3D ntroductory

The history of 3D-animation

Part 10/14
A series of lectures created for students at candidate level at the IT-University of Copenhagen by Rickard
Stampe Sderstrm 2011. r.s.soderstrom@gmail.com. All material in this lecture is copyrighted to the autors
and creators of the pictures and films. And the lecture is copyrighted to Rickard Stampe Sderstrm. You may
freely use it as a presentation but not printing it in a digital or analog form.
The course
The exam:
To model, texture, animate and render a unique figurative 3D-model from an
existing or self made production design (max 1 min). Furthermore reflect and
describe the work process you had in an rapport with text and pictures (max
10 A4 pages). The rapport shall also relate the production you made to a
product and place in in an historical context.
Mandatory activites during class:
- Present your project to the group in max 10 minutes.
- Hand in your project to me for evaluation before writing the exam.
Activities outside class:
- Group presentation.
- Tutorial making in Maya.
Periods of development
- The Pioneer period* (1950-1973)
- ntroduction period* (1974-1990)
- Establishing period (1991-?)
*Ref: The Visualizarion Quest - A history of Computer Graphics, by Valliere Richard Auzenne
For a more detailed timeline:
https://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/timeline.html
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
The deveIopment of digitaI teqnoIogy:
- A computer is a mathematical tool dating back to the first Abacus
around 1200 AD.
- Joseph Marie Jacquard constructed a mechanical loom 1801 using punch cards
with holes.
- nventor Hermen Hollerith developing the technique further in the end of the
18th century and makes a mechanical tabultor, an early calculator.
Later on he form nternational Business Machines (BM).
Ref: The Visualizarion Quest - A history of Computer Graphics, by Valliere Richard Auzenne
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
- The defence industry, Flight Simulations, Radiation etc
- Few super computers at few places, few people having access-
- Visualisation, not really seen as an animation tool for stories.
- Also a period of Art vs Technology.
- The quest for photo-realism starts
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
The deveIopment of the digitaI computer:
- 1927 invents Philo Farnsworth the television.
- 1946 ENAC (Electronic Numerical ntegrator And Computer) the first electronic general purpose computer, weiging 30 ton.
- 1951 Whirldwind computer, the first electronic digital computer in realtime, with a screen. Developed at MT and later used in the
US defence as SAGE (Semi-Automatic-Ground-Environment)
Left: ENAC, Right SAGE (Whirlwhind)
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
The deveIopment of the digitaI computer:
- 1958 MT developed two new computers TX-0 and TX-2. t developed the transitor.
- 1957 DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) founded, the first digital computer
company.
The developed famous PDP series and VAX series.
- 1970 PDP 11 was a milestone with 16 bits and 32 kilobyte of memory, sized like a
cubbard. t had a
CRT-monitor.
Transistor
PDP 11
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
EarIy Computer animation:
- John Whitney Sr. working with analog computers making abstract animation in the form of patterns. Example of his
work is Catalog (1961),Permutation (1968), Lapis (1965) and ntro sequence with Saul Bass for Hitchcocks Vertigo
(1958), Psyco(1960)
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
The first computer grahics imagery (CGI):
- Prof. Steven A. Coons (MT) developed the "COON-patch" 1964, a first mathematical
system to discribe a form in a digital enviroment. CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/Computer
Aided Construction) is born.
- Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System 1963. The first realtime
computerprogram for drawing and designing. Developed by van Sutherland.
Coon-patch
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
- The first 3D-animated fiIms with computer graphics:
At Bell labs Edward E. Zajac made the first film 1963 called
"Simulation of a two-giro gravity attitude control system"
Frank W. Sinden also at Bell Labs made
Force, Mass and Motion (1966).
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
- Research centers during this period:
Bell Labs (owned by AT&T):
Developing UNX, the first CG animated films and computer art etc
MT
Developing shading and graphics.
University of Utah
Developing the CG area in shading and rendering. Were van
Sutherland was in charge.
Ohio State University (Computer Graphics Research Group)
Developing early computer art and animation systems. Charles Csuri
was the leader of the department. Leading it to develop the first
animationsystems like Tom DeFanti's animations system GRASS for
example.
The first computer animated film bought
by Museum of Modern Art in NY 1968.
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
DeveIopment at University of Utah:
- Hidden-line-algoritm, further developed from Lawrence Roberts original algoritm at MT.
- Half-tone-picture shading with mosaic-like-shading (Scanline-rendering)
- Development of Polygons simultaneous with the private company MAG.
- Developing of Texturing and Bump-mapping
Shading algoritms
- Flat shading - Dev. with Ivan Suthland (group effort).
- Henri Guaraud - Guaraud shading
- Lambert - The law is also known as the cosine emission law or Lambert's emission law. It is named after Johann Heinrich
Lambert, from his Photometria, published in 1760.
- Phong Bui-Toungs - Phong shading
- James Blinn - Blinn shading
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
Key peopIe at University of Utah:
- van Sutherland - Head of research.
- 1976 Ed Catmull - developed texturemapping and SubD-surfaces.
Working with Fred Parke.
