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Mac Pro and Pixar today

PixarPost said:
Hey everyone - just so you all know - the video called, "Painting the Future" is now up at the Apple Developer Video page for free if you have a developer account (which is also free to sign up for). Or, we'll be summarizing the video shortly on our original post that discussed the event here - http://www.pixarpost.com/2013/06/pixar-to-conduct-special-lunchtime.html.

Again, the video is a demo of the Mari software as developed by The Foundry. Pixar demonstrates the power of the new Mac Pro by putting it through the ringer with their character animation. (More details are included in our first post on page one of this thread).

Hope this helps!

Pixar Post - T.J.
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COOL!!

Thank you!:cool:
 
Great demo, and it's amazing what the new machine is capable of. The big question is how well suited is it to work outside of video and animation (such as audio), with so much GPU power relative to CPU.

If Apple can get more developers to code for openCL, this thing could be a game changer.
 
What am I going to do with my beloved Mac Pro 1,1? Fine, just take my money and give me the iGarbage now! I hate you, Apple!
 
Nevermind. For some reason it wouldn't let me register logged in to my regular AppleID. Had to create a new one to get it to work.

And now of course I'm at work using Internet Explorer so it looks like it'll have to wait until I can get home to Safari.
 
milo said:
The demo was for 3500 people. How exactly do you figure Apple would figure out which of those made an anonymous post on a web forum, and kick them out?
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Would it really be worth that risk?
 
michaelz said:
What am I going to do with my beloved Mac Pro 1,1? Fine, just take my money and give me the iGarbage now! I hate you, Apple!
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What are you on about? Do you even have any idea how powerful this will be?

The 1,1 is slower on geekbench (4114-5314) than a 2011 mini (5817)

Hell it's faster than my 2008 Pro (5807)

This tiny little jet engine is going to be in the region of 40000-50000 !!!
 
This was an amazing presentation. It's going to take all I have not to grab Mari during its 40% off sale (which will translate to a Mac license when the Mac OS version is released according to Jack Greasley).

How anyone can be in doubt of the new Pro after seeing that demo is beyond me. Thats a huge amount of processing that computer handled.
 
Hello again - additionally, I wanted to note for those people that are having a hard time signing up for a developer account (or those who don't want to), we have posted an entire in-depth review of the speech on our post titled, Pixar's Speech at the Apple WWDC Demonstrating MARI on the New Mac Pro.

As a high-level review from the Mac Pro standpoint (taking out the Pixar animation discussion), they don't talk about specific stats on the Mac Pro, but Jack Greasely (MARI Product Manager) talks about how great it is as an out-of-the-box computer that has multiple GPU's. Also, Jonathan Hoffman (Pixar's Character Shading Technical Director) says that although he's used MARI for years, this is the smoothest he's ever seen it run. It's also really cool to see the Mac Pro on the desktop next to the monitor - it looks so tiny as opposed to my Mac Pro now which would collapse my desk if I put it on top of it now! :eek:

I was hoping for a few more stats or more attention on the Mac Pro, but I understand the purpose was to demonstrate the software. If you're into art at all, the texturing demo is amazing and the story of how Apple shipped him the computer to use (ahead of it's release) in a huge box (so he wouldn't know what it looked like) is funny!

Pixar Post - T.J.
 
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The demo was mainly about the software and "boy the hardware is fast"

The only tidbit is the second presenter slipped that "he is really excited to get one of these in the Fall".

So it will, no surprise really, be released in the Fall.
 
Isn't asking Pixar to demo and give reactions to a machine akin to a father asking his favorite child what the child thinks of him?
 
chrono1081 said:
This was an amazing presentation. It's going to take all I have not to grab Mari during its 40% off sale (which will translate to a Mac license when the Mac OS version is released according to Jack Greasley).

How anyone can be in doubt of the new Pro after seeing that demo is beyond me. Thats a huge amount of processing that computer handled.
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Well the doubt lies with more than just software for many. And to be fair, this was a demo of the software. You're not seeing it the context of other available hardware.
 
handsome pete said:
Well the doubt lies with more than just software for many. And to be fair, this was a demo of the software. You're not seeing it the context of other available hardware.
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yes, imagine how much more interesting the demo would have been with a current 12 core running same things alongside

odd they didn't try
 
MacVidCards said:
yes, imagine how much more interesting the demo would have been with a current 12 core running same things alongside

odd they didn't try
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It was really just to demo the software, it wasn't a benchmark bakeoff. The demo was really about Mari, that happened to feature the Mac Pro.

That said, because Mari (I believe) is OpenCL based, it would probably kick around a current stock 12 Mac Pro pretty easy. If you put dual GPUs in a current Mac Pro of an equivalent class it might do as well, and probably add a PCI-E SSD to push that kind of bandwidth the demo required. But that is where the new Mac Pro was described as a good turn key system.

Derpage said:
Isn't asking Pixar to demo and give reactions to a machine akin to a father asking his favorite child what the child thinks of him?
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The person doing the actual work in Mari was Pixar, but the person before was from The Foundry, not Pixar.

cmanderson said:
Those definitely are not current Thunderbolt displays. Noticed the ports while watching the video.
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They were possibly iMacs with Thunderbolt input (iMacs can act as a display.)
 
MacVidCards said:
yes, imagine how much more interesting the demo would have been with a current 12 core running same things alongside

odd they didn't try
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They picked a piece of software that is insane in itself. Mari is known for handling resolution levels that you couldn't feed to other aplications. You could work with them, just not simultaneously. Smaller Windows vendors do this too. Look at how fast it runs on our top hardware spec. It's magic:rolleyes:. For the studios that might use it, it represents the ability to work in a different manner. It doesn't mean you can't run that without a Mac, but I suspect the demo will still drive some amount of sales.


goMac said:
It was really just to demo the software, it wasn't a benchmark bakeoff. The demo was really about Mari, that happened to feature the Mac Pro.

That said, because Mari (I believe) is OpenCL based, it would probably kick around a current stock 12 Mac Pro pretty easy. If you put dual GPUs in a current Mac Pro of an equivalent class it might do as well, and probably add a PCI-E SSD to push that kind of bandwidth the demo required. But that is where the new Mac Pro was described as a good turn key system.
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5870s can run OpenCL. On Windows it was always CUDA based, or at least required an NVidia card.
 
I am kind of more impressed with the projector used in the Pixar demonstration, and possible the main Apple Keynote too, even sitting here and watching a low bitrate video from the Pixar event, or "Painting the future", the contrast, colors and brightness in the intro looked pretty good on such a big projector screen, it must have looked pretty good sitting there in the audience.

Anyone know what projector they used?

(Maybe it didnt impress others, i may very well just be used with our crappy projectors in our cinemas around here)
 
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