Barnyard

Saturday 2 Dec 2006

To help bring "Barnyard" to life, Sun created an 80 terabyte high performance computing (HPC) render farm to generate animated images designed by a model software program. Running 1,200 Sun Fire V40z and Sun Fire V20z x64 (x86, 64-bit) servers powered by AMD Opteron processors, the render farm also includes Sun StorEdge 3510 and 3511 FC arrays, and Qlogic fibre channel switches. The production also utilized the Sun Java Workstation W2100z and Sun 24.1-inch LCD Flat Panel Monitors in its desktop environment to more efficiently edit final film. Allowing the 'Barnyard' production team to focus on its core strength - producing beautifully rendered animated films - Sun Services helped design and deploy the render farm.

No clue what the above means. All I know is that it took 1 week instead of 4 for the production so the movie could be released earlier.

Got tickets from Sun Microsystems to watch Barnyard. They booked all 10 theatres at Cineleisure for Sun customers. The move was at 10.30am. So had to wake up early. Early for a Saturday anyway.

It was pretty entertaining n funny. Rabbits seem to play supporting roles in quite a number of animal animations of late.

The move opens in cinemas 14 Dec 06. Watch the trailer.