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World's First Computer Animation

your3dsource.com — Many of us think of the movie “Tron” as the the first film to use computer animation or effects in any form. But the technology goes back a lot further than 1982, when Tron was released. Here are some notable milestones in computer animation and effects in film.

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  • thewump, on 10/11/2007, -0/+52Right, but "Tron" was the first computer animation that could kick your ass.
    • kiiwii, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8Speaking of computer animation...

      Does anyone else remember a computer animation that came with early versions of Windows, I think as far back as 3.1. It followed a ball, I think, through a series of obstacles. And I think at the end you saw Bill Gates and he pushes up his glasses and says "cool"

      I've been trying to find the video, but searching google for "Bill Gates animation cool" didn't come up with much, heh.
    • ccaazz, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2sorry Tron, it was fun while it lasted.
    • Cwo655321, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2very cool, but where's itchy?
    • danjal, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I remmber that, it came on the second cd for windows 95 the 'user guide' or whatever disc
    • danjal, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1oh wait, no it was 3.1 and it had some dog, a skateboard and for some weird reason a hot dog..
  • hbweb500, on 10/11/2007, -2/+39Boo for using realplayer videos.

    And, also, I doubt the legitimacy of this, but: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqe9mjimUG8
    • RaggTopp, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7That kinda looks like printouts in a flipbook format.
  • JAVandiver, on 10/11/2007, -0/+24I know that it was not a "First" of anything, but another great example of early CG was "The Last Starfighter."
    • hockey, on 10/11/2007, -0/+17Beat a video game, save the universe and get the girl. . . with the entire town rooting you on.

      It just doesn't get any better than that.

    • exscind, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Young Sherlock Holmes is the one I think of right off the bat. Nice to see they mentioned it.
    • astrotrain, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9"Teriffic! I'm about to get killed a million miles from nowhere with a gung-ho iguana who tells me to relax."
      -Alex Rogan
    • RaggTopp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Did you know that Wil Wheaton was in that movie? Pretty sure it was a non speaking role but he's in the credits.

      We could always ask him, he's a regular Digger.

      Also, if you search for it, someone created an EXACT playable replica of the game from the movie. It's downloadable and fully playable, although somewhat hard to use keyboard controls for. Pretty sure it allows for custom joystick binding though, so you could play it with a PS2 controller or something.
    • SpaceParanoids, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"The Last Starfighter" is my second favorite fictional video game. :)
    • helf, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2@ ragtop

      yeah, here it is. kicks ass :D

      http://www.roguesynapse.com/games/last_starfighter.php
  • paterade724, on 10/11/2007, -11/+1saw Tron 4 years ago, laughed the whole way through it. I wish my parents would have had intercourse (it means sex for the 12 year olds on here) earlier than 85' so I could have witnessed all that is Tron. I am sure all movies from today will be hilarious when "insert new technology" is used 20 years from now.
  • biffbobfred, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3One of the few sources of pride i could take in my otherwise ***** school (UIC) was that we had Dr. Tom DeFanti, who did the animations for Star Wars. He also co-developed the CAVE, one of the cooler immersive virtual reality environments out there.
  • Asriel86, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3The first movie to use CGI for effects (and not just fancy stuff on a futuristic computer display) was Westworld, directed by Michael Crichton in 1973. The POV view of the robot (which inspired the Terminator's pov) and the end when the robot melts/blows up are CGI.
  • AnimZero, on 10/11/2007, -5/+12RealPlayer?

    Buried as lame.
  • foxhoundadmin, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8definitely not one of the firsts, but DEFINITELY worth a mention:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U82WISdfT3A
  • kahlessreborn, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Bit for Byte Tron Reins Supreme!
    • AnteChronos, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3You better believe it. And anyone claiming that the Bit wasn't a "real" character needs to take a step back an look around. Bit has more personality than some real people I know. Plus, I still remember being slightly afraid of the Master Control Program when I was a kid. That thing was pure evil.

      END OF LINE
  • astrotrain, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Don't forget Pixar worked with The Children's Television workshop during the early 80's to make the famous 'Lamp Jr.' animations for Sesame Street which have now become part of their logo.

    And of course there is The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy TV Series, which used numerous computer animation
    for all the entries when "Book" explained his entries. I admire the classic 70's and 80's computer animation with the
    synth music on the old movies and television shows.
    • DerekS, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4The old Hitchhiker didn't use a computer for that animation though; it was done with transparencies and stop-motion.
    • zybch, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Yup, not a computer effect to be seen in H2G2. You think the BBC had the budget to do that at the time??
  • cros, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Video of "The Hunger":
    http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/films/film.php?sort=title&id=10443

