In the beginning there was.... CGI

My critical analysis lecture today was on the beginning of the CGI revolution which has affected animation mush in the same way that handrawn animation did when Walt Disney's films perfected their formula for making great animated films. We were tasked to research a few important names and see how people and discoveries all linked up in the grand scheme of things, and how this led to the developement of the CGI animation we are surrounded by today and it was also highlighted to me how much to techniques have improved in under 40 years.

So where did it all begin, I think this has to be without a doubt with Ivan Sutherland's invention SketchPad. This was a computer program that allowed you to store and use visual information onto a computer with a pen tool. The sheer enormity of the task Sutherland managed to complete in creating this task astounded people, when he was asked how did you manage it he replied "No body told me how difficult it was". This was because there had never been anything remoted like it before that it was impossible to gauge the size of the task Sutherland set himself. Not only was creating the program a breakthrough, but part of what made his task difficult was finding computers which could be used to work on. Sutherland would journey around universities who had invested in these "supercomputers" and show that he could use them, and from this develope his software.

One of Sutherlands students Edwin Catmull began working at the Computer Division of LucasFilm (a division that literally shaped computer animation as we know it) he and Alvy Ray Smith became vice presidents of the Computer Division at LucasFilm. However it would not remain the Computer Division of LucasFilm for long, during his divorce George Lucas was forced to sell of parts of the company to pay the divorce settlement. The Computer Division was one of several to be sold off. Steve Jobs, founder and up until recently head of Apple computers bought the computer division for $10 million. The idea was for the division to create software, however it is apparant that after several years the company went down a new path.

John Lasseter an animator at Disney around the time that CGI demonstration films were being made, became fascinated by this new form of animation. However upon suggesting the idea to Disney was let go from the company. He later joined the now named Pixar, computer division of LucasFilm. He believed that the people using the current computer software for creating CGI where appraoching it from a computer science point of view as opposed to an artistic point of view that he had as an animator, and so at pixar they create their first animation short Luxo Jr and Tin Toy which paved the way for them to create the first fully animated CGI feature length film and establish CGI as a form of animation.

Since then the quality of animation has improved in leaps an bounds so that 15 years later this film by Alex Roman the Third and the Seventh demonstrates the quality we can achieve in CGI animation

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.