THE COMPUTER GRAPHICS MUSEUM

lthough Looker (1981) was the first film with shaded 3D com puter graphics, Tron (1982) was the first with 15 minutes of computer animation and lots of shaded graphics. Some believe Tron's box office failure slowed the adoption of digital effects, but now most films include computer graph ics. Indeed, last year, of the top 10 box office films, eight had hundreds of digital effects shots or were created entirely with 3D computer graphics. During the past two decades, CG inventors have been in spired by filmmaking to create exciting new tools. In so doing, they have in spired filmmakers to expand the art of filmmaking-as you can see on the following pages. What's next? CG tools move downstream. Synergy gets energy.

(The date at the beginning of each caption refers to the issue of Computer Graphics World in which the image and credit appeared. The film's release date follows the caption.)

July 1982 Sogitec simulator 1982

April 1982 When Disney's Tron was envisioned, few companies knew how to create CG effects, yet the film needed all-digital shots inside a videogame. Although now recognized as landmarks, the visual effects created by MAGI, Triple-I, Robert Abel & Associates, and Digital Effects are ignored by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences' Visual Effects Branch. (Premiere: 7/82)

July 1982 Creating the dark, futuristic vision of LA in Blade Runner is accomplished using model shots and painted backgrounds. Several different kinds of software systems help generate computer-controlled camera moves on stage by, for example, fitting motion curves to selected key frames. (Premiere: 6/82)

October 1983 For Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Lucasfilm's Computer Division creates one effect: a wire-frame "holographic" model of the Death Star under construction. The division evolves into two groups, Games and Pixar. Pixar is sold to Steven Jobs in 1986. (Premiere: 5/83)

July 1984 For The Last Starfighter, Digital Productions creates CG spaceships, planets, and high-tech hardware that are integrated into live-action scenes.

It is unusual that the CG tools are used for images that aren't supposed to look computer generated. (Premiere: 7/84)

May 1986 Arguably, the first 3D character in a feature film is a knight who leaps out of a stained glass window in Young Sherlock Holmes. The Pixar group at Lucasfilm uses new motion blur technology and its 32-bit RGBA paint system to create the effect. (Premiere: 12/85)

October 1989 Using Alias/2 animation software running on SGI's 4D/120 workstation, Pixar's RenderMan running on a Pixar Image Computer, and data from Cyberware's scans, ILM creates the water tentacle for The Abyss. Storyboards are scanned into SuperMac's PixelPaint and edited with not-yet-released software called Photoshop. (Premiere: 8/89)

August 1990 To animate these skeletons for Total Recall, Metrolight Studios tries using motion capture on set, but this first attempt to use mocap in a film fails. Instead, the studio rotoscopes film shot in low light during the capture. The visual effects win a special achievement Academy Award. (Premiere: 6/90)

October 1991 Director Jim Cameron develops Terminator 2, which doesn't simply include CG but relies on it for the liquid-metal, shape-shifting T-1000 character, which is modeled, animated, rendered, and morphed at ILM. (Premiere: 10/91)

December 1991 Although 3D graphics debuted in earlier Disney animations, Beauty and the Beast is the first in which hand-drawn characters appear in a 3D background. Every frame of the film is scanned, created, or composited within Disney's computer animation production system (CAPS) co-developed with Pixar. (Premiere: (11/91)

April 1992 To create 20 minutes of The Lawnmower Man's version of VR, Angel Studios, Xaos, Inc., and Homer & Associates use motion capture, particle systems, algorithmic-based paint, and other state-of-the-art techniques running on SGI workstations. (Premiere: 3/92)

December 1993 When ILM's Dennis Muren convinces Stephen Speilberg to use computer graphics dinosaurs as well as animatronics in Jurassic Park, movies are forever changed. In ILM's 80 effects shots, full-size dinosaurs move freely in background plates, and the first digital double gets lunched. (Premiere: 6/93)

December 1993 Rather than train a real whale to leap to freedom in the open seas, VIFX inserts a CG whale between shots of animatronics for Free Willy. The CG orca is created with Symbolics software and hardware and rendered with RenderMan. (Premiere: 7/93)

July 1994 For The Lion King, Disney Feature Animation's CGI department animates crowds of 3D wildebeests and integrates them into painted backgrounds, and Disney unveils its closely guarded computer animation and production system (CAPS), co-developed with Pixar. (Premiere: 6/94)

July 1994 Rarely have CG effects been used in as lively a way as the Tex Avery-style ones created by ILM for The Mask. The studio helps turn Jim Carrey into a live-action cartoon and does odd things with his dog, too. (Premiere: 7/94)

June 1995 Casper is arguably the first 3D lead character in a live-action film and definitely the first 3D lead character animated at ILM. ILM creates 200 effects shots for the film, many of which integrate semi-transparent characters into live-action backgrounds. (Premiere: 6/94)

January 1996 Following the success of the CG dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, ILM is asked to produce numerous realistic CG animals for Jumanji, including monkeys and a lion, which causes the studio to develop custom software to create, animate, and render monkey and lion fur, and long hair for the lion's mane. (Premiere: 12/95)

August 1996 To create the tornado for Twister, ILM develops a custom interface for Wavefront's Dynamation to generate controllable, rotating funnels of particles, and a special-purpose particle renderer that runs on SGI's Challenge. (Premiere: 5/96)

August 1997 Although the background is a miniature set, the cars are CG. Digital Domain creates digital effects for The Fifth Element with Power Animator, Softimage 3D, Prisms, RenderMan and, for LeeLu's reincarnation, data from the Visible Human project. (Premiere: 5/97)

September 1997 Many of the 218 visual effects shots created at Tippett Studios for Starship Troopers are filled with crowds of huge, evil, alien bugs. The team uses Softimage 3D, Dynamation, Amazon 3D Paint, and Photoshop. Also, a custom "Bug Input Device" allows puppeteers to animate the 3D warrior bugs in real time. (Premiere: 11/97)

January 1998 Digital Domain, the lead studio on Titanic, breaks new ground by putting thousands of digital people, animated with the help of motion capture, onboard the ship. The studio also creates CG set extensions and digital water. The film receives an Oscar for visual effects, and goes on to earn more money than any other film to date. (Premiere: 12/97)

July 1998 By becoming the second studio to create a successful feature animation with 3D computer graphics, PDI helps ensure the future of the new medium. For Antz, the studio creates new crowd and water-simulation systems and muscle-based facial animation tools. (Premiere: 10/98)

November 1998 With A Bug's Life, Pixar shows the world that its first 3D animated feature, Toy Story, wasn't a fluke. Like the first, this Disney/Pixar film is also a box office hit. For this film, the technical team develops new lighting techniques and methods for defining, painting, and rendering surfaces that help give the bugs and their world a brilliant, translucent look. (Premiere: 11/98)

May 1999 When the effects team at Manex Visual Effects creates this "Bullet Time" shot for The Matrix, little do they know it will inspire similar effects in dozens of future films and help this film win an Oscar for best visual effects. To freeze time for the shot, the team uses an array of cameras; for background buildings, they use image-based modeling. (Premiere: 3/99)

May 1999 To create The Mummy's Imhotep, ILM uses a combination of models and displacement maps that carve the geometry. To move him, the team uses a Vicon8 motion capture system and key frame animation; procedural animation manages the internal organs and dangling bits of decayed flesh. (Premiere: 5/99)

January 1999 In Mighty Joe Young, the gorilla himself is at times a CG character created at ILM or Dream Quest Images. (The shot above is created at ILM.) Both studios develop custom hair-raising software for the film: Dream Quest's code plugs into Maya; ILM's works with its in-house CARI. (Premiere: 12/98)

June 1999 To help create Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, ILM fashions 1900 visual effects shots for director George Lucas, many of which include such CG main characters as Jar Jar Binks and Boss Nass, shown here. (Premiere: 5/99)

