News

In an interesting tale of penguins giving life to penguins, the smash hit animated feature film Happy Feet was creating with Linux servers and desktops, in addition to Windows 2000 and XP.

Sydney-based Animal Logic runs a 2000 machine render farm with a total 4000 CPUs to process its digital animation work for a variety of purposes, including visual effects for TV commercials, contributing to blockbusters like The Matrix and 300, and its first feature-length animation movie in Happy Feet which was released last year.

Since a Computerworld report on Animal Logic's use of the now unsupported Windows NT, new information has surfaced indicated the company migrated off that platform about three years ago.

Sublime Solutions' managing director James Bourne worked for Animal Logic and assisted in building its render farm and told Computerworld Michael Twigg is "completely incorrect" in his assertion that Windows NT is used by Animal Logic.

"The farm at Animal Logic in 2005 - during the production of Happy Feet - was Linux and Windows 2000," Bourne said, adding desktops were predominantly a mix of Linux and Windows XP.

"Domain controllers were Windows 2003. We migrated out of NT during 2004."

Animal Logic's use of Linux is certainly not unusual among movie production studios, with the likes of DreamWorks, Disney, Weta Digital, and another local company Rising Sun Pictures.