A few nights ago I watched Avatar for the second time in 3-D, in an effort to qualify the difference between regular 3D and IMAX 3D. The difference was astounding, both in the picture quality due to the 10x resolution jump IMAX frames provide, the super-sound and the fact that many scenes seemed to have far more depth with detail. One aspect in particular, people seem to agree with, is that the scenes with the holographic computer consoles had obvious clarity in both the foreground and background compared to the normal 3-D where computer consoles in the background just become a blurry mess. You could read the writing on truck tires, the side of weapons, and other small places that gave you a real appreciation for the level of detail.
The real highlight for me was not related to IMAX at all. It was when a colleague of mine shared with me the news that the super-computing power required for the animation, that supposedly delayed the creation of Avatar for James Cameron for more than a decade, came from a multi-core Ubuntu system. Awesome. My online source Jordan Hall is here.
The real facts of this mega-Debian-SMP system at Weta Digital are apparently:
- 35,000 cores
- over 4000 Hewlett Packard Blade servers
- each minute of rendering equates to approximately 17.28GB of data
- 10Gbit SAN
- nVidia Graphics
Below is an impressive photo of the water cooling required for the system. It actually looks more like an HVAC room given the size of the pipes, and lack of any obvious computer related equipment.
I know of some other facts that may have a relationship at work here.
- HP was an early adopter of Debian Support, making it an ideal hardware sponsor
- “Toy Story” (1995) was the first feature-length computer-animated film, so successful it pretty much pushed hand-drawn animation to the sideline. It is also the source for all Debian distribution names. (Potato, Woody, Etch, Lenny)
Weta Digital were involved in “District 9″ and “i,Robot” (which I enjoyed) among others.
Some other links with more info:
Information Management
IT World
This funny bit was added after the fact; Perhaps there is some magic in the storyline that goes beyond the animation. 