July 1999 Using Disney's Deep Canvas, background artists painted on 2D plots of 3D scenes. Information about each brushstroke was stored and later applied to positions in 3D space, giving the title character in Tarzan ample room to swing through a painterly 3D jungle. (Premiere: 6/99)

July 1999 Some 10 visual effects companies, including Digital Domain, Manex Visual Effects, and Mass Illusions, help create the complex, non-photorealistic, and often surrealistic effects for What Dreams May Come, which wins an Oscar for best visual effects. (Premiere: 9/98)

November 1999 For Warner's cel animation The Iron Giant, a 3D CG hero is created in Maya, rendered as a cartoon in RenderMan, and then imported into Cambridge Animation Systems' Animo. (Premiere: 7/99)

November 1999 Having created the first feature animation with 3D computer graphics in 1995-the wildly successful Toy Story-Pixar then creates a wildly successful sequel, Toy Story 2, which has an emotionally deeper story, 10 times the visual complexity of the first film, and improved human characters. (Premiere: 11/99)

December 1999 Surprisingly, the first photorealistic CG star in a live-action film is not a man but a mouse acting like a child. Imageworks creates the furry star of Stuart Little and costumes him with the help of Maya Cloth. (Premiere: 12/99)

May 2000 Putting an entire cast of 3D animated characters in a world fabricated from live-action backgrounds has not been attempted before Disney Feature Animation creates a 3D animation facility to do just that for Dinosaur. To assemble the dinosaurs and lemurs, 15 software engineers write 450 programs; more than 120 are plug-ins to Maya and Softimage 3D. (Premiere: 5/00)

June 2000 To transplant the moose and squirrel into The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, a live-action film, ILM renders 3D characters with a 2D cartoon look while keeping their dimensionality, and finds ways to animate the oddly shaped, formerly hand-drawn characters. (Premiere: 6/00)

July 2000 For Hollow Man, Sony Pictures Imageworks creates a CG clone of Kevin Bacon and causes its skin, muscles, organs, and bones to erode, layer-by-layer, as it becomes invisible. (Premiere: 7/00)

July 2000 Without CG water, it would be impossible to suggest the violence of The Perfect Storm. The effects team at ILM considers the movement of light through a drop of water, generates various types of foam and spray, reproduces the movement of ocean swells and 100-foot waves, and creates CG boats, planes, and digital doubles. The film receives a visual effects Oscar nomination. (Premiere: 6/00)

December 2000 Disney's The Secret Lab creates one spotless digital Dalmatian named Oddball, several spotted CG pups, and wipes the spots off real pups digitally for the film 102 Dalmatians. (Premiere: 12/00)

December 2000 Putting Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas onto the big screen entails creating CG landscapes and set extensions for the live-action film. Using Houdini, Maya, and RenderMan, Digital Domain also sends a CG sleigh rocketing down a CG mountain and helps populate Who-ville with digital Whos. (Premiere: 11/00)

April 2001 Winner of the first Oscar for best animated feature, DreamWorks/ PDI's irreverent comedy Shrek sends its stars, a cartoony donkey, a story-book princess, and the ogre Shrek on a quest through finely detailed CG landscapes. A gigantic box-office hit, the fractured fairy-tale is PDI's second 3D feature animation. (Premiere: 4/01)

June 2001 By creating CG planes, battleships, smoke, set extensions, water, tracer fire, and digital sailors, ILM simulates the bombing of Pearl Harbor, using new rendering techniques and rigid body simulations for the movie Pearl Harbor. (Premiere: 5/01)

August 2001 Although it fails commercially, Square's ambitious Final Fantasy, which features the first cast of photorealistic digital actors, stirs the imagination of the press and CG community. (Premiere: 7/01)

October 2001 For Monsters, Inc., Pixar's fourth 3D feature and big hit, the animation studio's new simulation engine makes it possible to put a blue-haired monster in nearly every frame of the film. (Premiere: 10/01)

December 2001 By creating thousands of warring, Uruk-hai, a Cave Troll, a fiery Balrog, digital doubles, the Mines of Moria, and other CG effects for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Weta Digital helps the film version of Tolkien's book win an Oscar for visual effects. (Premiere: 12/01)

HISTOIRE DE INFOGRAPHIE 1980-1989"

Durant les années 1980 au début des années SIGGRAPH commençait à vraiment décoller. Catmull explique: «SIGGRAPH est une très bonne organisation. Il était fortuite d'avoir les bonnes personnes faire les bonnes choses au bon moment. Il est devenu l'une des meilleures organisations où il ya beaucoup de partage et de beaucoup d'ouverture. Cours des années, elle a généré une énorme quantité d'excitation et c'était une façon d'obtenir un groupe de personnes de travailler ensemble et de partager des informations, et c'est toujours le cas aujourd'hui. "

Lors de la conférence SIGGRAPH 1980 un film étonnant intitulé «Libre vol» a été présentée. Il avait un ordinateur généré vol à grande vitesse à travers montagnes escarpées fractales. Un programmeur du nom de Loren Carpenter de The Boeing Company à Seattle, Washington avait étudié la recherche de Mandelbrot, puis modifié pour simuler réalistes montagnes fractales.

Carpenter avait travaillé dans le département de Boeing Computer Services depuis 1966 et était étudiant à l'Université de Washington. À partir d'environ 1972, il a commencé à utiliser la bibliothèque d'ingénierie de l'Université de suivre les documents techniques sont publiés sur l'infographie. Il a finalement fait son chemin dans un groupe de Boeing qui travaillait sur un système de dessin assisté par ordinateur. Cela a finalement obtenu l'accès à des graphiques par ordinateur. Travailler là-bas avec d'autres employés, il a développé des algorithmes de rendu différents et publié des articles sur eux.

Dans les années 70 en retard Carpenter a été la création de modèles 3D rendus de modèles d'avions et il voulait des paysages pour aller avec ses avions. Alors il lu le livre de Mandelbrot et a été immédiatement déçu quand il a constaté que les formules ne sont pas pratiques pour ce qu'il avait en tête. Autour de ce temps "Star Wars" a été libéré et est un grand fan de l'Carpenter imagination rêvait de créer un certain type de paysage exotique. Ce poussé à le faire réellement, en 1979, il eut une idée sur la façon de créer un terrain fractal dans l'animation.

Lors d'un voyage d'affaires à l'Ohio State en 1979, Carpenter a couru dans une personne qui connaissait quelques personnes dans le domaine de l'infographie, y compris des gens comme Ed Catmull. Il a expliqué comment Catmull venait d'être embauché par George Lucas pour mettre en place un laboratoire de Lucasfilm. Carpenter a été immédiatement intéressé, mais n'a pas voulu envoyer son curriculum vitae encore, parce qu'il travaillait encore sur son film de montagne fractale. "Au moment où ils devenaient reprend assez pour tuer un cheval», explique Carpenter.

Carpenter poursuit: «J'ai voulu montrer que ces images (fractale) ne serait pas seulement bon, mais bien aussi animer. Après avoir résolu les problèmes techniques, j'ai fait le film, a écrit un article pour le décrire et fait un tas d'images fixes . Il m'est arrivé d'être sur l'équipe A / V du SIGGRAPH 1980, si une de mes photos a fini sur un A / V T-shirt. J'ai eu cette campagne pour devenir aussi visible que possible parce que je voulais travailler chez Lucasfilm et quand J'ai montré mon film, les gens de Lucasfilm étaient là dans l'auditoire. Ensuite ils ont parlé à moi et m'a dit: «Vous êtes, nous vous le voulez." Plus tard, en 1981, Carpenter a écrit le premier moteur de rendu pour Lucasfilm, appelé REYES ( Tout ce que vous rend jamais vu). REYES finirait par se transformer en moteur de rendu Renderman et aujourd'hui, Carpenter est toujours avec Pixar.

