March 26, 2014, GPU Technology Conference, San Jose, CA—James Fox from DawnRunner described the changes in visual effects workflows, and the consequences and impacts of changing technologies. New technologies are enabling small, independent visual effects companies to challenge existing philosophies.
Existing solutions to creating effects are very hard to scale. The complex tools and equipment interactions require greatly increased levels of IT support much beyond the normal levels of artists' support needed for other video production. In addition, existing solutions have very little flexibility as you are locked in to a hardware and software configuration. The problem is that effects production needs to change because artists are not IT people.
To illustrate the challenges, they decided to create their own movie called "Darkest Matter". This production took a total of 20 people including talent and video production people. All shots were on a green screen and most processing is done on workstations. The film was shot in 4K and finished in 2K resulting in many sacrifices due to limits on resources and equipment. 10 artists took about two weeks to process a scene.
Although the film received good reviews, they decided they didn't like the results. They changed their infrastructure to a GPU focused workflow, and finished the film in 4K. This configuration took three artists only one week to create the visual effects for a scene. The time-saving lead to greatly increased creativity and a much better look for the film.
The changes in their workflow had three major aspects. In the old system, all work was done on separate computers leading many resources on used at times. The individual workstations fed a render farm with fixed resources. As a result, it's very difficult to scale the process, and very hard to integrate freelancers to offload parts of the production. The software costs a lot of money and requires a three or four year commitment for the large suites of tools which cannot scale. The workflow dictates a platform, so infrastructure is fixed with no flexibility.
The new version dynamically allocates pools of resources to maximize CPU and GPU cycle use. The workstations have virtualized desktops with GPU functionality, which allows remote inputs and scalability. This remote compute system allows assets, render, and hardware to all be integrated which allows the artists to work remotely. The virtualized servers provide a different machine for each function.
Now the applications have a central version control and simpler updates and maintenance. In the visual effects industry, the applications are constantly changing, so it is very difficult to isolate work and software versions from other users. The applications are becoming nimble and also the software companies are allowing licensing on a per use basis rather than a lifetime purchase.
As a result, they can now have the software available on a shot to shot rental basis, which greatly increases flexibility as workloads change. The virtual system allows a seamless change of platforms per application, and all applications are GPU accelerated. This acceleration allows for lots of experiments on various effects by just bringing up a new desktop. This flow allows for comparisons of visual effects without the need to create completely separate assets, or having to rebuild a complete scene.
Now they have a standard homogenized workflow that has eliminated most handoffs. The artists just have to do their work and freelancers can access company assets and software without the issues of security and data leakage. The whole system is highly scalable.
Benefits of also accrued to the business operations. In the old system, the largest demand determines the infrastructure and they needed a large number of people both artists and IT to keep equipment running. The system could not scale and they had to sacrifice artistic control to the freelancers. They had no process control and had to release footage and other assets to outsiders, so could only check on milestone dates.
The new system does not limit jobs by the number of existing people since it can scale dynamically. The ability to rent functions on an as needed basis and the virtualization of the hardware means they can make changes to the system in under an hour. This seamless integration allows fast addition or deletion of people and enables a remote workforce. Ideally, you want to have your IT load at a minimum, and be able to add artists without increasing IT support. The goal is one IT support person per five artists, and now they can hire people on a per shot basis.
In the old system they could only do one project at a time. Their capacity allowed for three large projects, ten small ones, and one internal project the year. IT payroll was about 15 percent of the entire budget. Now, the flexible system lets them do 11 large shows, 15 small ones, and three internal films. The IT budget is drop to less than 10 percent of the total. Moving to a flexible system allowed them to go from a serial production process to a parallel one, which also allows them to address the increasing number of visual effects being called for in productions.