History of computer animation: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:25, 23 July 2024

Revision as of 21:29, 15 August 2024

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The [[Atlas Computer Laboratory]] near Oxford was for many years a major facility for computer animation in Britain.<ref>[http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/acl/home.htm Atlas Computer Laboratory, Chilton: 1961–1975] (retrieved June 3, 2009)</ref> The first entertainment cartoon made was ''The Flexipede'', by Tony Pritchett, which was first shown publicly at the Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition in 1968.<ref>[http://animaland-ecotone.blogspot.com.es/2008/09/flexipede.html "The Flexipede"] by Tony Pritchett (retrieved April 22, 2012)</ref> Artist Colin Emmett and animator [[Alan Kitching]] first developed solid filled colour rendering in 1972, notably for the title animation for the [[BBC]]'s ''[[The Burke Special]]'' TV program.

In 1973, Kitching went on to develop a software called "Antics", which allowed users to create animation without needing any programming.<ref>Alan Kitching, "Computer Animation, Some New Antics", ''BKSTS Journal'', December 1973, pp. 372–386.</ref><ref>[http://www.antics1.demon.co.uk/ATK_biog.html Biography of Alan Kitching at Antics Workshop] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191229150251/http://www.antics1.demon.co.uk/ATK_biog.html |date=December 29, 2019 }} (retrieved July 23, 2012).</ref> The package was broadly based on conventional "cel" (celluloid) techniques, but with a wide range of tools including camera and graphics effects, interpolation ("inbetweening"/"morphing"), use of skeleton figures and grid overlays. Any number of drawings or cels could be animated at once by "choreographing" them in limitless ways using various types of "movements". At the time, only black & white plotter output was available, but Antics was able to produce full-color output by using the [[Technicolor]] Three-strip Process. Hence the name Antics was coined as an acronym for ''AN''imated ''T''echnicolor-''I''mage ''C''omputer ''S''ystem.<ref name="AK-BKSTS-73">[http://www.antics1.demon.co.uk/history.html#L3 "Computer Animation, Some New Antics"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080402093113/http://www.antics1.demon.co.uk/history.html#L3 |date=April 2, 2008 }}, ''BKSTS Journal'', December 1973 – full scanned article (retrieved April 22, 2012)</ref> Antics was used for many animation works, including the first complete documentary movie ''Finite Elements'', made for the Atlas Lab itself in 1975.<ref>[http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/acl/applications/animation/p001.htm Atlas Computer Laboratory – Finite Elements] (retrieved April 22, 2012).</ref>

:From around the early 1970s, much of the emphasis in computer animation development was towards ever increasing realism in 3-D imagery, and on visual effects designed for use in feature movies.

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===Sun Microsystems, Inc===

The [[Sun Microsystems]] company was founded in 1982 by [[Andy Bechtolsheim]] with other fellow graduate students at [[Stanford University]]. Bechtolsheim originally designed the SUN computer as a personal [[Computer-aided design|CAD]] workstation for the Stanford University Network (hence the acronym "SUN"). It was designed around the Motorola 68000 processor with the Unix operating system and virtual memory, and, like SGI, had an embedded frame buffer.<ref>[ftp://reports.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/82/229/CSL-TR-82-229.pdf "The SUN Workstation Architecture"]{{dead link|date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, Andreas Bechtolsheim, Forest Baskett, Vaughan Pratt, March 1982, ''Stanford University Computer systems Laboratory Technical Report No. 229'' (retrieved July 28, 2009).</ref> Later developments included computer servers and workstations built on its own RISC-based processor architecture and a suite of software products such as the Solaris operating system, and the Java platform. By the '90s, Sun workstations were popular for rendering in 3-D CGI filmmaking—for example, [[Disney]]-[[Pixar]]'s 1995 movie ''[[Toy Story]]'' used a [[render farm]] of 117 Sun workstations.<ref>[[Toy Story#Animation|Animation and Rendering on ''Toy Story'']]</ref> Sun was a proponent of [[Open system (computing)|open systems]] in general and [[Unix]] in particular, and a major contributor to [[open source software]].<ref>[http://www.stanford.edu/group/wellspring/sun_spotlight.html "Wellspring of Innovation: Sun Microsystems Spotlight"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090517063315/http://www.stanford.edu/group/wellspring/sun_spotlight.html |date=May 17, 2009 }} Stanford.edu (retrieved July 28, 2009).</ref>

===National Film Board of Canada===

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===First turnkey broadcast animation system===

