Comments on: Pixar’s RenderMan Pro to support HPC Server http://insidehpc.com/2008/08/14/pixars-renderman-pro-to-support-hpc-server/ HPC News Without the Noise for Supercomputing Professionals | insideHPC Sun, 19 May 2013 10:46:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 By: John http://insidehpc.com/2008/08/14/pixars-renderman-pro-to-support-hpc-server/#comment-82563 John Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:40:29 +0000 http://insidehpc.com/2008/08/14/pixars-renderman-pro-to-support-hpc-server/#comment-82563 Brent -an outstanding story. Organizations never seem to be able to institutionalize these things. They seem to flourish or fail based solely on the energy of someone who will champion them, and handle the endless stupid details that have to be handled. Brent -an outstanding story. Organizations never seem to be able to institutionalize these things. They seem to flourish or fail based solely on the energy of someone who will champion them, and handle the endless stupid details that have to be handled.

]]> By: Brent Gorda http://insidehpc.com/2008/08/14/pixars-renderman-pro-to-support-hpc-server/#comment-82548 Brent Gorda Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:45:42 +0000 http://insidehpc.com/2008/08/14/pixars-renderman-pro-to-support-hpc-server/#comment-82548 Back in the early 90's, when NERSC was at LLNL, there was a program called the "Superkids", which invited one high school student from each state, and one from Canada (and I think Mexico) to LLNL for a few weeks in the summer. One of the applications for instruction was Renderman - on a Cray (1, then YMP el). These kids were usually picked based on academic standing (though some were the govn'er kids). They were (and probably still are) brilliant! On one particular occasion, I recall the presentations wherein a group of students predicted computers with more than 1,000 cpus in them. One of the Lab's physicists at the time - who shall remain nameless - got his dander up and blasted the kids for not knowing anything: 100 cpus in a system was far too parallel, thousands would not happen. That was a great program mostly run off the shoulders of volunteers (lab employees brought students into their homes). Its too bad it went away and appears unlikely to return. Anyhow - RenderMan has run on supercomputers in the past in the hands of superkids! Brent Back in the early 90′s, when NERSC was at LLNL, there was a program called the “Superkids”, which invited one high school student from each state, and one from Canada (and I think Mexico) to LLNL for a few weeks in the summer.

One of the applications for instruction was Renderman – on a Cray (1, then YMP el). These kids were usually picked based on academic standing (though some were the govn’er kids). They were (and probably still are) brilliant!

On one particular occasion, I recall the presentations wherein a group of students predicted computers with more than 1,000 cpus in them. One of the Lab’s physicists at the time – who shall remain nameless – got his dander up and blasted the kids for not knowing anything: 100 cpus in a system was far too parallel, thousands would not happen.

That was a great program mostly run off the shoulders of volunteers (lab employees brought students into their homes). Its too bad it went away and appears unlikely to return.

Anyhow – RenderMan has run on supercomputers in the past in the hands of superkids!

Brent

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