Does anybody know what the status with the Sidefx/Sony plans with Cell rendering with mantra?

We're working with Sony to develop a Cell-based, rackmount server that will run Houdini Batch and Mantra. It's not available for sale yet, and there is no announced date when it will be.

I'm not sure I can be more specific than that – do you have specific questions?

<Insert buzz generating statistics here>

Joe
I'm not sure I can be more specific than that – do you have specific questions?

Since it's supposed to also run hbatch, not only mantra, are to be expected significant increases in the speed of dynamic simulations (fluids, cloth)?
Might be interesting to send the fluid simulations to the Cell farm (if that Cell farm will have a reasonable cost).

Dragos

PS. one more thing: are there plans for Mantra & hbatch to work on PS3, then? :mrgreen:

Yes, simulation, SOP cooking, etc, will all be included as part of Houdini Batch on the Cell Computing Board. (In other words, it'll be the same Houdini Batch that you're used to, only running on the Cell.)

As for the PS3 – we don't have any specific plans, but I think you'll find that most of your jobs wouldn't work on it anyways, as it doesn't have enough RAM.

Are these on the market yet?