Turner Whitted a publié un article en 1980 sur une nouvelle méthode de rendu pour simuler des surfaces très réfléchissantes. Connu aujourd'hui comme Ray Tracing, il rend l'ordinateur tracer chaque rayon de lumière, à partir de l'arrière perspective du spectateur dans la scène 3D aux objets. Si un objet se trouve être réfléchissant, l'ordinateur suit que le rayon de la lumière qui rebondit sur l'objet jusqu'à ce qu'il frappe quelque chose d'autre. Ce processus se poursuit jusqu'à ce que le rayon de lumière frappe un opaque non réfléchissant de surface ou il va tirer au large loin de la scène. Comme vous pouvez l'imaginer, le lancer de rayon est extrêmement intensif de calcul. Tant et si bien que certains programmeurs d'animation 3D (tels que le Groupe Yost qui a créé le studio 3D) de refuser de mettre tracé de rayons dans leur logiciel. D'autre part, le réalisme qui peut être réalisé avec le lancer de rayon est spectaculaire.

Autour de 1980, deux individus, Steven Lisberger, un animateur traditionnel, et Donald Kushner, un distributeur avocat-tourner-film décidé de faire un film sur un monde fantastique dans un jeu vidéo. Après avoir établi une présentation, Lisberger et Kushner a cherché le soutien des sociétés cinématographiques majeurs autour de Los Angeles. À leur grande surprise, c'était Tom Wilhite, un chef de la nouvelle production de Disney, qui les a abandonné l'idée. Après de nombreuses présentations à d'autres cadres de Disney, ils ont reçu le «OK» de Disney pour continuer.

Le film, intitulé «Tron», devait être une fantaisie sur le voyage d'un homme à l'intérieur d'un ordinateur. Il a appelé à près de 30 minutes de films de haute qualité graphique d'ordinateur, et a été une tâche ardue pour ordinateur studios de graphisme à l'époque. La solution réside dans le fractionnement des séquences diverses et les affermage à différents studios d'infographie. Les deux grands studios étaient Triple I et MAGI (Mathematical Applications Group Inc.) Ont également participé ont été NYIT, Effets numériques de New York et Robert Abel & Associates.

L'imagerie générée par ordinateur pour "Tron" était très bon mais malheureusement le film dans son ensemble était très mauvaise. Disney avait coulé environ 20 millions $ dans l'image et elle a bombardé au box-office. Ceci, si quoi que ce soit, a eu une influence négative sur Hollywood vers l'infographie. Triple j'avais créé infographie pour d'autres films tels que Looker en 1980, mais après «Tron», ils ont vendu leur ordinateur graphiques opération. Démos et Whitney a quitté pour former un nouvel ordinateur entreprise graphique appelé Digital Productions en 1981.

Digital Productions venait a commencé alors ils ont posé leur premier contrat cinématographique majeur. Il s'agissait de créer des effets spéciaux pour un film de science-fiction appelé "The Last Starfighter". En Starfighter, cependant, tout le monde fait en sorte que l'histoire était assez bon avant de générer des images de synthèse.

Digital Productions investi dans un Cray X-MP supercalculateur pour aider à traiter les images d'infographie. Les effets eux-mêmes étaient très impressionnants et photo-réaliste mais le film a coûté 14 millions de dollars à faire et que rapporté environ 21 M $ - assez pour classer comme un "B" film de qualité selon les normes Hollywood - il n'a toujours pas Hollywood s'asseoir et prendre note des infographie.

Carl Rosendahl a lancé un ordinateur studio graphique à Sunnyvale, en Californie, en 1980, appelée Pacific Data Images (PDI). Rosendahl avait tout juste diplômé de l'université de Stanford avec un diplôme en génie électrique et pour lui, l'infographie est la solution parfaite pour sa production carrière intérêt télévision et l'ordinateur. Un an plus tard, Richard Chuang, un des partenaires, écrit un code de rendu anti-aliasing, et les images obtenues a permis la clientèle de PDI à augmenter. Alors que d'autres studios d'infographie se concentraient sur le film, PDI centré uniquement sur le réseau de télévision ID, tels que les ouvertures pour le cinéma de la semaine-programmes. Cela leur a permis de se tailler une niche pour eux-mêmes. Chris Woods mis en place un service d'infographie en 1981 à R / Greenberg Associates à New York. En Août 1981, IBM a présenté son premier ordinateur personnel, l'IBM PC. Le PC d'IBM, bien que n'étant pas l'ordinateur le plus avancé technologiquement personnelle, semble rompre PC dans le monde des affaires d'une manière sérieuse. Il utilise le processeur Intel 16 bits, 8088, un microprocesseur et a offert dix fois la mémoire d'autres systèmes informatiques personnels. Dès lors, les ordinateurs personnels sont devenus des outils graves que les affaires nécessaires. Avec cette nouvelle attitude envers PC est venu ventes considérables que les ordinateurs répartis à travers le pays dans pratiquement toutes les entreprises.

Une autre étape importante dans les années 1980 pour l'infographie a été le fondateur de Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI) par Jim Clark en 1982. SGI a concentré ses ressources sur la création des hautes performances graphiques des ordinateurs disponibles. Ces systèmes proposés intégré des capacités graphiques 3D, haute vitesse RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Chip) et les processeurs symétriques (processeurs multiples) architectures. L'année suivante, en 1983, SGI a lancé son premier système, l'IRIS 1000 terminal graphique.

En 1982, Lucasfilm a signé avec Atari pour une première en son genre venture entre un studio de cinéma et de jeux vidéos. Ils ont prévu de créer un jeu vidéo à domicile fondé sur les succès des films "Les Aventuriers de l'Arche Perdue" Ils ont également fait des plans pour développer des jeux d'arcade et des logiciels ainsi. Certains des jeux de Lucasfilm inclus PHM Pegasus, Rift Koronis, Labyrinthe, Ballblazer, de sauvetage et sur Fractalus flotte de grève. Ils ont également développé un jeu en réseau appelé Habitat qui est encore très populaire au Japon. Aujourd'hui, la division de Lucasfilm LucasArts crée les jeux vidéo et une forte de l'utilisateur de l'infographie 3D.

En 1982, John Walker et Dan Drake avec onze autres programmeurs établi Autodesk Inc AutoCAD Ils ont sorti la version 1 pour S-100 et Z-80 ordinateurs basés au COMDEX (Computer Dealers Exposition) cette année-là. Autodesk AutoCAD Expédié pour l'IBM PC et Victor 9000 années computersthe personnelle suivante. A partir de 1983, leurs ventes annuelles passerait de 15.000 dollars à 353,2 millions de dollars en 1993 et ??ont contribué à déplacer l'infographie dans le monde des ordinateurs personnels.

Chez Lucasfilm, les effets spéciaux pour le cinéma ont été assurées par The Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) de division, mais au début ils ne voulaient pas grand-chose à voir avec l'infographie. Catmull, explique: «Ils ont considéré ce que nous faisions était trop faible d'une résolution pour le cinéma. Ils ont estimé qu'il n'avait pas la qualité, et ils n'étaient pas vraiment des croyants en elle. Il n'y avait pas une relation antagoniste entre nous, nous s'entendait bien, il était juste qu'ils n'ont pas vu l'infographie comme étant à leur niveau. Cependant, comme nous l'avons développé la technologie que nous avons fait faire en deux tranches comme la projection Étoile de la Mort pour 'Le Retour du Jedi. C'est seulement un seul effet spécial mais il est sorti en regardant une grande. " Pour "Retour du Jedi" en 1983, Lucasfilm a créé un fil de fer "hologramme" de l'étoile de la mort en cours de construction protégé par un champ de force pour une scène.

