Tom Cochrane's Life Is a Highway kind of sucks compared to the original.

They did a great job on that cover....hell they do a great job on all their songs...

Posted by Tommie Evans (Member # 2674) on 06-13-2006, 10:58 AM:

Each frame of animation took on average 6 hours of computer processing time, some scenes with reflections, refractions, particle effects and radiosity took over 90 hours per frame! [Eek!]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-13-2006, 12:35 PM:

Who provided those figures? I only ask because that rendering time sounds a bit odd. It sounds grossly way over the amount of time a modern rendering farm would need, even for radiosity-based renderings.

2 hours of movie at 24fps equals 172800 frames
Multiply each frame times that stated average of 6 hours of render time. That comes out to 1036800 hours, or 43200 days, or 118.35616 years.

That's not even getting into that 90 hours per frame stuff.

The can of trash in Fight Club took a couple months to render -and was revised with an additional re-render. What's notable is that sequence was a radiosity based render -done in 1999. Computing horsepower has improved by quite an extreme in the last seven years.

I have to wonder if that inflated rendering time claimed for Cars is boiled down to what it would take one single CPU, CPU core or just one instruction pipeline in a CPU to do all that work. Most modern CPUs can handle several executions at once -and that's just in a single core CPU.

Most modern render farms are made up of armies of Linux-based or Windows-based PCs, either in box or blade form. It's common for render farm machines to have two or more processors. Some go eight-way or even larger. New servers are appearing featuring multiple processors with each processor having 2 to 8 cores.

Average computer users are going to start seeing their desktop machines get more and more parallel in nature. Dual core machines are already very common (I'm typing this note on one right now). Next year Quad Core CPUs are expected to become mainstream items for desktop machines. By 2010, you may find entry level PCs with 8-core CPUs and more expensive gaming machines having 2 or more of those Octo-Core processors.

Anyway, I realize the final render of Cars was a pretty daunting thing to produce. It really looks great -arguably better looking than any other CGI animated movie produced. The job demanded great engineering, custom software and a lot of render farm muscle to produce. But the 90 hours per frame thing sounds pretty questionable.

Posted by Robert Minichino (Member # 3495) on 06-13-2006, 01:15 PM:

Quoting CPU time instead of clock time is normal for cluster batch compute tasks, although I'm not so sure it is standard for quoting rendering times. I don't think it's misleading as it gives a good indication of exactly how much work it took to produce the output, which can then be sped up by doing bits of it in parallel. It's the same as quoting man-hours, man-years, etc.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-13-2006, 05:01 PM:

According to the "trivia" on IMDB.com, each frame took an average of 17 hours to render.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-13-2006, 05:50 PM:

So IMDB is claiming it took 335 years to render Cars?

That's what 17 hours per frame turns out to be for a 2 hour long movie.
[Roll Eyes]

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 06-13-2006, 07:11 PM:

Certainly they were rendering tens or even hundreds of frames simultaneously, thus making the entire process go faster and not requiring the hungdreds of years total. [Smile]

-Aaron

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 06-13-2006, 07:21 PM:

That would be the time for 1 computer to render all the frames in the movie. Or 200 systems rendering in parallel would take 1.675 years. Presumably Pixar has a lot more than 200 systems in their render farm.

The company I work for did the cinematics for the PS2 game Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror. A typical frame like this:

takes about 5 minutes to render on a 3GHz Dual-Core P4 with 3GB RAM. Some frames are faster, some are slower, but 5 minutes is probably a good average. This was using 3D Studio Max 6.

FWIW, an Intel Dual-Core P4 running at 3GHz outperforms a HyperThreaded P4 running at 3.2 or 3.4GHz by 10%-20% on these rendering tasks. Same FSB and memory speed on both (800MHz, 533MHz respectively). (We also tested on a comparable AMD Dual-Core and it was about 10% faster than the Intel systems.)

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-14-2006, 01:16 AM:

quote: David Stambaugh
Presumably Pixar has a lot more than 200 systems in their render farm.

Yeah, you can buy a helluva lot of computers for $7 billion. [Cool]

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-14-2006, 07:39 AM:

quote: David Stambaugh
Presumably Pixar has a lot more than 200 systems in their render farm.

