AMD Takes The Leading Role in Digital Content Creation

AMD's Charlie Boswell

All those explosions, laser beams and lightsabers in modern movies are created by computers, lots of them. Traditionally the computer of choice has been Apple, but this reign may soon be over as AMD looks to supplant the Apple G4s/G5s with their Opteron 64-bit processors. At Siggraph 2004 in Los Angeles, we took a closer look at why AMD thinks they can win over the movie companies.

THG interviewed Charlie Boswell, Marketing Director of AMD's Digital Media & Entertainment Division, and Dan Gregoire, Pre-Visualization Supervisor at JAK Films. Mr. Gregoire is currently supervising the special effects pre-visualization shots for Star Wars Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith. His company also did the shots for Episode Two.

JAK Films

JAK Films is responsible for pre-visualization, or "pre-viz" in movie lingo, for the Star Wars movies. Movies are so complex now that computers are used to find out if a particular special effects shot is even possible. Think of these as test runs of the final shot.

Mr. Gregoire said that Star Wars Episode Three, to be released May 2005, will have thousands of shots. This results in an insane production schedule that has no room for error. In addition, stress levels are elevated as George Lucas often takes a personal hand in designing and tweaking the shots.

According to Mr. Gregoire, George Lucas now has the same power in pre-viz as he has in an actual director's chair. Many elements of a shot can be changed in real-time. JAK Films' 140-Opteron render farm and 60 Opteron-equipped workstations provide the processing power to make this happen.

As a little side note, we tried our best to convince Gregoire to let us on the Skywalker Ranch... for more in-depth look into JAK's benefits from the Opteron processor. We begged and pleaded to get on the Skywalker Ranch, but, try as we might, our request was shot down like an inbound SCUD missile. Also Mr. Gregoire was tight-lipped about any volcano, lava and multi-armed lightsaber effects. Star Wars fans... we tried.

The power of the AMD processor is nicely summed up by Mr. Gregoire, "My artists can go home on time and much happier now. Without the Opterons, it would have been much more painful."