La division d'infographie de Lucasfilm a ensuite offert d'effets spéciaux tournés pour le film "Star Trek II:. The Wrath of Khan" Il y avait un effet qui aurait pu être fait soit traditionnellement, soit avec CGI. Le scénario initial prévoyait que les acteurs d'entrer dans une pièce contenant un cercueil en forme de cas qui pourrait être considéré un rocher sans vie. Le "Genesis" machine serait alors tirer sur ce rocher et lui donner l'air vert et réaliste. ILM, cependant, ne pas penser que, très impressionnant, ils sont allés à la division d'infographie et demandé s'ils pouvaient générer l'effet de la roche tourner la vie-comme. Puis Alvy Ray Smith revint et dit: «Au lieu d'avoir ce rocher en face de cette boîte de verre pourquoi pas nous faire ce qui est censé être une simulation par ordinateur et un programme montrant comment cela fonctionne pour toute la planète." Ainsi, Smith a eu l'idée originale et ILM a décidé d'y aller. Et ainsi ils ont généré une séquence d'une minute. Il a été largement couronnée de succès, car il était censé être une image générée par ordinateur dans le film, donc il n'a pas besoin d'avoir les dernières touches de réalisme ajouté. L'effet a été rendue sur le moteur de rendu Carpenter nouvelle, REYES. Il s'est avéré être un morceau très, très réussie. Comme Smith dira plus tard: «Je l'appelle« l'effet qui ne meurt jamais »Il est apparu dans trois films successifs de Star Trek, Reebok et autres publicités, la chaîne Sci-Fi, vous le voyez partout." Suite à la «Genèse» effet, Lucasfilm utilisé infographie pour le film "Young Sherlock Holmes" en 1985. Dans ce film, un vitrail vient à la vie de terroriser un prêtre.

Tom Brigham, un programmeur et animateur à NYIT, a étonné le public à la conférence de 1982 SIGGRAPH. Tom Brigham avait créé une séquence vidéo montrant une femme déformer et se transformer en la forme d'un lynx. Ainsi est née une nouvelle technique appelée "Morphing". Il était destiné à devenir un outil nécessaire pour quiconque production de graphiques ou d'effets spéciaux dans le cinéma ou la télévision. Cependant, en dépit de sa réponse impressionnante par les téléspectateurs lors de la conférence, personne ne semblait prêter l'attention technique beaucoup jusqu'à ce qu'un nombre d'années plus tard, en 1987, Lucasfilm a utilisé la technique pour le film "Willow", dans lequel une sorcière a été transformée par une série de animaux dans sa forme définitive en tant qu'être humain.

Scott Fischer, Brenda Laurel, Jaron Lanier avec Thomas Zimmerman a travaillé au Centre de recherche Atari (ARC) au cours des années quatre-vingt. Jaron Lanier, travailler pour Atari en tant que programmeur en 1983, a développé le DataGlove. Un gant pour la main filaire avec commutateurs de détecter et de transmettre à l'ordinateur les mouvements que vous faites. L'ordinateur interprète les données et vous permet de manipuler des objets dans l'espace 3D à l'intérieur d'une simulation informatique. Il a quitté plus tard cette année et s'est associé avec Jean-Jacques Grimaud Ensemble, ils fondent une société 2 ans plus tard, en 1985, appelé VPL Research, qui allait se développer et commercialiser certains des premiers produits commerciaux de réalité virtuelle. Zimmerman, un diplômé du MIT qui avait développé le "Air Guitar" logiciel et un DataGlove qui vous permettait de jouer de la guitare virtuelle, a également rejoint recherche VPL. Zimmerman a quitté en 1989 alors que Lanier est resté avec la recherche VPL jusqu'à Novembre 1992.

AT & T formé la photographie et de l'imagerie électronique Center (EPIC) en 1984 pour créer des produits à base PC vidéographiques. L'année suivante, ils sortent la carte vidéo TARGA pour les ordinateurs personnels. Cela a permis aux utilisateurs de PC pour la première fois d'afficher et de travailler avec des images couleur 32 bits à l'écran. EPIC a également publié le format de fichier Targa TGA pour stocker ces images en couleurs vraies.

Les premières sociétés d'animation tels que Triple-I, Digital Productions, Lucasfilm, etc devaient écrire leur propre logiciel pour la création d'images de synthèse, mais cela a commencé à changer en 1984. A Santa Barbara, en Californie, une nouvelle société a été formée appelé Wavefront. Wavefront a produit le tout premier système commercialement disponibles animation 3D pour fonctionner sur off-the-shelf matériel. Avant de Wavefront, tous les studios d'infographie eu à écrire leurs propres programmes pour générer une animation 3D. Wavefront a commencé une révolution qui allait déterminer l'avenir de tous les studios d'infographie. Toujours dans la même année, Thomson Digital Image (TDI) a été fondé par trois ingénieurs travaillant pour Thomson CSF, une entreprise de défense importante. TDI a publié son logiciel d'animation 3D en 1986.

Jusqu'à ce point, toutes les méthodes de synthèse d'image en usage étaient basées sur la lumière incidente, où une source de lumière brillait directement sur une surface. Cependant, la plupart de la lumière que nous voyons dans le monde réel est diffusée ou la lumière réfléchie par les surfaces. Dans votre maison, vous pouvez avoir des lampes halogènes qui brillent lumière incidente sur le plafond, mais le plafond réfléchit la lumière diffuse au reste de la pièce. Si vous alliez créer une version 3D par ordinateur de la salle, vous pouvez placer une source lumineuse dans la lampe qui brille sur le plafond. Cependant, le reste de la pièce semble sombre, parce que le logiciel est basé sur une source de lumière, la lumière incidente et il se reflète pas sur le plafond et le reste de la pièce. Pour résoudre ce problème, une nouvelle méthode de rendu était nécessaire et, en 1984, Cindy Goral, Don Greenberg et d'autres à l'Université de Cornell a publié un document intitulé, "Modélisation de l'interaction de la lumière entre des surfaces diffuses." Le document décrit une nouvelle méthode appelée radiosité qui utilise les mêmes formules qui simulent la chaleur façon est dispersée dans une salle afin de déterminer comment la lumière se reflète entre les surfaces. En déterminant l'échange d'énergie par rayonnement entre les surfaces 3D des résultats très réalistes sont possibles.

En Janvier 1984, Apple Computer a publié le premier ordinateur Macintosh. C'était le premier ordinateur personnel à utiliser une interface graphique. Le Mac a été basé sur le microprocesseur Motorola et utilisé un seul lecteur de disquette, 128K de mémoire, un 9 "écran haute résolution et d'une souris. Il serait devenu le plus grand non compatible IBM série PC jamais présenté.

Vers 1985, le multimédia a commencé à faire sa grande entrée. L'Organisation internationale de normalisation (ISO) a créé le premier standard pour les disques compacts à mémoire morte (CD-ROM). Cette nouvelle norme a été appelé High Sierra, après la zone à proximité du lac Tahoe, où l'ISO a créé la norme. Cette norme changé plus tard dans la norme ISO 9660. Multimédia est aujourd'hui un marché important pour l'animation 3D par ordinateur personnel. Dans la même année, le commodore a lancé la nouvelle ligne ordinateur personnel Amiga. L'Amiga offre de nombreuses fonctionnalités avancées, y compris un niveau de compatibilité matérielle avec la gamme IBM ordinateur personnel. L'Amiga utilise Motorola microprocesseur 67000 et possède son propre système d'exploitation propriétaire. Prix ??de détail L'unité de base est 1295 $.

Daniel Langlois à Montréal, Canada fondé une société appelée Softimage en 1986. Puis, au début de 1987 il a embauché des ingénieurs pour aider à créer sa vision d'un infographiste 3D programme commercial. Le logiciel Softimage a été libéré au salon SIGGRAPH 1988 et il est devenu la norme animation en Europe avec plus de 1000 installations dans le monde entier d'ici à 1993.

