[AboutTheWhisles]

Every large visual effects studio runs on linux, with hundreds of linux workstations at each one. Color sensitive work like lighting and compositing has been done for well over a decade on linux. Artist workstations are calibrated and every major computer graphics application has support for look up tables.

[coldtea]

>Every large visual effects studio runs on linux, with hundreds of linux workstations at each one. Color sensitive work like lighting and compositing has been done for well over a decade on linux.

That's for rendering, where the OS and Desktop experience doesn't really matter, and the cheaper it is the better.

Few pros do the actual editing and color work (where the decisions are made, not the rendering part) on Linux.

[ancientworldnow]

This is just not true, you're spreading misinformation. I am a colorist, I'm the person making these final decisions. Every single high end color suite I've ever been in runs Linux. In fact, the full version of Baselight (one of the defacto color correction suites) only runs on Linux. DaVinci Resolve (one of the other major ones) ran only on Linux for the majority of it's existence and the full panel version (the pro choice) only ran on Linux until last year.

Every major color house I've worked in runs Linux exclusively in their suites (CO3, The Mill, Technicolor, etc).

That's not to say windows and OSX suites don't exist, I use them and my own suite runs windows, but the highest end of color is basically Linux only.

[softwarelimits]

I am really very interested in reading about a typical hardware and software setup for a Linux colorist workstation with a special focus on which graphics card and which drivers to use! Nvidia?

[ancientworldnow]

So this is about DaVinci Resolve since it has the most flexibility for setup, many other systems are borderline turnkey.

The recommended setup is a super micro chassis with dual xeons (12 core cpus min rec, 20 core preferred), min 32GB ram (usually at least 64,128+ common on high end systems), SSD for OS, thunderbolt (min)/pciE/10GbE/fibre (preferred) attached storage usually 8 bay raid6 or similar min, almost always NVIDIA GPUs with 8x 1080ti's or the latest Titans being the most common set up I see.

This runs on CentOS or RHEL 6.8 or 7.3.

Video signal is output over SDI from a PCIe to a LUT box (for color transforms) then to a color critical display (FSi, Sony, or Dolby typically with the best suites using cinema projectors). A second SDI runs out to a box showing video scopes. Everything is usually calibrated by light Illusions software and using a Minolta colorimeter probe (typically a 3rd party service does this every few months).

The GUI monitor(s) are usually just regular consumer whatever.

The software is controlled by a large, $30K control panel that looks similar to an airplane cockpit.

That's most of the important stuff, but I can fill in details where you're curious.

[dm319]

you might want to see the post further down with the technical details (possibly ended up in the wrong place)

[ancientworldnow]

Yeah that's exactly what happened. Mobile client glitched, but it's in both places now.

[dm319]

Your work sounds fascinating. I was previously into my photography, specifically film (both slide and col neg) - I'm still a big fan of the medium, except for the expenses and faff of getting a good scan and then getting the colour right.

Can you help me answer two things, as both have bugged me for years..?!

How do they achieve a look of tinted monochrome in films, which are still actually in colour? If that doesn't make sense - I'm thinking of films like Heat where there is often a strong blue tint which gives the feel of monochrome but it is all in colour. I've found was able to replicate it somewhat by combining the image with a quadtoned version, but it was still fairly far off tbh.

The other question is - how does colour gamut relate to the brightness of the display? Is it all to do with the dynamic range of each channel - i.e. the difference between black and, say, red, rather than overall brightness? I was at a photography show recently, and was blown away by some of the prints made by some of fuji's printers. Is it ever possible to match the gamut our eyes can see? And what colour space/gamut do you usually work in? Sorry two extra Q's there...

Thanks, and thanks for the fascinating info already.

[Arelius]

I'd like to confirm that ILM also does color work in Linux.

[bleair]

I think we might have a different definition of "Few pros do ... color work.. on Linux". Have you worked at Sony, Company 3, Dreamworks, Lucasfilm, Pixar, or Deluxe?

[pzone]

That's not right - Linux is used on desktop workstations as well. Check out the discussion in this recent thread.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/7zms77/gnome_2_spott...

[ancientworldnow]

So this is about DaVinci Resolve since it has the most flexibility for setup, many other systems are borderline turnkey.

The recommended setup is a super micro chassis with dual xeons (12 core cpus min rec, 20 core preferred), min 32GB ram (usually at least 64,128+ common on high end systems), SSD for OS, thunderbolt (min)/pciE/10GbE/fibre (preferred) attached storage usually 8 bay raid6 or similar min, almost always NVIDIA GPUs with 8x 1080ti's or the latest Titans being the most common set up I see.

This runs on CentOS or RHEL 6.8 or 7.3.

Video signal is output over SDI from a PCIe to a LUT box (for color transforms) then to a color critical display (FSi, Sony, or Dolby typically with the best suites using cinema projectors). A second SDI runs out to a box showing video scopes. Everything is usually calibrated by light Illusions software and using a Minolta colorimeter probe (typically a 3rd party service does this every few months).

The GUI monitor(s) are usually just regular consumer whatever.

The software is controlled by a large, $30K control panel that looks similar to an airplane cockpit.

That's most of the important stuff, but I can fill in details where you're curious.

[Nexxxeh]

Are the ports on the 1080ti's used for video output at all? Is there one with SDI out? Or are they just used for CUDA?

At the risk of asking a silly question, what does the LUT-box do that couldn't be done in software (or, I guess, why isn't it done in software)?

This stuff is fascinating to me.

Do you know of any good YouTube videos on colorist hardware? I've seen a couple of videos on workflow, but neither went into the guts of the machines and LUT-boxes.

[coldtea]

For 3D yes.