    Very intriguing.
  • Nighthawke, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I recall the technology demonstrators that they showed as part of the TRON DVD. MAGI, Abel and Associates teamed up to generate the majority of the animations for the movie. Their pioneering work was quite amazing for the time.
    • ConceptJunkie, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I just watched "Tron" and while I'm not trying to knock the incredible technical achievement of that movie, a lot of the seemingly-digital special effects were actually hand-animated. There was certainly a lot of real computer graphics in the movie, but a lot of it was also just old-fashioned movie technology, implemented in innovative (and very painstaking) ways. The audio commentary track was fascinating.
  • Habemus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7FYI before anyone mentions it, the computer screens aboard the spaceships displaying navigation and systems status in 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 were all hand-animated. No computers at all were used.
    • adleym, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Re: 2001 I just saw that movie again for the first time in like, 20 years. Still holds up today and one of the greatest sci fi movies ever, if not THE greatest. Still trying to figure out the ending, though.
    • Nitesmoke420, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2
      @Habemus
      Also the 3D grid of NYC on the navigation computer on Snake's glider in Escape from New York was actually neon lines painted over an all black model of the city to look as if it were a complex wireframe.
    • ConceptJunkie, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Actually they were film loops rear-projected on to the screens built into the sets, and in some cases you can apparently see scratches that resulted from looping the films over and over and over during the course of shooting.
    • ConceptJunkie, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4adleym:

      Read the book, it makes a whole lot more sense. It's ironic that 2001 is still after 40-years possibly the most realistic depiction of near-future space travel ever made, although I could never figure out why some of the EVA action was speeded up so much. (Obviously "Apollo 13" was more realistic, but that was a depiction of _real_ space travel.)
    • meteors, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1habemus, man, ya beat me to it! I was actually going to suggest that 2001 used computer graphics/animation in 1968.

      Learn something new every day...



      -j
  • tomzer1, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I always remember one early CG-in-movies note about Flash Gordon. That film was among the first to use CG in set dressing in some scenes were glass and reflections on glass were used. It was done for things like large plate glass windshields on ships, etc. Nothing amazing by today's standards, but it was the first feature film to blend this with live action and optical effects composites.
  • D4r7h3v1l, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7No mention of The Wrath of Khan?
  • lowhauler, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Okay this is gonna totally date me, but I have a very strong memory of this weird animation that I'm sure was done with an analog computer from when I was a kid. It was a segment on Sesame Street: these two eyes and a mouth, each looking like an oscilloscope trace pattern that constantly retraced. It had a HAL-like voice, and it counted more oscilloscope trace patterns that appeared on the bottom of the screen. Maybe y'all don't count analog computers, but it was definitely not cell or any other traditional animation technique. Carbon-dating of this memory locates it in the mid-seventies.

    Ring a bell for anybody?
    • electrohit, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Test
    • ironbear, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1@mattcoady, there was a small company (I'm thinking it was called "Image Transform") which specialized in ID'S and effects for TV...especially popular on local stations of the time...which used an analog computer to directly control CRT brightness and sweep circuits. The images were recorded on regular B&W movie film and colorized later. I remember the interesting process because I was fairly fascinated with the results as a kid. Primitive, but really cool. Maybe some dinosaur TV guy remembers.
  • masterofNone, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1if the list doesn't include this...

    http://www.skrenta.com/images/sexy-robot.jpg
    (the "sexy robot" ad for aluminum cans from the early 80s)

    ...it's a lame-ass ***** list
    • adleym, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2That would only make the list of things you wish you could have sex with! (Just kidding)
  • Flestrin, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0Probably some game machine that uses a symbian as the controller.

    If they an just get more chicks into gaming.....


  • cptbruno, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3You all might want to check out the work of John Whitney, Sr. He did the opening title sequence for Vertigo and a number of other films using mechanical systems in the 50's. During the 60's, he experimented with producing films using analog computers.
  • geojams, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0For some reason I always thought Looker, 1981, was the first movie to use computer animation.
  • wonkavsn, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3And who could forget the Money for Nothing video:

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=U82WISdfT3A

    Old technology is funny
    • GrendelT, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I think foxhoundadmin beat you to the punch about 4 hours before you.
  • Nitesmoke420, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Wrath of Khan had mindblowing cgi for the time. It was made in 82.
  • mglmouser, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Tony De Peltrie was also a very important milestone.

    Some info in french: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_de_Peltrie

    Basicaly, this thing led to the creation of Softimage.
  • doodoodoodoo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Here is a pencil test made on a 1988 Apple home computer.

    [url]http://youtube.com/watch?v=aVHYts1g-QE[/url]

    You may notice a few pre-Pixar names in the credits. The CG animation studios of today really owe a lot to Pixar.
  • mattcoady, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Funny thing is, the tweening effect in "The Hunger" is now used today in ***** flash animations all over the world.
  • teclo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3You might want to check out this 1983 Disney test for "Where the Wild Things Are".

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvIDRoO8KnM
  • peter303, on 10/11/2007, -0/+02001 Space Odyssey had a good *simulation* of computer graphics in the spacecraft control panels.
    I heard these were actually hand drafted cel animations because these were far beyond the
    capability of computer animation in 1967 (dots and lines on oscilliscope).
  • slapthemonkey, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I second hockey
  • origclubsoda, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1"Many of us think of the movie “Tron” as the the first film to use computer animation or effects in any form. " I ghuess many of you are retarded.
    • adleym, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1You can't even spell "guess" correctly and your calling US retarded?
  • NaturalOrange, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I would watch it....except freaking screw RealPlayer, no way im using that *****
  •  

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