Pendant ce temps, Jim Henson of Muppets renommée approché Brad DeGraf à Digital Productions avec l'idée de créer une marionnette numérique. Henson avait apporté avec lui une unité de Waldo qu'il avait déjà utilisé pour contrôler une de ses marionnettes à distance. Le dispositif a obtenu son nom d'ingénieurs de la NASA ans plus tôt. À leur tour, avait pris le nom d'une des années 1940 Sci-Fi livre écrit par Robert A. Heinlein d'un scientifique handicapés qui a construit un robot pour amplifier ses capacités limitées. Le nom scientifique était Waldo. Ainsi, lorsque la NASA (et plus tard Henson) ont construit leur propre version de l'appareil, elles surnommée Waldo.

Les programmeurs de Digital Productions a réussi à accrocher le Waldo et créer une animation avec lui, mais que l'animation n'a jamais été utilisé pour un projet commercial. Pourtant, l'idée de la Motion Capture est né. Aujourd'hui, la capture de mouvement continue d'être un acteur majeur dans la création d'images de synthèse. Comme pour les productions numériques, à la fois, les choses allaient bien. Ils avaient acheté un Cray X-MP supercalculateur parce que c'était le meilleur ordinateur que l'argent pouvait acheter. Ils ont une interface d'enregistrement du film et équipement de numérisation et ils avaient environ 75 à 100 employés. Ils avaient tout juste de terminer leur projet de film gros poing, "The Last Starfighter" et ils ont fait quelques scènes d'effets spéciaux pour le film 2010 (la surface de Jupiter tourbillonnant). Ils ont également travaillé sur "Labyrinthe" en 1986. Les choses allaient très bien pour les productions numériques, peut-être les choses allaient trop bien.

En 1986, les deux plus grandes maisons d'infographie aux États-Unis ont été rachetés par Omnibus Inc Computer Graphics dans les OPA hostiles, Productions numériques (en Juin) et Robert Abel & Associates Inc (en Octobre). La raison pour cela est important, c'est que les deux sociétés avaient investi massivement dans ordinateurs haut de gamme comme le Cray X-MP (qui a coûté 13 millions de dollars chacun). Cela a mis l'accent sur l'achat de l'argent rapide nombre cruncher peut acheter et ensuite créer votre propre logiciel personnalisé.

Dès que Omnibus a pris le contrôle de Digital Productions des deux co-fondateurs de Digital, John Whitney et Gary Demos, a poursuivi le propriétaire majoritaire de Omnibus, Santa Clara basée Ramtek, pour une partie du produit des ventes. Omnibus ensuite verrouillé tous les deux hors de leurs bureaux à Digital Productions en Juillet de 1986. En Septembre Omnibus obtenu une injonction temporaire contre Whitney et Demos alléguant que Whitney et Demos a fondé une entreprise concurrente, Whitney Productions Demos, et avait embauché au moins trois employés absents chez Omnibus et utilisaient des logiciels et autres informations qui appartenait à Omnibus. L'ordonnance nécessaire Whitney et Démos de revenir temporairement à certains biens Omnibus.

En Octobre, Omnibus acquise Robert Abel & Associates Inc pour 8,5 millions de dollars. Toutefois, en Mars 1987, Omnibus commencé défaut de 30 millions de dollars qu'elle avait emprunté à plusieurs grands créanciers canadiens. La plupart des dettes sont le résultat de l'acquisition de Digital Productions et Robert Abel & Associates à l'année précédente. En mai, Omnibus officiellement fermé et licencié tous ses employés.

Selon Gary Demos, "Abel & Associates a été coulé la même chose que nous. A l'époque, nous étions les deux plus grands studios d'effets, et cet accident fragmenté l'ensemble du secteur. Cela a changé le caractère de l'évolution de l'infographie." Gens talentueux de deux studios trouvé leur place dans les studios d'animation. Jim est allé à Rigel Films Boss, Art Durenski allés dans un studio au Japon, certains sont allés PDI, certains sont allés Philips Interactive Media (alors connu sous le nom Interactive Media américains), d'autres sont allés Rhythm & Hues, MetroLight, et Lucasfilm. Whitney et Demos Demos Productions créée en 1986. Cela a duré pendant deux ans, puis ils se sont séparés et ont formé leurs propres entreprises en 1988. Whitney formée US Labs Animation, tandis que Demos formé démographie.

Dans le domaine de l'informatique personnelle, des logiciels d'infographie était en plein essor. Graphics cristal introduit TOPAS, l'un des premiers programmes de haute qualité d'animation 3D pour les ordinateurs personnels, en 1986. Au fil des ans, des graphiques cristal continuera d'être un acteur majeur dans le domaine de l'animation PC 3D en ligne. L'année suivante, l'image électrique a été fondée et a publié un logiciel d'animation 3D pour les machines SGI et Apple Macintosh. À Mountain View, en Californie, une société de logiciels en 3D a été fondée sous le nom de Octree Software Inc. Plus tard, ils ont changé leur nom de Caligari Corporation et offrent maintenant des programmes d'animation 3D à la fois pour l'Amiga et PC.

En outre, en 1986, infographie trouvé un nouveau lieu, la salle d'audience. Connu sous le nom animation médico-légale, ces infographie sont plus axées sur la précision technique que de l'esthétique visuelle. Technologies Forensic Inc a commencé à utiliser l'infographie pour aider les jurés à visualiser les affaires judiciaires. Encore la création d'animation Forensic aujourd'hui, ils ont été dans les affaires plus que toute autre société. Maintenant, ils utilisent des stations de travail SGI RS-4000 est à travers Moteurs réalité Crimson. Pour leur logiciel 3D qu'ils utilisent exclusivement Wavefront, mais ont quelques interfaces de logiciels de modélisation CAO. Pour l'animation 2D qu'ils utilisent un programme appelé Matador par Parallax.

La même année, Disney a fait sa première utilisation de l'infographie dans le film "The Great Mouse Detective". Dans cette première tentative de Disney à la fusion de l'informatique graphique et dessiner à main cel animation, ils utilisé l'ordinateur pour certains des dispositifs mécaniques comme les engrenages et rouages ??d'horloge. A Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) département a été formé et a travaillé sur des films comme "Oliver et Compagnie", "La Petite Sirène", "Les sauveteurs Down Under», «La Belle et la Bête» et «Aladdin». Avec les résultats très réussis de "Aladdin" et "La Belle et la Bête", Disney a augmenté les animateurs dans le département de CGI à partir de seulement 2 à plus de 14.

A cette époque, chez Lucasfilm, les choses se compliquent un peu. La division graphique d'ordinateur voulu se déplacer vers l'ordinateur faire un film de long métrage d'animation. Pendant ce temps ILM a commencé à s'intéresser au potentiel des effets infographiques. Catmull explique: «Lucas senti cette société devenait un peu trop large et il a voulu restreindre le champ dans ce qu'il faisait en tant que cinéaste. Nos objectifs ne sont pas vraiment compatibles avec le sien." Ainsi, la division d'infographie demandé s'ils pouvaient spin off comme une société distincte et Lucas a accepté de le faire.

