Compaq Web Advisory: "Bunny" Film Hops On Oscar Ballot Thanks to Compaq's AlphaServers; Blue Sky Studios Turns to the Power of Alpha for Record Rendering.HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 18, 1998--The "Bunny" film, a short animated film produced by Blue Sky Studios Blue Sky Studios is an Academy Award winning computer animation studio which specializes in photo-realistic, high-resolution, computer-generated character animation and rendering. of Harrison, New York Harrison is a town/village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 24,154 at the 2000 census. The village is coterminous with the town of the same name, and has a consolidated town/village government. has been nominated for an Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the category of "Best Animated Short Film." This computer animated short film, written and directed by Chris Wedge, was rendered entirely on Compaq Computer Corporation's (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange : CPQ CPQ Compaq CPQ Conseil du Patronat du Québec (Canada) CPQ Configure-Price-Quote CPQ Conseil de Presse du Québec (Québec Press Council, Canada) CPQ Companion Parrot Quarterly ) Alpha-based servers and Tru64 UNIX. Creation of computer generated images imitating natural lighting conditions typically take months. With the Alpha-based systems, Blue Sky Studios was able to complete the film in weeks, under a very tight deadline for submission to the Academy. http://www.blueskystudios.com Blue Sky Studios rendered "Bunny" in record-setting time by using 41 rack-mounted AlphaServer 4100s, each equipped with four 533 MHz Alpha processors, 4MB of cache, 2 GB of memory and a 4.3 GB drive. The company used its proprietary rendering software, which was ported to Compaq's Tru64 UNIX. In order to store the tremendous amount of data involved in creating computer generated images, Blue Sky Studios used 200 GB of Compaq's StorageWorks. Finished images were then transferred to DLT (Digital Linear Tape) A magnetic tape technology originally developed by Digital for its VAX line. The technology was later sold to Quantum, which makes it available to other manufacturers. DLT uses half-inch, single-hub cartridges similar to IBM's 3480/3490/3590 line. tape and shuttled to Blue Sky Studios. The systems were interconnected via a switched 100baseT network. Blue Sky Studios saw a 2.1x performance improvement over the fastest systems that they owned. For more details, please visit Compaq's Web site at: http://www.digital.com/alphaserver/products/hollywood/index.html Company Background: Compaq Computer Corporation (company) Compaq Computer Corporation - The largest US manufacturer and vendor of IBM PC compatible personal computers and servers. Compaq was started in 1982 by three ex-Texas Instruments employees. Quarterly sales $2499M, profits $210M (Aug 1994). http://compaq.com/. , a Fortune Global 100 company, is the second largest computer company in the world and the largest global supplier of computer systems. For more corporate information, see: http://www.compaq.com/. Compaq, Registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. |
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