Also in 1982, the first complete turnkey system designed specifically for creating broadcast-standard animation was produced by the Japanese company Nippon Univac Kaisha ("NUK", later merged with [[Burroughs Corporation|Burroughs]]), and incorporated the [[Antics 2-D Animation|Antics 2-D computer animation]] software developed by Alan Kitching from his earlier versions. The configuration was based on the [[VAX-11|VAX 11/780]] computer, linked to a [[Fernseh|Bosch 1-inch]] VTR, via NUK's own framebuffer. This framebuffer also showed realtime instant replays of animated vector sequences ("line test"), though finished full-color recording would take many seconds per frame.<ref>"Antics in Nippon Animation", by Alex Pousselle, ''Byte'' magazine, October 1983, pp 378–381.</ref><ref>"About The Cover", ''IEEE Computer Graphics'' magazine, March 1985, lead article on Antics, cover & pp 6–7.</ref><ref>"Animators' Tool", ''IEEE Computer Graphics'' magazine, December 1985, article on Antics by Margaret Neal, pp 5–7.</ref> The full system was successfully sold to broadcasters and animation production companies across Japan. Later in the '80s, Kitching developed versions of Antics for [[Silicon Graphics|SGI]] and [[Apple Mac]] platforms, and these achieved a wider global distribution.<ref>[http://www.antics1.demon.co.uk/studios.html Antics Studios in the '80s & '90s] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140502010129/http://www.antics1.demon.co.uk/studios.html |date=May 2, 2014 }} (retrieved April 22, 2012)</ref>

===First solid 3-D CGI in the movies===

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Another significant step came in 1993, with [[Steven Spielberg]]'s ''[[Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park]]'',<ref>[https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=jurassicpark.htm ''Jurassic Park'' at Box Office Mojo] (retrieved August 3, 2012).</ref> where 3-D [[Computer-generated imagery|CGI]] dinosaurs were integrated with life-sized [[animatronic]] counterparts. The CGI animals were created by ILM, and in a test scene to make a direct comparison of both techniques, Spielberg chose the CGI. Also watching was [[George Lucas]] who remarked "a major gap had been crossed, and things were never going to be the same."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070930102341/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,978307,00.html ''Behind the Magic of Jurassic Park'' Richard Corliss, ''TIME'', 1993-04-26] (retrieved August 3, 2012).</ref><ref>Shone, Tom. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_HMOHsjIb5cC&dq=It+was+like+one+of+those+moments+in+history%2C+like+the+invention+of+the+light+bulb+or+the+first+telephone+call&pg=PA218 ''Blockbuster: How Hollywood learned to stop worrying and love the summer''] Pg 218. Simon and Schuster, 2004 {{ISBN|0-7432-3568-1}}, {{ISBN|978-0-7432-3568-6}}</ref><ref>''The Making of Jurassic Park'', Shay, Don and Duncan, Jody, ''Ballantine Books'', 1993, Softcover p. 53, first paragraph.</ref>

[[Flocking (behavior)|Flocking]] is the behavior exhibited when a group of birds (or other animals) move together in a flock. A mathematical model of flocking behavior was first simulated on a computer in 1986 by [[Craig Reynolds (computer graphics)|Craig Reynolds]], and soon found its use in animation, beginning with [[Stanley and Stella in: Breaking the Ice]]. ''Jurassic Park'' notably featured flocking, and brought it to widespread attention by mentioning it in the actual script{{Citation needed|reason=unverified claim|date=November 2017}}. Other early uses were the flocking bats in [[Tim Burton]]'s ''[[Batman Returns]]'' (1992), and the wildebeest stampede in [[Walt Disney|Disney]]'s ''[[The Lion King]]'' (1994).<ref>[http://www.gabbai.com/academic/complexity-and-the-aerospace-industry-understanding-emergence-by-relating-structure-to-performance-using-multi-agent-systems/ ''Complexity and the Aerospace Industry: Understanding Emergence by Relating Structure to Performance using Multi-Agent Systems''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141219110658/http://gabbai.com/academic/complexity-and-the-aerospace-industry-understanding-emergence-by-relating-structure-to-performance-using-multi-agent-systems |date=December 19, 2014 }}, Gabbai, J.M.E, 2005, University of Manchester Doctoral Thesis.</ref>

With improving hardware, lower costs, and an ever-increasing range of software tools, [[Computer-generated imagery|CGI]] techniques were soon rapidly taken up in both film and television production.