Features
From Animuxwiki
Animux is a feature rich operating system.
Animator centric Goals
- Pipeline Integration
- Digital Asset/ Work Flow Management ...(wip)
- Infrastructure Efficiency
Because we are animators or friends of animators...
Most of the people in Animux are animators or technical wizards with a passion for animation. So whatever we do/add to animux is because we think it will help the general animator population.
Our vision has always been to grow the animation population by making it easy for hobbyist and professional animators alike in setting up their studio. We want to take out the role of technical administrators from the animators required skills so that they can concentrate on bringing their creative dreams alive.
In short we say, "Let creativity be your only limitation, all the others leave it for your buddy's at Animux to solve."
Over 60 Animator specific Tools
Animux includes 60 tools that handle various tasks from preproduction, production and post-production work. Also with access to over 24000 applications you can add applications to your machine that may suit your needs.
Pretty and Productive desktop environment
Animux made the decision to go with the XFCE desktop enviroment because it is lightweight and fast. We wished for the animator to have the system resouces available for the animation task at hand without having to hog on it to run itself. We did not compromise of stability for this as XFCE is stable.
Compiz-Fusion can help boost your productivity by creating an intuitive desktop that you can customize using a easy to use configurator. With over 30 plugins you can definitely you can choose to increase the visual appeal of your desktop or add some very neat shortcuts that will cut time to do your day to day job.
Easy-to-user installer
Animux comes with a easy to use installer on the LiveUSB or LiveCD. Boot into Animux from the LiveUSB or LiveCD and if you like Animux just click on the "Installer" or "Autoinstall" icon. Once you are done with this process you will have Animux running on your machine.
Renderman Complaint Renderers
Animux comes with 2 renderman complaint renderers. Aqsis and Pixie.
EIGHT Renderers included
Animux includes 8 renderers which the animator has a choice to use to create his final render. Aqsis, Lucille, Lux, PBRT, Pixie, Yafray, Sunflow, Blender
Easy to Use
Animators no longer need to compile and configure it to make it work for different architectures. We have done that for you.
NVIDIA Drivers with SLI without compiling
With Animux you do not need to compile the NVidia drivers. We have done that for. All you need to do is download the driver and follow the simple 3 step instruction to install it.
Real-Time Linux Kernel
Animux comes default with RT kerne which is a must have for the sound engineering tasks on your animation project. The other benefit is that the operating system is very responsive. We ran benchmark tests on Animux and you would be pleased to know that the latencies in the OS in the micro seconds.
Animux supports Virtualization
We at Animux believe that virtualization is like shot of steroids for an animation studio. It will go a long way in helping you get the infrastructure efficiencies you are seeking of your invested hardware. Some of the benefits of virtualization are (rendernode consolidation, migration/sharing pipelines become easy, sharing of rendernodes for different project become easy without having to have a complex setup ...) and a bunch of other benefits.
Easy to set up renderfarms
You have 3 renderfarm managers included in Animux. Based on what your technical comfort level is you can pick the simple/easy to set up one for a quick start on a short project or you could have a complex set up with for a long term use. We are also working on a technical guide which should be out soon to guide you through setting up a working renderfarmer that will stand the test of time and need.
GUI based Digital Asset Management Tools
Right now Animux comes with tools that help you locate your digital assets on your machine easily. You can search for your digital assets with tools just like that a text search where you can search for based on similarity to a particular image. It also comes with GUI based backup and restore tools that help you safely store your assets. You can all use tools that create snapshots of your assets in time that can be automated. These backups you can burn on a CD, DVD or move them to an external hard-drives or network location.
The work on Animation Digital Asset Management (ADAM) has been started to come up with an asset manager that takes care of the needs in the animation world. The people working on this project right now have a collective of 50 years in DAM and we are excited about what it can accomplish.
Mass Deployment/Configuration Tools
When you are working on a renderfarm, we understand you cannot install/upgrade the OS, applications one machine at a time. It can be done, but who does it now a days. We have included tools that help you install/upgrade/configure all from a single point.
