Skip to main content

BSA206 1980s Computer animation Milestones

Yoichiro Kawaguchi was a computer programmer and animator and a pioneer of computer software that grows images in an organic way. He has a program called Growth Model that uses algorithms that can generate brightly coloured psychedelic worlds.

In 1983 a video game called Dragons lair became very popular in arcades because of its full quality animated sequences that were made by Don Bluth, an ex-Disney animator.

The Commodore 64 was released in 1983. It was one of the first affordable home computers. a year earlier the Sinclair Spectrum had been released in Europe. However, the affordability of the Commodore 64 opened up the creation of computer graphics to a large group of people, inspiring a generation of computer artists and graphic designers.

In 1984 Wavefront Technologies was formed by Bill Kovacs who, along with Roy Hall, had developed some of the software used on Tron.
Kovacs left and Hall then developed video manipulation and animation software. In 1995 Silicon Graphics bought Wavefront Technologies and merged the Canadian firm, Alias research with them and they produced the advanced computer animation software Alias/Wavefront.
Later on, with the help of Walt Disney, Alias/Waveform was developed into Maya (1998).
Softimage, which was released in 1988 became industry standard in animation and was the preferred choice for character animation.
The first version of a 3D Studio (3DS Max) was released in 1990 by Autodesk who were later bought by Maya and Softimage and became the market leaders in 3D animation winning the Oscar for technical achievements in 2003.

John Lasseter, who worked for Disney, created a test for a CGI version of the book, Where the Wild things are. As a result of the disappointing reaction to Tron, Disney thought computer animation didn't have a future and passed on the project. The film was made in 2008 by Spike Jonze using extensive facial CGI animation.
John Lasseter left Disney and worked at Lucasfilm to help create The Adventures of Andre and Wally B in 1984. In 1986 Lucas film was sold by george Lucas to Steve Jobs so Lasseter produced short films for the new company, Pixar. He produced the famous Luxo Jr. Animation that Pixar use before many of their movies.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

BSA106 German Expressionism.

German Expressionism in film came about after WW1, after Germany lost the war. Germany wanted to revitalise the film industry and to create a better impression for the country. The German government subsidised the UFA (Universum-film AG), whose studios were the largest and best equipped in Europe. This became Germans golden age of cinema. German Expressionist film lasted from 1919 to 1933 when Adolf Hitler came into power. Unlike other Western films of that period that focused more so on creating realism, German Expressionism distorts reality to create an emotional effect. Expressionism films employed stylised set design, elaborate costuming, shadowy lighting that emphasises bold contrasts of dark and bright highlights and unnatural make-up. The settings are typically distorted and exaggerated, with key themes being madness, criminality and fracturing of identity. German Expressionism was a huge influence in developing the horror genre. They began to tell the story

BSA126 Animation Character - Tim Lockwood, Cloudy with a Chance of meatballs.

Tim Lockwood Tim Lockwood is Flint's father in 'Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs'. I picked him because I think he is interesting because he doesn't have any eyes that we can see but the animators are able to show us his emotions purely by his eyebrow movements. Structurally, Tim's face is made up of very simple shapes, His eyebrows are a simple rectangle shape that has been given a hair-like texture design to show they are very bushy. His nose is also a rectangular shape with little realistic design apart from the flat rectangular shape. His mustache is similar to his eyebrows, only a slight curve to show gravity and to make his face seem more realistic. It also doubles as a mouth shape in many ways, similar to how his uni-brow doubles as eyes. The head shape itself is basically a conical shape with curving lines which indicates a chin. Tim Lockwood's personality is quite bland and conventional. Therefore, the shirt he wears is a pale, greyish b

BSA206 Animation History 1990s

Due to the success of The Simpsons , more experimental TV animation began emerging. The Tick was a 1994 animation that was based on Ben Edlund's absurdist superhero comic and adapted into an animated series by Fox. The Critic (1994) was created by The Simpsons writers. It is about a critic who hates contemporary films. Duckman  (1994) was created by Everett Peck and it was based on characters from his comic. It was aimed at an adult audience and Duckman was voiced by Jason Alexander from Sienfeld . The Big Story  depicts an argument between young Kirk Douglas and old Kirk Douglas. Quentin Tarantino liked it so much that he requested it to be played before Pulp Fiction screenings. The Big Story is a 1994 stop motion film that was nominated for an Oscar. It was created by Tim Watts and David Stoten who went on work on other films including working on the storyboards for Tim Burton's Corpse Bride . In 1995 Dave Brothwick created The Secret Adventures of T