Il a fallu un an d'un an d'essayer de rendre cela possible. Catmull poursuit: «Une des dernières choses que j'ai faites a été l'embauche de deux personnes de venir et lancer un groupe CGI pour ILM parce qu'ils ont toujours voulu CGI spéciaux capacités effets. Alors je suis allé à un certain nombre de personnes, mais principalement axé sur Doug Kay et George Joblove. Ils nous ont refusé la première fois. Nous leur avons parlé et les a interviewés et ils ont appelé et a dit: «Nous avons décidé de ne pas venir, parce que nous avons notre propre société. Alors, j'ai mis en bas du téléphone et de la pensée "putain je dois continuer à chercher." Puis, cette nuit-là, j'ai appelé à nouveau, et dit: «Doug, tu es fou! C'est la chance d'une vie! Une erreur s'est produite lors de l'entrevue. Reviens ici et nous allons faire cette chose de nouveau." Il a dit: «OK! alors je lui ai apporté de nouveau, nous sommes allés à travers tout cela à nouveau, et cette fois, ils ont accepté. "

La division d'infographie de l'ILM scission pour devenir Pixar en 1986. Une partie de l'accord était que Lucasfilm obtiendrait un accès continu à la technologie de rendu de Pixar. Il a fallu environ un an pour séparer Pixar de Lucasfilm et dans le processus, Steve Jobs est devenu l'actionnaire majoritaire. Ed Catmull est devenu président et Alvy Ray Smith est devenu vice-président. Pixar a continué à développer leur moteur de rendu, en mettant beaucoup de ressources en elle et finit par le transformer en Renderman.

Créé en 1988, Renderman est un standard pour décrire les scènes 3D. Pat Hanrahan de Pixar a organisé la plupart des détails techniques derrière Renderman et lui donna son nom. Depuis Hanrahan a déménagé à l'Université de Princeton, où il est actuellement professeur associé d'informatique.

La norme Renderman décrit tout ce que l'ordinateur a besoin de savoir avant de rendre votre scène 3D tels que les objets, sources de lumière, les caméras, les effets atmosphériques, et ainsi de suite. Une fois qu'une scène est converti en un fichier Renderman, il peut être rendu sur une variété de systèmes, de Mac à PC aux stations de travail Silicon Graphics. Cela a ouvert de nombreuses possibilités pour les développeurs informatiques en 3D des logiciels graphiques. Maintenant tout ce que le développeur avait à faire était de donner au système de modélisation de la capacité de produire des descriptions Renderman scène compatibles. Une fois qu'il a fait cela, alors le développeur peut regrouper un moteur de rendu Renderman avec le paquet, et ne pas s'inquiéter d'écrire leurs propres rendu. Lorsque le cahier des charges initial a été annoncé, plus de 19 entreprises, il approuvées, y compris Apollo, Autodesk, Sun Microsystems, NeXT, MIPS, le premier, et Walt Disney.

Une partie intégrante de Renderman est l'utilisation de «shaders» ou de petits morceaux de code de programmation pour les surfaces décrivant, effets de lumière et des effets atmosphériques. Shaders de surface sont de petits programmes qui génèrent des textures algorithme basé sur des formules mathématiques. Ces textures algorithmiques sont parfois appelées textures procédurales ou des textures spatiales. Non seulement la texture générée par l'ordinateur, mais il est également généré dans l'espace 3D. Alors que la plupart des techniques de plaquage de texture mapper la texture à l'extérieur "peau" de l'objet, les textures procédurales de fonctionner complètement à travers l'objet en 3D. Donc, si vous utilisez une texture fractale basée sur la procédure de grain de bois sur un cube, et vous coupez une section du cube, vous verriez le grain du bois qui traverse le cube.

La partie intéressante cependant, c'est que Kay et Joblove (avec l'autre spécialiste CGI chez ILM) sont devenus tellement efficaces et le CGI a grandi et grandi jusqu'à aujourd'hui, le groupe CGI est ILM. Ce n'est pas un ministère important, c'est ... ILM. Cela est considéré par certains comme l'un des développements les plus spectaculaires dans l'histoire de l'infographie. Une des raisons du département CGI est devenu si important, c'est qu'il a réussi à ce qu'il comptait faire. Ils fixent des objectifs, des budgets et ils les ont atteints. Pendant ce temps, chez Pixar en Décembre 1988, Steve Jobs a démissionné de son poste de président de Pixar, Ed Catmull et a pris sa place. Charles Kolstad, vice-président de l'entreprise de fabrication et d'ingénierie, est devenu le nouveau président.

Paul Sidlo avait travaillé comme directeur artistique pour Cranston / Csuri Productions de 1982 à 1987 quand il a quitté pour former son propre ordinateur studio graphique, ReZ.n8 (écho prononcé). Depuis lors, ReZ.n8 a continué à être un chef de file dans la production de haute qualité infographie attirer des clients tels que ABC, CBS, Fox, ESPN, NBC avec la plupart des grands studios de cinéma.

Jeff Kleiser avait été un infographiste au Omnibus ont été, il a dirigé l'animation de la fonction film de Disney "Flight of the Navigator". Avant Omnibus Kleiser avait fondé effets numériques et a travaillé sur des projets tels que «Tron» et «Flash Gordon». Comme les choses ont commencé à se désagréger au Omnibus qu'il a fait des recherches sur la capture de mouvement. Puis, quand Omnibus fermé, il rejoint Diana Walczak et formé une nouvelle société en 1987, la Compagnie de Construction Kleiser-Walczak. Leur spécialité nouvelle entreprise était d'animation figure humaine. En 1988, ils ont produit une vidéo d'une minute 3-1/2 musique avec un personnage généré par ordinateur appelé Dozo. Ils ont utilisé la commande de mouvement à l'entrée de tous ses mouvements.

Brad DeGraf, également chez Omnibus, ont uni leurs forces avec Michael Wahrman pour former la société de production DeGraf / Wahrman. Lors de la conférence SIGGRAPH 1988, l'a montré, "Mike the Talking Head", qui était une tête d'ordinateur interactif d'animation en 3D. L'utilisation de commandes spéciales, ils ont pu le faire interagir avec les participants à la conférence. Plus tard DeGraf laisserait Wahrman et d'aller travailler pour les photos Colossal à San Francisco.

Le Groupe d'animation Pixar a fait l'histoire le 29 Mars 1989 en remportant un Oscar à la cérémonie des Oscars pour son court métrage d'animation "Tin Toy". Le film a été réalisé entièrement avec l'infographie 3D à l'aide Renderman de Pixar. John Lasseter a réalisé le film avec William Reeves fournir une orientation technique.

Au SIGGRAPH 1989 à Boston, Autodesk a dévoilé un paquet nouveau PC animation basé appelé Autodesk Animator. En pleine animation 2D et fonctionnalités paquet peinture, animateur était la première étape d'Autodesk dans le domaine multimédia outils. Les logiciels seulement des capacités de lecture de l'animation atteint des vitesses impressionnantes et est devenu un standard pour jouer l'animation sur PC.

En 1989, un film d'aventure sous-marine a été libéré appelé "The Abyss". Ce film a eu un impact direct sur le champ de CGI pour les images animées. James Cameron, réalisateur et scénariste pour Abyss, avait une idée précise en tête pour un effet spécial. Il voulait une créature de l'eau comme un gros serpent de sortir d'une flaque d'eau, s'étendre et d'explorer une plate-forme pétrolière sous-marine et d'interagir avec des personnages vivants. Il a estimé qu'il ne pouvait être fait avec les outils traditionnels d'effets spéciaux et ainsi il a mis l'effet mis aux enchères et les deux Pixar et offre ILM sur elle. ILM a remporté l'enchère et utilisé des logiciels de Pixar pour le créer. Catmull, explique: «Nous voulions vraiment faire cette créature de l'eau pour les Abysses, mais ILM a l'offre, et ils ont fait un excellent travail à ce sujet."

The following histories of Wavefront and Alias were extracted from corporate historical accounts. In 1984, Wavefront Technologies was founded in Santa Barbara, California by Mark Sylvester, Larry Barels and Bill Kovacs, who wanted to produce computer graphics for television commercials and movies. Since off-the-shelf software was not available at the time, the founders adapted their business plan to develop and market their own graphic software. Contrary to urban legends alluding to the founders' fondness for surfing California beaches, Wavefront was named after the term which describes the front edge of a wave of light.

