Work at the speed
of thought
MachStudio™ Pro and AMD FirePro™ V9800 Professional
Graphics - radically advancing the 3D computer graphics
production process.
AMD FireproTM & Studio GPU Case Study
Indispensable tools for broadcasters
An open 3D hub
Traditional computer graphics production pipelines are time
consuming and resource intensive and may force artists to
make unwelcome compromises if they are to meet tight
budgets and fixed deadlines. With MachStudioTM Pro,
Hollywood-based StudioGPU has come up with a way to
address those issues. The MachStudio Pro workflow is akin
to a virtual 3D real-time studio environment, allowing artists,
designers, directors, and technical directors to work with lighting,
camera views and multi-point perspectives for a real-time view of
frames as they will appear in the final rendered format. Designed
specifically to exploit professional graphics processing unit (GPU)
architectures such as those found in the AMD FireProTM V9800,
MachStudio Pro can radically improve the way 3D computer
graphics (CG) production is carried out. Production cycles that
often take days or weeks can be dramatically reduced, yet
still achieve an image quality that meets, if not exceeds, that
generated by traditional means.
Powered by a lightning-fast graphics processor-based realtime rendering engine, MachStudio™ Pro is used for real-time
development and exploration of materials, lighting, cameras
and fits into the creative pipeline after the 3D models have been
produced. It uses models and animations from most popular
modeling and animation packages and in effect is an open
hub where 3D artists are continually interacting with external
applications (e.g. modelling and animation, 2D compositors and
non-linear editors).
Balancing cost, quality and deadline
As well as being time consuming, traditional rendering methods
for high-quality 3D CG require the use of costly computer
systems and resources. Digital artists render often to check their
work and determine precisely how it will look in the final render.
Each modify-render-review cycle consumes valuable time; the
more complex the project or change, the more time may be lost to
the process, thereby forcing artists to make difficult compromises
to help balance cost, quality and deadlines. Generally speaking,
traditional hardware-accelerated renderers can deliver in realtime, but cannot provide the level of quality that content creators
desire. Alternatively, CPU-based final-frame renderers produce
high-end results, but do so at a painfully slow pace.
Harnessing the full power of the AMD
FirePro™ V9800 Professional Graphics
Yoni Koenig, Chief Scientist at StudioGPU says, “The whole
concept came out of real world production experience.
MachStudio™ Pro was designed from the artists’ point of view by
artists and people who have actually created games and movies.”
He continues, “MachStudio™ Pro will work with most off-theshelf professional GPUs with at least 1 GB of on-board memory,
though our software has really been designed to harness the
full power of AMD FirePro GPUs. For example, we support
hardware tessellation and real-time displacement, features not
currently available when using other GPUs. The newest version
of MachStudio™ Pro will also leverage the full power of DirectX®
11 support offered by the FirePro™ family of products.”
The Visitors are here!
StudioGPU’s approach clearly delivers on its promise, as awardwinning Zoic Studios can testify. V, the popular new television
series on ABC, is a modernized and re-imagined version of the
original 1983 mini-series. The Visitors, in spaceships hovering
over every major city, have captured the attention of both of
viewers and of the visual effects community. This success is
due, in no small part, to the innovators at Zoic who have
integrated a combination of MachStudio™ Pro software from
StudioGPU and AMD FirePro™ professional graphics into Zoic’s
existing workflow, which includes Autodesk’s Maya and The
Foundry’s Nuke.
www.amd.com/firepro
www.studiogpu.com
www.studiogpu.com/machstudio
Finding the right tools
Mike Romey, Pipeline Supervisor at Zoic Studios, explains, “My
job is to find the right tools to meet our needs while balancing
cost. The impetus for adopting MachStudio™ Pro in our pipeline
was V,” he continues, “It has so many virtual set shots, and the
V sets are quite robust. We wanted a new way to get a beauty
render as quickly as possible.” He adds, “We started tracking the
time it took to do rendering for production and we quickly realized
that we had to come up with solutions in our pipeline that are
more cost-effective and faster.”
6,000 percent speed improvement
“Eyefinity enables artists to work
with three large monitors, all at full
resolution, so that they can see
everything without having to toggle
between them all on one screen.”
Yoni Koenig,
Chief Scientist at StudioGPU
Romey and his team established a test case centered on a
virtual set used in two episodes, to calculate the time differences
between the traditional pipeline with its rendering software and
the new pipeline with MachStudio™ Pro and AMD FirePro™.
“We are talking about really sizeable numbers,” enthuses Romey.
“MachStudio™ Pro yielded a 1,500 percent speed improvement
over the alternate rendering software, and will provide a 6,000
percent speed improvement when all the customization is done.”
Zoic Studios’ Head of IT Saker Klippsten, noticed another benefit.
With MachStudio™ Pro, they employed just 20 percent of their
450 CPU-based render nodes—which helped Zoic Studios save
on energy costs and other expenses. He says, “This means we
can use fewer machines and less energy to render the same
footage in higher quality and less time.”
The vital factors: memory, power and speed
Koenig is certain on these points, “On board GPU memory is
critical and this is just one area where the V9800 scores. Studios
need high-quality, high-resolution textures to be able to get
cinematic quality results and with the 4 GB V9800 this will be
much faster and much easier. A key benefit of the V9800 is the
ability to author your shot while utilizing larger assets in the video
buffer on the GPU. This translates into higher resolution and
higher quality renders all around.”
AMD Eyefinity Technology - a huge
productivity advantage
There is more to the V9800 than sheer power. Koenig again,
“AMD Eyefinity Technology is a big plus as it enables artists to
maximize workflow productivity. Working with MachStudio™ Pro,
our customers interact with applications like Photoshop, bringing
different textures and material into their 3D project. They then
render each layer, maybe do some finishing in a 2D compositing
program or they might even do some non-linear editing. Eyefinity
enables artists to work with three large monitors, all at full
resolution, so that they can see everything without having to
toggle between them all on one screen. That’s a huge productivity
advantage and we could actually go up to six monitors if we
needed to.”
Nice work, AMD!
Summing up, Koenig comments, “Our product allows artists to
see the results of their creative decisions in real time so that they
can experiment much earlier in the process. AMD has been
very supportive of all our efforts, clearly pushing the envelope
on FirePro™ technology in terms of memory, cores and power
consumption, enabling us to provide our customers with more
options for creative exploration, more control, top-notch cinematic
quality, in considerably less time and at a much lower cost, too.
The V9800 is as smooth as silk. Nice work!”
AMD Eyefinity technology can support multiple displays using a single enabled
ATI FireProTM professional graphics card; the number of supported displays varies
by card model.
1
Microsoft® Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, or Linux® is required in order to support
more than 2 displays. Depending on the card model, native DisplayPortTM
connectors and/or certified DisplayPorTM active or passive adapters to convert
your monitor’s native input to your card’s DisplayPortTM or Mini-DisplayPortTM
connector(s) may be required. AMD Eyefinity technology is supported by the
ATI FireProTM V9800, ATI FireProTM V8800, ATI FireProTM V7800, ATI FireProTM
V5800 and the ATI FireProTM V4800 professional graphics cards. SLS (“Single
Large Surface”) functionality requires an identical display resolution on all
configured displays. See www.amd.com/firepro for details. © Copyright 2011
Hewlett-Packard Development Company L.P. The information contained herein is
subject to change without notice. Xeon® is a registered trademark of Intel Corp.
or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. AMD, the AMD arrow
logo, ATI, the ATI logo, FireGL, and combinations thereof are trademarks of
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks
of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other names
used in this paper are for reference purposes only and may be trademarks of their
respective owners. © 2011 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.