Technologies used in Hollywood blockbusters

[Binod Kumar]

Hi Group,
I want to know what is the technology and programming language used in Hollywood's blockbuster movies like Shrek, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Narnia, Jurassic Park series etc . And in what percentage amount which technology is used.

Thanks n Regards
Binod

[ZbuffeR]

Simple : all of them. A lot of in-house programming, RIB files, etc.

[Brolingstanz]

What are you suggesting for OpenGL? Hardware photon mapping?

P.S. I was stunned, stunned to learn that final frame rendering in those movies can take anywhere from 6 to 90 hours to complete 1 frame of animation, even with the monster render farms deep pockets will buy you. Just goes to show that even in the big leagues there's always room for improvement (or a few more PCs).

[yooyo]

Im working in motion capture company.. we didnt work movies above, but I know few peoples in Weta Digital. From their story, it is all custom maded toos, sometime they use commercial applications, but just as part of pipeline.

Motion capture stuff was done using optical Motion Analysis system, or Vicon or Giant Studio. Motion is edited in custom tools or in Motion Builder.

Massive fight scenes was created with inhouse tool called Massive (now it is commercial package). Massive is used for Sony PS2 ad when milions of peoples creates mountain i middle of the city.

Rendering is another story. For LOTR they used massive render farm (3200 computers). 2400 of them was blades running Linux. Each frame was rendered in severaal passes in very high resolution (4000x3000) in 32bit or 64bit color. I dont know which sw renderer they used.