When I saw DreamWorks Animation’s “How to Train Your Dragon” back in March, I knew it was going to be a huge hit at the box office. Not only did it claim the number one spot for an animated feature in theaters for eight consecutive weeks, but it grossed nearly $500 million during its run on the big screen. And, industry folks are taking notice: “How to Train Your Dragon” is nominated for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards, which will take place on Sunday.
To create the thousands of fire-breathing flying dragons and hundreds of armored Vikings, DreamWorks Animation artists used our ultra powerful HP Z800 Workstations. The film used nearly 100 terabytes of data and more than 50 million render hours. Our HP Z800 Workstations were not only able to keep up, but they helped artists get the movie done fast. DreamWorks Animation’s current render farm - which is a group of computers that work in concert to process animation sequences - is the largest and most powerful render farm ever used in the studio’s production of a computer-generated animated film. Relying on a render farm that is comprised more than 25,000 computing cores, “How to Train Your Dragon” kept nearly 10,000 cores busy almost 100 percent of the time – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 28 weeks.
Since DreamWorks nabbed the first ever Best Animated Feature nine years ago with “Shrek,” it’s had a string of hits like with films like “Kung-Fu Panda,” “Megamind” and, of course, “How to Train Your Dragon. The later has already taken home animation’s highest honor, Best Animated Feature at the International Animated Film Society’s Annie Awards, along with nine other wins. We’re hoping to add an Academy Award to the list. Tune in Sunday to find out!
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