Newest Sony Release "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" is #1 Box OfficeHit, Visual Effects Production Powered by NVIDIA Quadro Processors
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Sept. 29, 2009-NVIDIA Corporation, the inventor of
the graphics processing unit (GPU), announced today that Sony Pictures
Imageworks (SPI) utilized NVIDIA® Quadro® processors to accelerate
animation and visual effects production of their latest hit film "Cloudy
With a Chance of Meatballs".
Opening to audiences across the U.S. on September 18th, the 3-D animated
film continues to storm through the box office, grossing over $60 million
in revenue since its premiere, making it the #1 film nationwide. "Cloudy
With a Chance of Meatballs" continues to enthrall audiences with its
groundbreaking computer animation and extensive use of visual effects
created on NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics solutions.
The memorable 'spaghetti tornado' scene includes elements rendered using
SPLAT, SPI's proprietary volumetric rendering tool designed to run on the
NVIDIA Quadro GPU. Atmospheric effects rendered in SPLAT not only included
dust clouds, fire and sparks, but also -- for the very first time -- tomato
sauce.
"For visual effects artists to be most effective using computer animation
tools, it's all about the speed and especially the user experience,"
explained Rob Bredow, CTO, Sony Pictures Imageworks. "When an artist can do
10 times as many iterations of an effect in the same amount of time, the
quality of the end product will be that much better."
"Our goal with leveraging NVIDIA Quadro GPUs, and other new technologies we
integrate, is to make our artists' lives better by helping them be more
productive," continued Bredow. "Renders that would have taken 45 minutes or
more to run on a CPU, are now cut down to just 20 seconds on our NVIDIA
GPU-based pipeline. With this system, the creative process has been
transformed from tedious to fun."
In addition to a heavily integrated GPU render pipeline, SPI has deployed
NVIDIA Quadro professional solutions on all of its artists' workstations.
The power of the NVIDIA processor enabled 24 frames-per-second, real-time
previews of highly complex, data-intensive scenes in Autodesk Maya,
presenting animators with more accurate representations of their work.
Discussing work performed on "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs", Bredow
will be a featured speaker at the upcoming GPU Technology Conference in San
Jose, CA, Sept. 30-Oct. 2. Bredow will participate in a panel discussion
entitled "The GPU Revolution in Film Production: Report from the
Battlefield," joining industry experts from Industrial Light & Magic (ILM),
Disney Feature Animation and Digital Domain.
"GPU-based render pipelines are gaining momentum, and the early adopters
such as Sony Pictures Imageworks are experiencing massive speed increases
and a much higher degree of interactivity," said Dominick Spina, technology
product manager, Digital Film Group, NVIDIA. "Software developers from all
industries can learn from the groundbreaking GPU-based techniques that Sony
has successfully employed in filmmaking."
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics
when it invented the graphics processing unit (GPU) in 1999. Since then, it
has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking,
interactive graphics available on devices ranging from portable media
players to notebooks to workstations. NVIDIA's expertise in programmable
GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make
supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. Fortune magazine has
ranked NVIDIA #1 in innovation in the semiconductor industry for two years
in a row. For more information, see www.nvidia.com.
# # #
© 2009 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo,
and Quadro are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA
Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other company and product
names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are
associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject
to change without notice.
tools, it's all about the speed and especially the user experience,"
explained Rob Bredow, CTO, Sony Pictures Imageworks. "When an artist can do
10 times as many iterations of an effect in the same amount of time, the
quality of the end product will be that much better."
"Our goal with leveraging NVIDIA Quadro GPUs, and other new technologies we
integrate, is to make our artists' lives better by helping them be more
productive," continued Bredow. "Renders that would have taken 45 minutes or
more to run on a CPU, are now cut down to just 20 seconds on our NVIDIA
GPU-based pipeline. With this system, the creative process has been
transformed from tedious to fun."
In addition to a heavily integrated GPU render pipeline, SPI has deployed
NVIDIA Quadro professional solutions on all of its artists' workstations.
The power of the NVIDIA processor enabled 24 frames-per-second, real-time
previews of highly complex, data-intensive scenes in Autodesk Maya,
presenting animators with more accurate representations of their work.
Discussing work performed on "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs", Bredow
will be a featured speaker at the upcoming GPU Technology Conference in San
Jose, CA, Sept. 30-Oct. 2. Bredow will participate in a panel discussion
entitled "The GPU Revolution in Film Production: Report from the
Battlefield," joining industry experts from Industrial Light & Magic (ILM),
Disney Feature Animation and Digital Domain.
"GPU-based render pipelines are gaining momentum, and the early adopters
such as Sony Pictures Imageworks are experiencing massive speed increases
and a much higher degree of interactivity," said Dominick Spina, technology
product manager, Digital Film Group, NVIDIA. "Software developers from all
industries can learn from the groundbreaking GPU-based techniques that Sony
has successfully employed in filmmaking."
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics
when it invented the graphics processing unit (GPU) in 1999. Since then, it
has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking,
interactive graphics available on devices ranging from portable media
players to notebooks to workstations. NVIDIA's expertise in programmable
GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make
supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. Fortune magazine has
ranked NVIDIA #1 in innovation in the semiconductor industry for two years
in a row. For more information, see www.nvidia.com.
# # #
© 2009 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo,
and Quadro are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA
Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other company and product
names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are
associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject
to change without notice.
