ROTK tech. logisitical details
Tue Nov 25, 2003 11:27 am
Thought this might be of interest to some folks. From the Wired story:
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Gollum is real. So is Shelob. And Middle-earth did exist - just a long, long time ago. At least that's what Weta Digital, the visual effects house behind The Lord of the Rings trilogy, wants you to believe. Its mantra for the final installment: photorealism. The Return of the King, which opens in theaters December 17, will feature almost 50 percent more f/x shots than The Two Towers and will be composed of more data than the first two movies combined. Churning out scenes like the destruction of Barad-dûr and the Battle of Pelennor Fields (with thousands of bloodthirsty CG Orcs) took 3,200 processors running at teraflop speeds through 10-gig pipes - that's one epic renderwall. What else went into making Frodo's quest look so good? By Weta's account, more than you might think.
WETA BY THE NUMBERS
HUMANPOWER
IT staff: 35
Visual f/x staff: 420
HARDWARE
Equipment rooms: 5
Desktop computers: 600
Servers in renderwall: 1,600
Processors (total): 3,200
Processors added 10 weeks before movie wrapped: 1,000
Time it took to get additional processors up and running: 2 weeks
Network switches: 10
Speed of network: 10 gigabits (100 times faster than most)
Temperature of equipment rooms: 76 degrees
Fahrenheit Weight of air conditioners needed to maintain that temperature: 1/2 ton
STORAGE
Disk: 60 terabytes
Near online: 72 terabytes
Digital backup tape: 0.5 petabyte (equal to 50,000 DVDs)
OUTPUT
Number of f/x shots: 1,400
Minimum number of frames per shot: 240
Average time to render one frame: 2 hours
Longest time: 2 days
Total screen time of f/x shots: 2 hours
Total length of film: Rumored to be 3.5 hours
Production time: 9 months
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Gollum is real. So is Shelob. And Middle-earth did exist - just a long, long time ago. At least that's what Weta Digital, the visual effects house behind The Lord of the Rings trilogy, wants you to believe. Its mantra for the final installment: photorealism. The Return of the King, which opens in theaters December 17, will feature almost 50 percent more f/x shots than The Two Towers and will be composed of more data than the first two movies combined. Churning out scenes like the destruction of Barad-dûr and the Battle of Pelennor Fields (with thousands of bloodthirsty CG Orcs) took 3,200 processors running at teraflop speeds through 10-gig pipes - that's one epic renderwall. What else went into making Frodo's quest look so good? By Weta's account, more than you might think.
WETA BY THE NUMBERS
HUMANPOWER
IT staff: 35
Visual f/x staff: 420
HARDWARE
Equipment rooms: 5
Desktop computers: 600
Servers in renderwall: 1,600
Processors (total): 3,200
Processors added 10 weeks before movie wrapped: 1,000
Time it took to get additional processors up and running: 2 weeks
Network switches: 10
Speed of network: 10 gigabits (100 times faster than most)
Temperature of equipment rooms: 76 degrees
Fahrenheit Weight of air conditioners needed to maintain that temperature: 1/2 ton
STORAGE
Disk: 60 terabytes
Near online: 72 terabytes
Digital backup tape: 0.5 petabyte (equal to 50,000 DVDs)
OUTPUT
Number of f/x shots: 1,400
Minimum number of frames per shot: 240
Average time to render one frame: 2 hours
Longest time: 2 days
Total screen time of f/x shots: 2 hours
Total length of film: Rumored to be 3.5 hours
Production time: 9 months
Tue Nov 25, 2003 12:52 pm
Wow. I think we're in for a treat come December 17th.
-Bagginses
-Bagginses
Tue Nov 25, 2003 3:13 pm
I wonder if any of there computers were overclocked... 
Or if they ran into driver compatbility issues like the rest of us? hehehehe
Or if they ran into driver compatbility issues like the rest of us? hehehehe
Tue Nov 25, 2003 3:34 pm
Maybe if they'd overclocked their servers, they could've cut the render time down from 2 days to maybe 36 hours or so... 
Tue Nov 25, 2003 4:58 pm
lol you guys arr funny.