![]() Lucas did not simply want to experiment with computer graphics – he saw enormous long-term potential for computers to be used in editing, colour correction, remote camera control, and other practical applications. Seeing the long-term potential of CGI in movie-making, he approached Ed Catmull with an offer to become the vice-president in charge of ILM’s new digital division: the Graphics Group. For that earlier film he had set up his own special effects and modelling company, named Industrial Light and Magic. In 1979 Lucas was deep in production on The Empire Strikes Back, the sequel to his record-breaking 1977 blockbuster Star Wars. His attempts to stimulate interest among the studios was entirely unsuccessful – until he attracted the attention of producer/director George Lucas. He later developed the computer application Tween, which could generate two-dimension frames of animation automatically based on a hand-drawn frame on either side.Ĭatmull harboured a vision of using computer graphics to create an entire feature film something not even countenanced by America’s movie studios at the time. It was during his postgraduate studies that Catmull invented texture mapping – the technique of mapping higher definition two-dimensional textures over a three-dimensional object in a computer graphic. ![]() ![]() While at the University of Utah his interest shifted from developing programming languages to working on digital imaging: using a computer to create simulated images. In his studies, however, he shifted into the relatively new field of computer science. Parke and Catmull’s CGI hand in Futureworld the first 3D CGI in movie history.Įd Catmull was inspired by Walt Disney animation as a child, and grew up harbouring dreams of becoming an animation director. In this case, basic renderings of a face and a hand were put together by students Fred Parke and Edwin “Ed” Catmull and observed on a computer monitor by the film’s characters. It was three years later in Westworld ’s Sequel Futureworld that the first attempt at visualising a three-dimensional object in computer graphics was made. ![]() In that case a computer was used to reprocess footage and simulate the point of view of the film’s robot antagonist. Technically speaking, the first feature film to include computer-generated images was Michael Crichton’s Westworld in 1973. To start with CGI: the potential of using computers to develop specific images and animations was seen very early in the development of information technology, however it took time for the computing power at the cutting edge to reach a standard where it could be applied to narrative film. To infinity and beyond indeed.Įxplaining the history and impact of Toy Story requires a jump back in time, and a look at three converging elements: the development of computer-generated images (CGI) in the motion picture industry, the evolution of the Pixar Animation Studios, and the early career of aspiring animator and director John Lasseter. Toy Story is, quite literally, a film that changed the world. To find an animated film with as great an effect on the global industry, you need to go back to Walt Disney’s own Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Collectively Pixar’s films have grossed a total of US$14.3 billion dollars. Pixar themselves have made a total of 23 CGI films from 1995 to 2020 the latest, Soul, is due sometime before the end of the year. Toy Story has been followed by a staggering 200+ computer-generated features. Jump forward a quarter-century, and outside of a select few independent productions no one in America makes hand-drawn animation any more. All of these acclaimed pictures were ultimately hand-animated. Toy Story made its debut in the middle of the ‘Disney Renaissance’, a period spanning from The Little Mermaid in 1989 and Tarzan in 1999 in which Disney produced a string of unprecedented smash hits with groundbreaking animation techniques. It was the first computer-animated feature film ever produced, and not only was it a commercial and critical success it fundamentally altered the animation medium for good. Twenty-five years ago film history was made when Walt Disney released Toy Story, the debut production from Pixar Animation Studios.
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