Renderman can also take advantage of any computers on the network while they're idle. So at night, when everyone goes home, all the desktop workstations can start rendering. I'm assuming that Pixar utilizes that feature of Renderman - since they did create the program.

I wonder if the complicated animation was the reason for this being pushed back. I seem to remember that it was originally scheduled for release last November, but I could be wrong.

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 06-14-2006, 06:04 PM:

Pretty entertaining, much better than I thought it would be. I had a bad feeling about this one, but it didn't let me down. It didn't have the same feeling of scope and originality as the Toy Story movies or The Incredibles, but not every film can. It's still far, far better than most of what's in theaters these days.

One thing that kept bugging me during this movie: while I realize a good animator can make anything seem lifelike, these are basically solid objects. There's a limit to how expressive they can be. When it's just two of them sitting around talking, it sometimes gets a little boring. However, that's a minor nitpick.

Also, while I appreciate the fact that the film was printed on Kodak Vision Premiere, and that Technicolor did such a great job printing it, it still seems to me that the image quality was not as good as it could have been. It was still just a little fuzzy and indistinct. I know it's possible to transfer digital images to film and get better results than that, since we see it all the time from other studios. Pixar is probably still using their own "Pixarvision" laser recorder, instead of letting a company like EFilm run off the dupe negatives for them. Hate to sound like an EFilm fanboy, but all the best digital-to-film transfers I've seen have been done by them. Pixar should investigate the possibility of either outsourcing or upgrading their equipment.

"Spot the jaggies": right after the two cars pass through town asking for directions, and Sally is saying "Well, they know where we are", look at Ramone's front grill in the background. You can see jaggies on the edges of the grill lines as he's moving up and down.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-14-2006, 10:55 PM:

Rendering farms and large networks of computers can do mind boggling tasks. Google is finishing work on another data crunching center in the Dalles, OR. The center features two buildings each of which could fit a football field inside each. They just opened another big data center near Atlanta. Overall, Google has hundreds of thousands of computers crunching data.

It's pretty much common knowledge massively parallel systems are being used for all kinds of tasks, including making movies.

That's also why I think it is laughably ridiculous for sites like IMDB to post flat, unexplained claims about how many hours it took to render just one frame of Cars. If they're going to claim "6", "17" or even "90" hours per frame they need to explain that claim.

What would actually be more interesting is to know how many Intel PCs or CPUs were used to render Cars and how long it took the entire render farm to render one frame.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 06-15-2006, 12:17 AM:

The "Cars" Digital Cinema Venues List has been updated. This will primarily be of interest to those residing in Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, and West Virginia.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-19-2006, 10:47 AM:

Found this article on the rendering of Cars.

Note, for some reason, FT keeps parsing [url=http... into [url= http... (note the space) so here it is spelled out.

Link here: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=92075

quote:

Pixar
APRIL 13, 2006

SAN DIEGO -- Storage Networking World -- Hollywood movie maker Pixar, famous for movies such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo, has been wrestling with a massive data challenge during the production of its latest release, Cars, according to Greg Brandeau, Pixar's VP of technology.

During his keynote here today, Brandeau explained that Cars, which is slated for a June release, has put more strain on his internal systems than any other movie, swallowing up a colossal 2,300 CPU years over the course of the last five years. In other words, in Brandeau's view, a single CPU would have to run for 2,300 years in order to do all the number crunching for this movie.

"Cars is the most ambitious film we have ever made, the frames are way more complex. We used 300 times more compute power to make Cars than Toy Story," he explained.

Brandeau added that the rendering system used for animation was creaking under the strain of the new release, prompting a rethink of the firm's storage strategy. "We realized that our rendering time was taking too long. Frames were taking 10 hours [to render] that should have taken one hour."

According to Brandeau, it was not the rendering system, which is based on Dell servers, that was causing the slowdown. On closer inspection, an NFS file system feeding data to the Dell boxes was found to be the source of the problem. "Our central file system was getting hammered in a way it had never been hammered before. The NFS caches couldn't go fast enough -- they did not have enough RAM on them."

