Barnyard marks Nickelodeon's most challenging animated
project to date, with vast landscapes, realistic lighting, and scenes that
incorporate more than 200 characters. The film's animation was created by
Omation Animation Studios with voices by actors Kevin James, Sam Elliott and
Danny Glover.
Sun provided a 620-node server farm and storage solution
that was crucial in the completion of the complex animation. The solution is
based on Sun Fire x64 enterprise servers powered by AMD Opteron processors with
Direct Connect Architecture, and 100-terabyte Sun StorageTek 3510 and 3511 FC
arrays along with a Sun StorageTek tape library for online storage and backup
of shot files and other movie assets.
Sun Customer Ready Systems helped migrate the production
from its previous 32-bit render farm, and then configured, assembled and tested
the new Sun render farm for the production. In addition, Sun provided
continuous on-site consultation and support to the Barnyard production team.
The film's producers believe their Sun solution may
represent the first time a studio has relied entirely upon 64-bit technology to
render a full-length animated movie.