NEWS BRIEFS

New Orleans, LA — SGI’s long-time customer, Pixar Animation Studios, has made a significant purchase of more than 250 powerful new Silicon Graphics Octane2 visual workstations for production of its fourth animated feature film, Disney/Pixar’s Monsters, Inc., targeted for a Holiday 2001 release. The Silicon Graphics Octane2 visual workstation, introduced by SGI last month, is a new desktop line with more visualization power than any other UNIX workstation. Octane2 brings together the most robust implementation of SGI VPro graphics; an optimized crossbar architecture; the latest high-performance MIPS RISC processor; and multiple industry-first features for power users in technical and creative professions. Pixar is providing these workstations to its entire digital content creation team, who will use the workstations for 3D modeling, painting and animation.

“We’ve always looked to SGI to provide the most advanced visualization technology,” said Greg Brandeau, vice president of Computer Operations for Pixar Animation Studios. “We chose Octane2 for its unmatched speed, power and features that enable us to produce a more visually-rich film. These important tools will help our animators manipulate complex models and images, as well as complete the film on time and within budget.”

“Pixar Animation Studios’ selection of Octane2 as its production platform for Monsters, Inc. tells us that we’re on target and consistently delivering the kinds of visual graphics products that make a difference in keeping our customers at the top of their industries,” said Greg Estes, vice president and general manager, Telecommunications and Media Group, SGI.

VPro graphics for IRIX is available only with the new Octane2 visual workstations and comes in two configurations – Octane2 V6 with 32MB of configurable graphics memory and Octane2 V8 with 128MB of configurable graphics memory. VPro graphics for IRIX is particularly robust and full-featured, with high geometry performance, fast pixel fill rate and excellent image quality. The V6 graphics are well-suited to Pixar’s 3D modeling and animation applications. The V8 configuration offers even more advanced imaging and exceptional color and shading accuracy. The V8 also supports extremely large and precise images and offers the most advanced texturing performance available from SGI on the desktop.

“SGI’s Octane2 makes it possible for the digital painters and shading and lighting technical directors to each have a workstation where they can see every pixel of every frame on a 24-inch monitor,” said Brandeau. “Our artists can manipulate larger-size textures and images and push to the next level of realism with the characters they create.”

“We worked closely with our customers to deliver the technology innovation found in the Octane2 product line,” said Estes. “Octane2 delivers for Pixar where it counts – deep pixel resolution for highly accurate imaging work and visual precision.”

Pixar Animation Studios combines creative and technical artistry to create original characters and stories in the medium of computer animation. Pixar created and produced the first computer-animated feature film, the Academy Award-winning Toy Story, released in 1995. The studio is currently in production on its fourth animated feature, Monsters, Inc., targeted for a Holiday 2001 release.

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