- 1978 James Blinn, Further developed texturemapping to bumpmapping
and enviroment mapping. - After Ph.D in Computer Sience in Utah went to
NASA and visualized Voyer projects results.
Digitizing Sutherlands car, midle pic is flatshaded and tight one is
Guaradshaded
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
An earIy symboI of CGI:
- Utah Tepot 1975, made by Martin Newell after suggestion from his wife.
Spread rapidly around the comunity of cgi researchers.
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
The first 2D computer animation programs and 3D-animation
programs:
- Bellflix, 1963 by Ken Knowlton at Bell Labs. Used by artist Lilian Schwartz
and Stan VanDerBeek to make early computer animated films.
- GRASS (Graphics Symbiosis System), the first 3D-animation
program.Developed 1972 by Tom DeFanti at Ohio State University. t was
used for making some sequences to Star Wars by Larry Cuba. Later it
developed to ZGRASS.
- Nestor Burtnyk from National Research Counsil of Canada developed with
his collage Marcelli Wein, keyframe animation for computers. Peter Folds
made the first computer animated film ever nominated for an Oscar.
The Pioneer period (1950-1979)
The first meeting pIaces:
- SGGRAPH (Special nterest Group on Graphics and interactive
techniques) undergroup of Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM) 1974 the first conference at campus at University of
Colorado, in Baulder. Tom Defanti, chairman (1981-1985), started the
electronic theatre.
- Ars Electronica Linz, Austria. s the European big festival of technology
meeting art. Founded 1979.
ntroduction period (1975 -1990)
- Technology is still expensive but begins to spread.
- Research budget moves to filmindustry
- CG introduced to the public trough films etc
- The first commercial companies make commericals and movies.
.
ntroduction period (1975-1990)
The opening of new centers for research: NYIT - CGL
- Alex Schure founded 1974 Computer Graphics Laboratory (CGL) huserat i New York nstitute of Technology (NYT).
- Ed Catmull stars as head of research and attract allot of the key people from Utah to NY.
- Ed Catmull wrote Tween for 2D-animation on the computer.
- Tubby the Tuba flops 1975.
- Alvy Ray Smith develops Paint a full 24 bit paint program. 3 * 8 bit buffer.
- The first 3D-animated feature fails in production, "The Works" 1979-1986 fails
.
ntroduction period (1975-1990)
The opening of new centers for research: CommerciaI Companies and the
Making of Tron (1982)
- MAGI founded 1966 by Philip Mittelman outside NY. 1971 opened a
special division called Synthavision (based on the name of there new
software). The made the first commercial using CG for BM and cg effects
for the film Demon Seed (1977). The animator Chris Wedge was hired as
the first "classical animator" in computer animation.
- TripIe-I opened a CG division 1975 in Culver City in California, lead by
Gary Demos and John Whitney Jr. (son to the pioneer). Made 1976
Futureworld, the first film featuring 3D animated scenes. Later made test for
empire strikes back (1980), that were not used.
- Robert AbeI & Assocites (R&AbeI) maker of commercials and intros.
Black Hole(1979) for example. Famous commerical for 1984 superbowl is
called Brilliance.
- DigitaI Effects, maker of commercials, based in NY.
TRON:
These four companies was hired by director Steven Lisberger to do the 3D-
animated sequenses for Tron about 15 minute (stagaring 235 scenes). Tron
became a milestone for CG and developing of /O techniques and rendering,
and foremost inspiring future filmmakers even tough it was a flop at the
boxoffice.
ntroduction period (1975-1990)
The opening of new centers for research: Ohio State University CGRG
Animation programs deveIops:
- Ronald Hackthorn develops ANMA from ANMA (Csuri, 1975)
- ANTTS (Csuri, 1979), intergrated animation and rendering.
-Skeleton Animation System (SAS)
- Using new animation programs artist at Ohio State made films.
- Like Chris Wedge Tubers Two Step (1985) or Snoot & Muttly (1984)
.
ntroduction period (1975-1990)
The opening of new centers for research: ILM:s Computer Divsion
- LM (ndustrial Light & Magic, 1975) opens there computer division, with Ed
Catmull as leader, 1979.
- Goal to develop: Digital Filmprinter(David DeFrancisco), Digital Syntherziser
and sound (Andy Moore), Digital Editing (Ralf Guggenheim) and CG.
- Loren Carpenter, creator of Vol Libre, hired to develop the renderer REYES
(later RenderMan)
.
Road to Reyas (1983), a computer generated picture made by the Computer Division at LM with there new renderer
REYES (Render Everything You See). This picture shows off how far they had come in the "quest for photorealism". This
still used all the latest algoritms and showed the future potential in 3D-animation, like grass, fractle mountains, enviroment
fog, water an bushes. The symbolism of the picture is that photo realism is is "just around the corner".
ntroduction period (1975-1990)
The opening of new centers for research: ILM:s Computer Divsion
- Star Trek - the wrath of Kahn (1982). Making of the "Genesis effect".
Bill Reeves developed particles for rendering to make fire, grass, etc.
