Thinkbox, an Amazon company, has announced the availability of Deadline 10, the latest version of the compute management software that makes render farm workflows behind 3D modeling and graphics applications more flexible by enabling customers to access any combination of on-premises and cloud-based resources for hybrid workflows. Deadline 10 is the first release to offer customers access to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Spot Instances that can significantly reduce the cost of running rendering applications, and help customers increase compute capacity on the same budget. Customers can also purchase by-the-minute render time in the AWS Cloud through Thinkbox’s Marketplace. Deadline for Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya, Arnold, an Autodesk offering, and Chaos Group’s V-Ray can all be purchased in the marketplace. Deadline 10, including support, is offered at a lower price of $48.00 per year. (Perpetual licenses are available upon request.) To get started, visit www.thinkboxsoftware.com/sales.
Deadline 10 integrates with the AWS Cloud to enable customers to expand their render farms–whether on-premises, cloud, or hybrid–simply and securely. To ensure that all the appropriate assets are available in the cloud, Deadline synchronizes with local servers and manages the data transfer before rendering begins, tagging accounts and instances for bill allocation. With flexible third-party licensing options, Deadline 10 customers can purchase software licenses from the Thinkbox Marketplace, bring their own licenses, or leverage a combination of the two to grow render farms elastically from the AWS Cloud.
“Thinkbox has a long history of streamlining rendering for media and entertainment companies, and Deadline 10–our most flexible and cost-efficient release yet–empowers customers to render without limits,” said Chris Bond, founder of Thinkbox Software and director of product management, Amazon EC2, at AWS. “Becoming part of the Amazon family has helped us scale out, and we look forward to continuing to enhance the product’s on-premises, cloud-based, and hybrid compute management capabilities.”
“Autodesk customers have benefited from Deadline and Thinkbox’s artist plug-ins,” said Chris Bradshaw, sr. VP, Media & Entertainment, Autodesk. “With the integration of our products into the Thinkbox Marketplace, our customers can tap into Deadline and the AWS Cloud for their rendering workflow.”
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More