IBM's role in Lord of the Rings finale
IBM's role in Lord of the Rings finale
Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson's special effects company Weta Digital has taken delivery of 588 IBM blade servers, to help it create the effects required for the final instalment of the movie trilogy, The Return of the King.
The servers, each of which contains two 2.8 gigahertz Intel Xeon processors, would be worth close on $5 million on list prices, though in an interview with The New Zealand Herald, Weta Digital's chief technical officer Scott Houston hinted that the special effects company had paid a more modest sum.
"IBM was particularly aggressive on its pricing. We are very pleased with the relationship we have with them."
The addition of the new seven racks of blade servers, when added to Wega's existing 15-rack server cluster, will make up the world's largest Intel-based high performance computer site, comprising over 2000 linked processors.
The servers will be used to manipulate the frames drawn by the animators, adding texture and colour and meshing the images with the live footage.
Houston added that Wega Digital differed from most production houses, which bid for work and pay for the equipment needed to fulfil the project out of the price, in the New Line Cinema recognises that technology plays such an intrinsic part in putting together the movie and so bankrolls the technology needed Weta needs to complete its task. Of course, the fact that director Peter Jackson also owns Weta can't hurt.
"New Line understands Peter's vision and understands it is bound by technology, so it makes sure technology is not a bottleneck. In the big scheme, a few million dollars for a couple of thousand processors will pay dividends."
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