Oliver Peter’s Thoughts On The New Mac Pro

[Walter Soyka]

[Marcus Moore] “While we like to think we sit atop the heap, above us is certainly 3D animation, which with ever more complex IK, ever higher textures, more computer intensive lighting and environmental simulations, and the same resolution and frame rate issues we deal with, will certainly be crying out for “specialized” machines long after we as video editors have seen our needs met.”

Well-said.

I’m one of the few people involved in 3D on this forum, and I think that explains my difference in perspective on sizzle-core beasts in general and on this machine specifically. Editorial has vastly different computational demands than 3D and compositing do, so it may be hard to understand why I keep blathering about performance when an iMac runs FCPX so smoothly.

I generally try to keep my render times down to 15-20 minutes per frame to stay on-schedule and on-budget. That always involves compromise to achieve. With a computer that’s twice as fast, I can either render the same thing quicker, or decrease the number of compromises I have to make to get the project out the door.

I think the Mac Pro will be a fantastic machine for what most users here do, but it’s more or less the computer I feared Apple would offer. It will not be a performance machine for the sort of work I do — not by a long shot. For me, this computer defines the markets that Apple is and is not interested in.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Marcus Moore]

Via a friend, I did. It was very impressive.

It’s pretty amazing that the texturing can be done over animated sequences like that, though I would imagine that in actual production this would never happen, since animation would probably be tweaked well after character texturing had been completed. But it would definitely be helpful to texture a character in context, seeing where things break apart on the model.

And keep in mind that all happens without cloth IK, complex lighting or any of the other myriad of things that keep final render times on single frames of a movie like this up to about 10 hours.

If resolution was to level off, I think computing power could catch up to the needs of animators.

A lot of people seem to be skeptical about the benefits of 4K, but as someone who sits 1.5′ from a 27″ computer monitor in my office, and 6′ from a 92″ projection screen in my theatre, I see the limits of 1080p every day.

That said- we are definitely heading towards a law of diminishing returns. The number of people who will benefit from a 4K display is probably 10-20 % of the overall market. Going forward, the effective benefit of 8K is very likely to be exclusively contained to theatrical and other large screen venues.

This is all to say that I don’t think the upper threshold for Video editors won’t be a moving target forever. No one is producing in 4K now that doesn’t have to, and no one will be producing in 8K or 16K that don’t have to either. Human perception is the threshold, that that definitely has a definable edge, just like print does.

Advanced graphics will be like 3D animation, continuing to suck as much computer power as the complexity requires, but editing does have a horizon that I can envision- even if it’s 10-15 years away.

[Walter Soyka]

[Rick Lang] “Marcus, that’s true about the demands of 3D animation. Did you see (the video of) the presentation of MARI by The Foundry on the new Mac Pro at the WWDC? They were showing some quick painting of 3D objects for Monsters University. It’s a start. A long way to go to rendering complete animations and likely beyond Apple’s ambition to satisfy Pixar’s reach.”

The new Mac Pro is well-configured for MARI with fast PCIe flash storage and nice graphics cards.

But these are also easily done on Windows or Linux, where you can also build in more CPU and/or GPU performance.

I know a lot of artists prefer the Mac platform (for various reasons), but Apple has basically disqualified Macs for serious 3D use going forward.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Marcus Moore]

I walked into my first full time job in 1996 as a Lightwave3D computer animator, and eventually migrated over to editorial as it more piqued my interest, and the garish and obvious use of 3D animation started to wain in corporate/commercial video.

So I understand the edict that there’s never enough horsepower for some applications.

But there’s definitely a schism that usually doesn’t get enough discussion. While editors at my level producing corporate/commercial/documentary are often called upon to be editor/graphics designer/animator. Ironically, the more “pro” an editor is, the more streamlined his function becomes. Someone cutting at the highest end of theatrical or broadcast television is likely never called upon to delve into anything beyond the most basic graphics or color correction- there are other people for that. Purely cutting HD or even 4K material at this point is not the computer intensive task. It’s the realm of FX and finishing that seems the most crucially impacted by computer performance- and will be for some time to come.

[Marcus Moore]

[Walter Soyka] “I’m not defining workstation based on expansion alone. The Tube will be a fantastic machine, but it will not be the best performer at anything. You have a CPU-bound application? A dual-processor workstation will be twice as fast. You have a GPU-bound application? A quad-GPU workstation will be twice as fast.”

I guess the question really is how many of the 850,000 workstations sold per quarter benefit/require the type of super-heavy CPU/GPU power you’re talking about. Can Apple soak up a majority of of the customers who would be well served by this MacPro, and leave the sliver of a sliver of the top-top tier of super-needy users to someone else. They already did this when they abandoned the xServe- realizing they just weren’t making any real dent in the server market.

[Marcus Moore]

To be fair, Mac have always been an “also ran” in 3D animation. They’re not abandoning anything here that they had a serious investment in.

Even Jobs being the CEO of both Pixar and Apple must have realized the futility of trying to satisfy such a specialized market. There has never been a concerted push that I can think of that Pixar ever worked on Mac, or with Final Cut.

[Craig Seeman]

[Walter Soyka] “I’m not defining workstation based on expansion alone. The Tube will be a fantastic machine, but it will not be the best performer at anything. You have a CPU-bound application? A dual-processor workstation will be twice as fast. You have a GPU-bound application? A quad-GPU workstation will be twice as fast.
“
[Walter Soyka] “I also think that the Z820 is a really smart computer for HP to build.”

That “top end” will continue to narrow as CPU and GPUs increase in power.
Just as editor and motion graphics artists needed high end workstations years ago and don’t now, more of the “high end” will erode as technology advances. To put it another way, if 10% needed “workstation” computer resources 5 years ago, only 5% (just throwing out numbers for hypothetical comparison) need that today.

[Craig Seeman]

[Walter Soyka] “why do we think small about HP, Dell, and Lenovo?”

HP and Dell aren’t growing at the rate Apple has been. They’re having problems. While they’re not in Avid’s situation by any stretch, they haven’t shown a successful formula for that end of the business as of yet. HP and Dell are searching for changes in their business model (I’m not sure about Lenovo yet).

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Seeman] “HP and Dell aren’t growing at the rate Apple has been. They’re having problems. While they’re not in Avid’s situation by any stretch, they haven’t shown a successful formula for that end of the business as of yet. HP and Dell are searching for changes in their business model (I’m not sure about Lenovo yet).”

How long can Apple grow at the rate Apple has been?

They are in different segments and there is plenty of room for growth.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Seeman] “That “top end” will continue to narrow as CPU and GPUs increase in power. Just as editor and motion graphics artists needed high end workstations years ago and don’t now, more of the “high end” will erode as technology advances. To put it another way, if 10% needed “workstation” computer resources 5 years ago, only 5% (just throwing out numbers for hypothetical comparison) need that today.”

Motion graphics aside (still plenty of CPU-bound work there), I agree. That’s exactly why I think workstation pricing will V.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events