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Quantel Pablo deployed for Avatar
1 January 2010The landmark film Avatar is a massively ambitious project that combines live action Stereo3D with cutting edge 3D animation. Around 75 percent of the shots in the movie are VFX shots, which were completed at facilities all round the world and then brought together at US West Coast facility Modern VideoFilm for conforming and Stereo3D checking, adjustment and quality control.
The work was completed on Pablo, which included three Quantel Pablo Stereo3D systems. Crucially, the Pablos also handled all the Stereo3D English subtitling required for the Na’vi language used by some characters in the film.
Every frame of the film as well as all the trailers and promotions passed through Modern’s pipeline. The project went though a rigorous pipeline which required finishing in both 2D and 3D and at three different aspect ratios.
To deal with the massive workload, Modern set up a powerful and efficient post-production pipeline using a wide range of equipment. All the shots were re-named to a common naming strategy as soon as they arrived at Modern and are distributed onto the company’s SAN.
From here they were pulled into the Quantel Pablo systems where they were first checked using Pablo’s realtime Stereo3D toolset for stereo and technical quality, then conformed against multiple lists from editorial, requiring speed and accuracy. The pipeline continued with grading and finally, shots requiring subtitling for the alien Na’vi language, were passed back to the Pablos.
“We ran our three Pablos pretty much 24/7 for six months,” says Modern VideoFilm supervising editor, Roger Berger, who has worked on a number of Stereo3D projects including James Cameron’s ‘Ghosts of the Abyss’.
“One of the Pablos has an incredible 12,000 clips online, and all three machines were running pretty much full throughout. With a project of this complexity, it’s a real benefit to be able to bounce anywhere in the entire movie at any time,” Berger adds. “Quantel gave us terrific support. They were there for us and spring into action when we need them.”
Subtitling the Stereo3D versions is a complex process as the subtitles must sit at the right place in 3D space to avoid conflict with the 3D content. The Pablo’s real time Stereo3D toolset enables the subtitles to be viewed instantly and repositioned in 3D space in real time. Berger enjoyed the luxury of being able to see the Stereo3D effects as he created them. “I can’t imagine doing this project without the Pablo’s real time Stereo3D and the total flexibility it gave me,” Berger concludes.
BlueArc storage solution powers Avatar VFX
New Zealand’s Weta Digital spent close to two years on the production of James Cameron’s sci-fi film Avatar and it was by far the most data-intensive project the company had ever worked on. Weta had 750 artists and a renderwall of more than 34,000 cores. Tasked to deliver groundbreaking animation and scene development, Weta relied on a BlueArc storage solution to manage unprecedented rendering workloads with high performance.
This unique process resulted in unprecedented demands on animation rendering workflows and storage infrastructure. To keep pace, Weta used a clustered system of 12 Titan servers to store and manage over 500 terabytes of data feeding thousands of render nodes acting in concert to produce the special effects for Avatar, as well as an additional 700 terabytes of nearline storage.
“Going in, we knew this was going to be a big project so we needed a storage solution that could not only handle the immense load, but also have the flexibility to grow with the project,” said Paul Ryan, chief technology officer at Weta Digital. “The project grew so big that we ended up doubling our BlueArc storage infrastructure in the last six months of production, and the integration and scalability of the new clusters were quick and painless.”
Even as artists worked around the clock placing constant demands on the storage system, BlueArc delivered consistent performance, allowing Weta to keep production on schedule, without the burden of downtime or aborted jobs.
Weta’s environment contains both large and small files, and unpredictable combinations of sequential and random access, producing one of the most demanding throughput and I/O-intensive storage environments in existence. At peak production for Avatar, the BlueArc system served over 34,000 cores on the render farm, handling 16,000 concurrent read and write processes 24-hours-a-day at a sustained load of 8 gigabytes per second. BlueArc’s ability to sustain this level of throughput even as more render nodes were added was critical in helping Weta accelerate workflow for artists while removing major bottlenecks and simplifying data management.
“Various best-of-breed storage solutions make up our computing core, each used for the solutions’ unique capabilities and advantages,” Ryan continued. “Where we need flat-out performance, speed and reliability in handling work on the scale of thousands of concurrent read and write renders with sustained IOPs and throughput, BlueArc is the clear choice.”