- Around 1984, John Lasseter is kicked out from Disney and starts as an
animator at Pixar animating there first short film.
- "Distributed Render" solving Motion Blur, Depth of field problem
- 1985, Young Sherlock Holmes Stained-Glass-window-man
- 1986 Luxo Jr. Milestone in Character Animation in CG.
- Pixar-Vision a digital scanner. Thomas Knoll Photoshop.
.
The foundation of Pixar:
- 1985 George Lucas wants to sell the Computer Division.
- 1986 Steve Job with key people (Lasseter, Catmull etc) start Pixar
- Doug Kay and George Jablove from Cornell University, new leders of LM:s
computer division.
- The Adventures of Andr & Wally B (1984), Luxo Jr (1986), Red's Dream
(1987), Tin Toy (1988), Knick Knack (1989).
Tin Toy (1988), is one of the five short (two at he computer division and 3
in the new company) of short films the Pixar group made before there first
feature.
ntroduction period (1975-1990)
ntroduction period (1975-1990)
The quest for photo reaIism:
- 1967 Utahs research into rendering Scanline
- 1980 Turner Whited presented Raytracing.
- 1984 Cornell University (Donald .P Greenberg among others) presented
"Radiocity" for global illumination.
.
The "Cornell Box" for testing how close the CG is a real
photograph. CG on the left, photo on the right.
ntroduction period (1975-1990)
Omnibus Crash October 1987:
- Omnibus borrowed money and bought R&Abel and Digital Production.
- Hostile takeover and key members like Gary Demos and John Whitney Jr.
did not want to collaborate with new owners.
- The expense of supercomputers made the revenues to low.
- over 150 people lost there job 1987.
- More companies closed around the US because of expensive the
expensive supercomputers.
- New companies and business models grew out of the crash with smaller
less expensive computers.
- A new generation of companies opened and know-how spread to these
companies.
Establishing period (1991-?)
- Ed Catmull says, that 1991 was the year everything changed.
- The new technology conquers the old analog workmethods as the
mainstream.
- Realtime games become 3D-animated and the FPS is introduced
- The technology spreads from super computers to PC computers.
.
Establishing period (1991-?)
The ILM computer division grows and becomes the NEW ILM:
- Doug Kay and George Jablove from Cornell University, new leders of LM:s
computer division.
- ndiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989 is the first fully digitaly composit
film at LM and in the world.
- 1989 The Abyss is the first photo-real CG special effect. Same year (1991)
the Beauty and The Beast uses renderd cartonish background with color
together with drawn characters for the first time in a cartoon.
- 1991 Terminator uses phot-realistic effects with T-1000 robot.
- 1993 n Jurrasic Park, LM makes the first photorealistic Dinosaurs, among
new tech is 3D-painting.
- 1995 Casper is the first 3D-animated main character in a movie.
- 1995 Jumanji is the first movie with animals with hair / fur.
- 1996 Draco in Dragon Heart is the first photrealistic main character
- 1997 Spawn is the first movie with Cloths simulations in.
- 1999 Jar Jar Binks is the first (and most irritating) photoreal character that
more or less destroys a film by him self and ends the triumf for LM in the
90's.
The "Psyodopod" in Abyss, made with CG with
Alias animationprogram
Galliminis Stamped sequence from Jurrasic
Park.
Establishing period (1991-?)
Pixar:
- Pixar at first living of making "Pixar Computers" and commercials make there first feature film Toy Story (1995). A spin of from the
short Tin Toy. The make a deal with Disney for five movies within 10 years.
- Toy Story changes the animation bussniess from 2D to 3D over night becouse of the gross at the Box office and the "new look".
The new technique is difficult, but it is still allot easier than drawing it! t is the great equalizer in the bussniess of animation.
Establishing period (1991-?)
New 3D-animation companies are founded:
- Dreamworks with Jeffrey Katzenberg with hits like the Lion King under his belt. Antz (1998) and then later Shreak (2001) are mega
hits.
- Blue Sky Chris Wedge. Oscar winner with Bunny 1999. A new style of 3D-animation.
- Sony mageworks, etc
- Special effects: Digital Domain, Weta, Manex etc
- Disney and Steve Eisner in battle with Pixar until Bob ger finds a way.
New 3D-animation companies are founded as one-man-bands:
- 3D is available on the PC and MAC. Technology spreads and allot of indy shortfilms.
- Viral films like dansing space aliens travels the internet like wildfire!
Rustboy 2001
Establishing period (1991-?)
New genre of "Photo-reaIistic" 3D-animation:
- From Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within (2001)
- Uncanny Vally
- The Polar Express (2004), Beowulf (2007) etc
- Avatar (2010) called preformence capture, mixing it with film.
- Tintin (2011)
Establishing period (1991-?)
3D-animation in Games:
- Wolfenstein 3D (1992), Doom (1993) to (Quake1996)
- Cutscene Pre-Renders in 3D-animation
- The diffrence from the intro of Warcraft (1995) to Warcraft
(2002) illustrates the development.
- Realtime is the new way of rendering what is called ingame-graphics.
First fully 3D-animated FPS
End of lecture