It's super rare to see a company actually blog about how good their Linux support is. But digital artists overlap with Linux users enough that yeah, Linux support for digitizers is a big deal!
Indeed: Most of the artists at the high-end VFX studios (Weta, ILM, Framestore, MPC, DNEG, etc) are using Linux workstations and have been for years.
There's still a bit of Windows (for ZBrush), and other more smaller studios use Windows or MacOS more, but Linux support is very important for those larger studios.
Maya (modelling,UVing,layout,anim,rigging), Houdini (everything these days, but simulation/layout strongly), Nuke (compositing), Katana (scene management and rendering/lighting), Mari (texture painting).
Most packages (other than things like ZBrush) have Linux versions. Some packages originally were Linux only (Mari - although it had a Mac version at Weta that was discontinued for a bit and then brought back to life in 2013) and Katana (now has a Windows version).
Most of the commercial production VFX/CG renderers (Renderman, Arnold, VRay) have linux versions, and some of the proprietary ones (Manuka, Hyperion - I think?) are Linux only (only need to be used by the studio themselves).
Is there anywhere one could see an example of these tools being used together in and end-to-end workflow to get a quick sense of what VFX tools are capable of these days? It's a total black box to me, and I have no interest in it beyond the sheer curiosity of how far the tools have advanced and how much one can do with those with enough experience and effort.
If you're after what the software is capable of, then looking at the films to some degree is obviously the Litmus test :), but more usefully VFX breakdown videos might be useful or demos of the software described.
I can give you some links to breakdowns the studio I work for worked on, but unless you know the software to some degree, it's probably a bit too fast to really understand exactly what the software is doing, and doesn't really show the software being interactive with or used, but:
Yeah, if you're looking for workflow tutorials with specific tools, it'll be a bit more difficult since a lot of really big shops will roll some of their own tools between big commercial offerings like Lightworks, Resolve, Blackmagic Fusion, and the handful of very prominent open-source tools like Natron and Blender. Every project is going to be both chaotic on some level, and kind of protective of specifics.
Pixar in the past has been pretty open about their workflows, but those workflows are also full of their own tooling and technologies, a lot of which they've open-sourced: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios (cf. this 2020 interview with Nick Porcino, which calls out some things about open source: https://www.aswf.io/bts/nick-porcino-pixar/ )
Oh hey, speak of the devil, ASWF just put out a report a couple weeks ago about open source in entertainment: http://report.aswf.io/ (PDF)
You can check http://vfxplatform.com/, which is a high-level attempt to provide at least guidelines for a reference platform, and this SIGGRAPH 2021 presentation by Nick Cannon (Disney) and Francois Chardavoine (Lucasfilm/ILM) on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4tXrtJBqK0
You are not alone, the strong marketing from Adobe and Apple creates the impression that image creators are all about having Adobe software on the latest Macs. This is far from the reality. While most don’t correlate Linux with artists, we can argue that the most impressive and sophisticated computer imagery is mostly created under this platform. Actually, even when the studio is mostly Windows based, after a certain size, it gradually moves to Linux, like Scanline.
> we have the enthusiastic support of all of the major application providers for the visual effects and animation industry, including Autodesk, The Foundry and Side Effects Software. [...] Linux is prevalent in VFX, particularly in the larger studios where they build sophisticated automation pipelines that integrate multiple different software vendors’ products together.
Blender has a large market share. Other tools like renderman are used. Painting software such as Krita and others but Photoshop and Substance Painter are still king (windows). Unreal engine is gaining a lot of traction in the VFX digital set space.
Blender's not really used at the high-end facilities... It doesn't really scale that well on large scenes, and only had a Python3 API - VFX studios have only really moved to Python 3 this year.
Do we count the work behind latest Evangelion movie as high-end? Because IIRC they openly talked about using Blender in increasing amounts and sponsoring Blender foundation because of that.
I do wonder about that: it was also criticized for its jarring 3D effects (arguably, some of it due to artistic choices, but clearly not all of it), to the point where it was hot-fixed while it was still shown in theaters. So it might not be the advertising you might want for Blender.
But it might also be the consequence of its flawed production process.
In a past lifetime I was a big user of Fusion. A limited version is these days free as part of DaVinci Resolve. I think the paid version is only $300. Quite a good deal for such a powerful tool. Fusion can be used alongside with its friends After Effects, Nuke, Flame
They are a tiny company as well, yet they have employed kernel developers since the early 00s when Linux was far far from what we see today when it comes to software for artists. Keep in mind also that Wacom is more than just about artists, as they produce display/pen integrations for offices where customers need to read and sign agreements and tiny black and white LCD displays with pens for signatures.
All praise on my part, but it would have been nice if the blog post had used photos of people using their tablets with Linux rather than (at least to my eye) Windows. '^^
No disagreement here, but to me 1,000 employees is small when talking about a hardware company that as far as I know does a very large part of the manufacturing in-house. Also, I think you forgot to convert JPY to USD, at the time of writing that means dividing by ~120 which makes the numbers less insane.
High-end digital imagery has always had a use case for Linux because being open lets you bodge together custom software and hardware to create bespoken pipelines - Wacom just followed along with that demand as it picked up in the early years of desktop Linux, as a form of B2B client service.
Proprietary apps in this space still gained most of the market by aggregating the most common features, giving them some UX polish and shoving them into the education pipeline; the open alternatives have always been in the background, since they are, in fact, too professional, in the sense of "you have to make it your job to understand this thing", and didn't aim to make the common things particularly easy. That's only changed with time, gradual iteration and industry support to break the monopolies.
I think it's going to become more common. With Steam Deck and accompanying improvements to Proton, and Chrome OS supporting it too, the year of Linux on the desktop is starting to become less of a joke.