During the first year, the company's production department, headed by John Grower (now head of Santa Barbara Studios) created opening graphics for Showtime, BRAVO and the National Geographic Explorer, allowing the new software, Preview, to be tuned and to meet the needs of the animators. Preview was then shipped to Universal Studios to be used on the television series Knight Rider and to Lamb and Company for use in pre-visualizing and controlling a motion camera rig.

In 1985 Wavefront exhibited at its first trade show, NCGA in Dallas, Texas, and participated in the SGI booth (with Alias sitting at the next table) and sold Preview to NBC Television in New York, Electronic Arts (London), Video Paint Brush (Australia), Failure Analysis (Mountain View) and NASA (Houston).

In 1987 Wavefront established an office in Brussels. The Belgian government became an investor and provided capital for the purchase by Wavefront of Abel Image Research (AIR) in 1988. Ironically, in many ways AIR (founded in early 1987) was the predecessor of Wavefront, since founder Bill Kovacs was a principal software developer at Abel. This purchase dramatically increased its penetration into the Japanese market. Another irony of this is that one of the largest customers in Japan is Omnibus, who was responsible for buying and closing the Abel operation through the DOA fiasco of 1987.

In 1988 Wavefront entered the desktop market with the Personal Visualizer. This software gave CAD users a point and click interface to high-end photo realistic rendering. Co-developed with Silicon Graphics, this product was eventually ported to Sun, IBM, HP, Tektronics, DEC and Sony. The strategy was to bundle the software with every system sold, then follow with module sales into the installed base. In 1989, they continued this thrust into markets beyond the entertainment industry, moving into the scientific community with the Data Visualizer software. This was a highly flexible product for industrial design applications worldwide and built upon Wavefront's reputation for open systems and fast graphics interaction.

In 1990, Wavefront achieved further expansion in Asia. CSK, exclusive reseller of IBM hardware in Japan, became part owner of Wavefront Japan. In 1991, Wavefront launched the Composer product, which provided advanced image production for creating, enhancing and recording high-impact presentations. Composer would become a standard for professional 2D and 3D compositing and special effects in the feature film and broadcast/video arenas. In 1992 they introduced two new products that would have dramatic impact on the entertainment and effects industry. Kinemation, with SmartSkin™, was a complete 3D character animation system for creating synthetic actors with natural motion and muscle behavior. Dynamation was developed by Jim Hourihan (Jim received his first Academy Award for Technical Achievement for the creation of Dynamation), and was a powerful 3D animation tool for interactively creating and modifying realistic, natural images of dynamic events. The resulting images came from the seamless blending of behavioral data and user-specified information describing shape, color and motion. According to Hourihan, Dynamation was developed from a program called 'willy' that was used by a number of LA effects houses for special effects.

In a bold move that would move Wavefront acquired Thomson Digital Images of France (founded in 1984) in 1993. TDI had innovated in the area of NURBS modeling and interactive rendering and had extensive distribution channels in Europe and Asia. Originally a partner with IBM, TDI also established a commercial production arm, which would later merge with Sogitec to become Ex Machina. TDI's main software product was TDI Explore, a tool suite that included 3Design for modeling, Anim for animation, and Interactive Photorealistic Renderer (IPR) for rendering. (Note: Alias Maya is the result of the merger of the three packages: Wavefront's Advanced Visualizer, Alias's Power Animator, and TDI's Explore.)

In 1994, they partnered with Atari to develop and market GameWare, which became the exclusive game graphics and animation development software for the Atari Jaguar system. Under the terms of the agreement, Atari used GameWare for internal content creation and advised third-party developers to use GameWare as the image and geometry-authoring tool for the new 64-bit Jaguar game system.

Dream Quest Images created over 90 visual effects sequences for the 1994 Crimson Tide movie using Dynamation and Composer. "Since most audience members have never experienced the environment of a nuclear submarine, it was critical to deliver a realistic virtual experience for the viewer," said Mitch Dobrowner, digital department manager at Dream Quest. Wavefront software was also used for other blockbusters, including Outbreak, Aladdin, True Lies and Stargate.

The corporate history of Wavefront Technologies changed dramatically in 1995, with the merger of Alias and Wavefront. On February 7, 1995, Wavefront Technologies, Inc., Silicon Graphics, Inc. and Alias Research, Inc. announced that they entered into definitive merger agreements. The new company's mission was to focus on developing the world's most advanced tools for the creation of digital content. "We created digital skin, then [Alias] did; now they've created digital hair and we're working on digital clothing. With both of us working together, we can attack the bigger technical problems instead of duplicating work," said Mark Sylvester, cofounder of Wavefront. In April, 2003 the company was renamed Alias. Alias Research

The founders of Alias, Stephen Bingham, Nigel McGrath, Susan McKenna and David Springer wanted to create an easy-to-use software package to produce realistic 3D video animation for the advertising industry and post-production houses. In 1983 they came up with the idea for a software development effort to achieve this goal. Springer was teaching computer programming for designers at Sheridan College. A rare combination of artist and computer programmer, he had been working independently on software which, by coincidence, resembled McKenna's and Bingham's idea. They quickly brought him on board, and he supervised the project that involved 300,000 lines of code written in C.

Bingham was an unlikely high-tech tycoon. Lacking any formal engineering or technical training, he obtained a Master's degree in Canadian studies from Ottawa's Carleton University. He then served as the director of the city's National Film Theatre from 1980 to 1983, which allowed him to indulge in his love for movies and animation. It was a visit to Hollywood director George Lucas's renowned Industrial Light & Magic animation studios in California that inspired Bingham to form his own animation company.

Susan McKenna first got the computer itch in high school where she took Fortran. The youngest of five children, she was the first woman in the family to want to enter business with an ambition for adventure and risk. Stephen Bingham and Susan McKenna met at Carleton University in Ottawa. She spent 2 1/2 years doing administrative work in audio-video production, raising capital, writing proposals and arranging funding. McKenna approached Nigel McGrath, knowing his reputation in the industry for mixing high technology and graphic design. After high school, McGrath freelanced as a graphic artist and started McGrath & Associates in 1980 to serve major corporate clients. He kept the company while starting Alias, lending the new firm $500,000 worth of computer graphics equipment.

In 1983 they were able to obtain a $61,000 grant from the National Research Council, which, combined with the limited funds of the founders, allowed work to begin on the development of that first code, a huge undertaking that required 36 man-years of programming or 18 programmers writing for two years. Other financial support was gained from the federal government through Scientific Research Tax Credits (SRTCs). The first office, with a rent of $150/month, was located in Toronto in a renovated elevator shaft in the building that would later become the home of CITY-TV."There were strange drafts, cold air would mysteriously fill the room, like we were in a scene from Spielberg's Poltergeist," said Susan McKenna. In 1984 the group decided on the name Alias for their new venture. "I think it was Steve who came up with the name Alias, while we were sitting in a Detroit restaurant during SIGGRAPH", says Nigel McGrath. "You know what we need is an alias", Steve said. "We all clicked at that point because the only paying job we had at the time was for Dave Springer to write an anti-aliasing program for a few users at SGI. That's where the name came from".

Alias unveiled Alias/1 at SIGGRAPH '85 in San Francisco. Alias/1 was unique because it was based on cardinal splines, producing much smoother and realistic lines or surfaces than polygonal lines. The first sale of Alias/1 was to Post Effects in Chicago followed by Editel in New York and Production Masters in Pittsburgh. Also in 1985, Alias signed a landmark deal with GM to design a system incorporating NURBS (non-uniform rational basis spline) technology compatible with GM's spline based CAD (computer-aided design) system. This was the beginning of a business relationship that is still thriving today.

