HP today announced that DreamWorks Animation used HP technology to develop cutting-edge animation for its latest film, “Turbo,” which debuts in theaters this week.
HP Converged Infrastructure technology spanning servers, storage, networking, services and management software; HP Converged Cloud; and HP Workstations and printers helped DreamWorks Animation process massive amounts of data, creating new levels of imagery and powering innovative computer graphics (CG) animated movie-making techniques.
HP Workstations, HP Networking enable efficiency
DreamWorks Animation tapped the power of HP Z Workstations to recreate the thrill of the Indy 500, with a snail traveling 220 miles per hour and more than 500,000 crowd characters filling a replica of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
HP Z800 and Z820 Workstations, powered by Intel Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 processors, enabled artists to execute iterations 50 percent faster than previous workstations and develop increasingly complex camera angles and special effects. When not in use by creative teams, workstation processing power was used to run nighttime rendering jobs, contributing to the millions of compute hours needed to produce the movie.
Integrated with HP Workstations, HP Remote Graphics Software—a free HP Workstation tool—enabled animators to collaborate more efficiently across geographies by viewing ideas and assets on a single display.
HP FlexNetwork architecture solutions enabled DreamWorks Animation to increase performance, reduce latency between global studio locations and provide constant availability to support faster rendering and review times while boosting animator productivity.
Long list of award-winning foreign films made through HP Workstation and HP Networking.
HP Networking provided animators with access to a central repository of assets, simplifying collaboration by allowing artists to easily share and retrieve resources across all locations. In addition, the highly reliable network infrastructure allows creative teams to work anytime from anywhere, with production spread across studios from Glendale and Redwood City, Calif., to Bangalore, India.
HP delivers comprehensive technology solutions
The breadth of HP’s portfolio provides DreamWorks Animation with comprehensive technology solutions, enhancing each aspect of production, including:
- Reliable application performance through HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage, creating a storage infrastructure for critical production pipeline tools. Secondary HP 3PAR StoreServ arrays provide disaster-recovery capabilities to keep operations up and running.
- Secured backup and archiving with HP StoreAll 9730 Storage allows artists and engineers to protect and conveniently access the 230 terabytes of files that make up “Turbo,” in addition to the studio’s other films and production assets.
- Simplified network management with the HP Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF) enables the studio to manage multiple article network switches and configure redundancy without unwanted downtime.
- Increased data center density and flexibility with HP BladeSystem c7000, allowing engineers to smoothly implement next-generation servers with minimal disruption.
- Improved color accuracy and consistency across workstations and printers with HP DreamColor displays to simplify creative decision making without the need for specially designed color rooms.
- Reduced print management complexity and improved workflow processes with HP Managed Print Services, which leverage integrated monitoring software to enable DreamWorks Animation to anticipate future resource demands, accelerate business and quickly remediate technical issues.