Although he did not reveal which vendor provided the NFS, Brandeau confirmed that it was woefully inadequate for the demands of the new movie. "A gigabyte of memory on our file server heads was nowhere near good enough," he said, adding that Pixar needed something in the region of 32 Gbytes.

Like many other users, Brandeau and his team found salvation in a SAN. (See Opinion: Finding God in a SAN.) Pixar eventually opted to replace the NFS with a SAN based on an EMC CX700 box, linked to Dell Linux servers running parallel file system software from startup Ibrix.

The new system, which was deployed last year, has helped cut Pixar's rendering times to their previous levels, while keeping hardware costs to a minimum. "We only have eight little Linux boxes that are serving up that data. We believe strongly that commodity hardware with lots of heads is the way to solve this problem."

This fits in nicely with Pixar's corporate ethos, according to the exec. "When we got started, we didn’t have two nickels to rub together. We never bought the big SGI boxes or InfiniBand -- we use basic Ethernet and standard Dell boxes."

This, apparently, was Ibrix's big selling point. "The idea they have is that instead of building special-purpose hardware, they solve the problem by using inexpensive, CPUs."

Pixar is not the only organization to go down this route. Last year the National Center For Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and Amazon.com subsidiary Alexa Internet all opted for commodity-hardware approaches to their file storage. (See NCSA Selects Ibrix, UT Deploys Ibrix , and Alexa Adopts Ibrix.)

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 07-04-2006, 03:00 PM:

Good movie. Incredible animation. Not a pixar classic but still fun and entertaining. It would have been even better if it was 1/2 hour shorter.

The backgrounds were incredibly realistic. Pixar should open a division to do digital EFX work for live action films.

BTW, why is there a Negative Cutter listed in the credits?

3 1/2 out of 5

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-04-2006, 07:33 PM:

Pixar's Renderman software is used to do special effects in live action films.

In fact, according to Pixar's web site,

quote:
Every movie nominated for a Visual Effects Oscar in the last 10 years relied on Pixar's RenderMan.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-05-2006, 09:28 PM:

Good show. It wasn't up to the standards of the Incredibles, but I really enjoyed it and it was one of the better films released this year.

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 07-07-2006, 06:58 AM:

I'm not so sure about that stat regarding Renderman's usage. It certainly is very widely used, but there are other renderers out there. Just look at this list of movies that used Mental Ray. Surely there's at least one recent Visual Effects Oscar nominee on that list?

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-07-2006, 10:48 AM:

Surely there are. Note that Pixar didn't say "exclusively".

Posted by Matt Kerekes (Member # 2777) on 07-08-2006, 11:40 AM:

I really liked this one also, it was funny and I want to see it again, I took my 2 year old daughter and I'm sure I liked it more than she did. I'm just a big kid.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 07-17-2006, 02:54 AM:

Just saw this last Friday night.

I loved it from minute #1 right through to minute #116.

Mater makes the show alright, but there's so much more to this film than a funny sidekick.

Favorite scene has to be the tractor tipping closely followed by the Ferrari scene at the end in the Tire shop. Very funny.

4.5 out of 5

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 05-10-2008, 01:23 AM:

It has been 662 days since the last post.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-10-2008, 01:23 AM:

BUMP.

Hope this doesn't get me into any trouble, but I bought a copy of Cars on Blu-ray. The DVD looked very good, at least in terms of how DVDs are expected to look.

The 1080p video on the Blu-ray disc of Cars is outstanding.

Out of the 16 movies I now have on Blu-ray I think this one has the best video quality. I think this BD looks even a bit better than Ratatouille, which is also widely considered to be a "reference quality" 1080p disc. Anyone looking into a Blu-ray setup should definitely consider the Cars disc as worthwhile demo material.

Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 07-26-2008, 06:54 PM:

I missed this in theatres and just got to see it on the DVD.

I am surprised the screenwriters of the 1991 "Doc Hollywood" haven't sued Pixar for plagerism as the script for Cars was stolen almost scene-for-scene and character-for-character from that prior Michael J. Fox movie. Started out slow but like Doc Hollywood by the end it had you caring.

2 1/2 stars out 4.