NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics when it invented the GPU in 1999.
In addition to the host of GPU-accelerated tools ILM developed to meet the demands of this film, they're currently developing new GPU-based toolsets in their upcoming productions.įor more information about NVIDIA Quadro Professional Graphics Solutions, please visit Follow NVIDIA Quadro on YouTube and Twitter: NVIDIA The first fully animated feature film by ILM, Rango was released in theaters on Maand rocketed to the top box office spot in its opening weekend. "ILM's growing GPU integration and the dramatic impact it has made on their workflow ultimately benefits filmgoers, who continue to be delighted by ILM's innovative visual effects."
"Our ongoing work with ILM to drive GPU optimization for visual effects and CG creation has led to incredible results," said Dominick Spina, technology manager, Digital Film Group, NVIDIA.
'That Means We Ride' (Rango film clip featuring several of the ILM CG characters, plus dust, other VFX) With "ObaQ," ILM's Academy Award-winning render queue system, NVIDIA processors were automatically utilized by the render system when an artist logged out at the end of the workday. 'Rolling Bottle' (some ILM visual effects highlights from Rango)įurthermore, the hundreds of GPU cores in each artist's workstation also boosted the performance of ILM's GPU render farm during off-business hours. The pipeline shortcut resulted in speed increases of up to 100 times, depending on how complicated the hair or feathers were within a given sequence. The occlusion data provided a preview of hair or feathers, and was fed into Pixar's RenderMan renderer for a final pass. In order to accommodate the massive amounts of rendering required to generate the frames, ILM developed a GPU-accelerated process to calculate lighting occlusion. Rango's crowd scenes feature up to 120 variations of 75 key characters - each one with either hair, fur or feathers on their body. instead of 'motion capture' it's kind of 'emotion capture'') Previously it would have taken one or two days to simulate the same scene," continued Alexander.Īctor Johnny Depp 'Behind the Scenes Natural Acting Experience' interview ('. "With NVIDIA GPU acceleration in Plume, we're getting real-time feedback on dust and fire. Plume was also used to simulate fire in one scene, the main character Rango belches flames, setting a saloon patron ablaze. By using the GPU to bake shadows and lighting into the simulation, we saved a tremendous amount of time and achieved a more realistic effect by having all of the detail of the object that's casting the shadow actually in the shadow itself." In the past we would fake those biometric ray-type effects or any sort of shading in the composite phase. For Rango, new shadow and lighting features were built into Plume to make dust and fire simulations more realistic, contributing to the unique look of the environments envisioned for the film.Īlexander explains, "If we have a character standing in the key light, he'll actually cast a shadow into the dust, smoke or fire. ILM's proprietary GPU-accelerated fluid solver/renderer "Plume" has been used on several films, including Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Last Airbender. "By using NVIDIA Quadro processors and building GPU-accelerated processes into our workflow, we saved a huge amount of rendering time." "Whenever you're approaching a film of this scale you need to make your production pipeline operate as efficiently as possible - especially when it comes to character animation work," said Tim Alexander, VFX supervisor for Rango. The artists benefited from the speed of the graphics processing unit (GPU) when using animation tools such as Autodesk Maya, along with a range of ILM's in-house applications. SANTA CLARA, CA - In Rango, the new Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon animated film directed by Gore Verbinski, visual effects facility Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) was able to overcome production demands and timeline challenges with the help of NVIDIA® Quadro® professional graphics solutions.Īpproximately 450 ILM artists located in San Francisco and Singapore worked on Rango, each on a workstation equipped with NVIDIA Quadro solutions.
Professional GPUs Slice Render Times Substantially and Help Bring a Cast of 120 Computer-Generated Desert Creatures to Life