Later that year, the Alias founders approached Silicon Graphics Inc. and suggested that SGIs super-microcomputer could be used for graphic design. Until that point, SGI's hardware had only been used for computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM). SGI spotted the potential for selling a computer every time Alias sold its software. These new research and development efforts required additional capital to finance the effort. Now that Alias had a big client (GM) more or less in hand, the risk was less in the eyes of potential investors. Early in 1986, Crownx, a venture capital company associated with Crown Life, invested $1.2 million for a 20% stake in Alias.

Although most of Alias sales had been to small production houses, Kraft and Motorola were added to the new client roster in 1986. Moreover, Alias managed to beat two American bidders to supply the $400,000 computer-controlled TV type equipment that would let the world watch what the Hubble Telescope could see from space. 1986 also saw the introduction of the second generation Alias/2. It had the basis spline geometry that led to the creation of the term CAID (computer- aided industrial design) and a whole new market. In 1987 Alias' staff increased to 70 people with the opening of three U.S. sales offices. Concurrently, new venture capital was received from US Investors Greylock and TA Associates.

Exclusive rights to sell Alias/2 into the entertainment markets were passed in 1988 to a single worldwide reseller BTS (now Phillips BTS) who sold Alias/2 with their Pixelerator rendering machine. The Alias sales focus could remain exclusively on design opportunities, where most sales were direct except for 8 resellers in Asia. Alias boasts an impressive list of customers including Timex, Reebok. Oakley, Kenner, BMW, GM, Honda, Volvo, Apple, GE, Motorola, Sony, Industrial Light and Magic, Broadway Video and The Moving Picture Company.

Steve Williams (ex-Alias) went to ILM to help create the pseudopod creature in the 1989 movie The Abyss. Alias 2.4.2 was chosen by Williams for modeling because it was patch-based (B-splines) instead of polygons. The software ran on SGI 4D/70G and 4D/80GT workstations. The Abyss was hailed by the film industry to be one of the most technologically advanced and difficult motion pictures ever filmed. This was proven when ILM received an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for The Abyss. For the first time, Alias' software got high-profile recognition in movie animation.

In 1989 one of Alias' most high profile industrial clients, Honda was so pleased with Alias technology that it assisted with the development of the newest version of ALIAS/2. Visiting from Japan, a Honda executive commented: "Thanks to Alias' software, we have 20 people doing the work of 200." The 1989 Honda Accord became the first car made by a foreign manufacturer to head the US bestseller list. Many of Honda's cars, like those of BMW and Volvo, were designed on 3D software created by Alias.

Alias raised about US$35 million in their 1990 initial public offering of 2.5 million shares. "US investors understand the value of the investment better. Canadians focus on the trouble with tech stocks and not the money that's been made trading those stocks," said founder Bingham. 1990 also saw the introduction of its third generation software, branded Studio for industrial design and PowerAnimator for the entertainment market. That same year Alias client ILM reaped the highest honors for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards. PowerAnimator was used to create Arnold Schwarzenegger's foe, the chromium killer cyborg. Strangely enough, Schwarzeneger who reportedly earned $12 million for that movie, was not the highest paid actor. The liquid metal man's salary worked out to about $460,000 per minute compared to $200,000 per minute for Schwarzeneger.

IBM unveiled a new line of workstations n 1990 and promoted Alias software among sales staff and customers. "Alias is the best worldwide in visualization and animation," said IBM Canada President, John Thompson. Rob Burgess, (now Chairman and CEO of Macromedia) was appointed president of Alias in 1991 with the mission to take the company to the next level of growth. Burgess announced a 3 year strategic alliance with SGI. He also seized the opportunity to purchase the Spacemaker technology and launched UpFront, a low-cost 3D Mac and Windows based package for architects. Alias achieved a major coup by impressing Bill Gates, who mentioned Upfront during a major Microsoft conference as a particularly innovative application under Windows. "In the graphics area, I picked Upfront from Alias Research. It is really an incredible tool for making sure the design is exactly right," said the Chairman of Microsoft. This project would pave the way for the development of Sketch!, positioned as a tool for graphic artists who wanted to do more realistic 3D work than could be done with Adobe Illustrator.

Alias continued to broaden its products range with the acquisition of Sonata, a high-end 3D architectural design and presentation system, from T2 Solutions of the UK. This move gave Alias four divisions covering at least five distinct marketplaces: Alias Division (industrial design and entertainment), Style! Division (Upfront and Mac/Win for architects and Sketch! on Mac for illustrators), Sonata Division (architecture) and Full Color Division (pre-press and photo retouching).

Under the direction of Burgess, Alias pushed toward its dominance of the entertainment and design markets. In the Spring of 1992, new animation features, primarily an IK (inverse kinematics) solver, were included in the fourth version of PowerAnimator. It was used to create many of the effects in Batman Returns which provided a great testimonial for Alias' return to the entertainment arena at SIGGRAPH '92. They also showed that they hadn't forgotten their design market when they introduced AutoStudio, a package specifically tailored to automotive designers. This continues Alias' focus on the transportation design sub-segment that had done very well for the company.

In 1993 Alias started the development of a new entertainment software, later known as Maya which would become the industry's most important animation tool. Steven Spielberg chose Industrial Light & Magic to provide the visual effects in 1993's Jurassic Park. In turn the animators at ILM picked PowerAnimator as the software of choice to model the huge prehistoric beasts. They delivered the very real looking dinosaurs with PowerAnimator and reaped the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

Alias worked in close cooperation with Ford to develop StudioPaint, a high-end paint package designed for automotive sketching and rendering with real-time airbrushes. Rollerblade decided to purchase Alias Studio as the CAID tool of choice for their skate design after extensive benchmark testing. "Alias makes it much easier for our designers to sculpt the complex surfaces required to achieve innovative designs while meeting the constraints required for foot comfort," explained Todd J. Olson, senior industrial designer for Rollerblade Inc. Alias signed a landmark agreement with Nintendo in 1994 to be the key software tools provider. PowerAnimator was used to create Donkey Kong Country for Nintendo. As a result of these relationships, Alias dominated the games segment with the largest share of revenue. Alias made headlines in the Globe & Mail for helping car companies save both time and money with its industrial design software. "Detroit's auto makers are able to cut their vehicle's development time to three years from four-plus." Automotive and transportation design companies included: GM, Ford, BMW, Volvo, Honda, Toyota, Fiat, Hyundai, Isuzu, Nissan, Renault, Saab, Subaru, Caterpillar, Kenworth and Mitsubishi. In 1994, Ford became the largest StudioPaint installation in the world when it purchase StudioPaint for its revolutionary Global Studio design facility. StudioPaint allowed designers to create "digital concept sketches" using real-time pencils and airbrushes, and "digital facelift" of existing designs using retouching and real-time image transformation tools.

Alias' profits soared in 1994, primarily because of success in the movie industry. They reported a profit increase of 181% for the second quarter of Fiscal '95. Alias' PowerAnimator was used in five of the biggest movies in the summer of 1994: Forrest Gump, The Mask, Speed, The Flintstones, True Lies and Star Trek: The Next Generation "A Final Unity". Alias customers in special effects included the most prominent studios, such as Industrial Light & Magic, Angel Studios, Digital Domain, Dream Quest Images, Cinesite, Metrolight Studios, Pixar, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Video Image, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Brothers.

On February 7, 1995, Wavefront Technologies, Inc., Silicon Graphics, Inc. and Alias Research, Inc. announced that they entered into definitive merger agreements. As stated above, the new company's mission was to focus on developing the world's most advanced tools for the creation of digital content.

Following are some important events in the continuing history of the new company: 1995 - Alias used in films including Toy Story, Pocahontas, Casper and Golden Eye, and Batman Forever. 1995 - Sega Interactive uses PowerAnimator to create Stars Wars Arcade. 1996 - Alias|Wavefront sets up new offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. 1996 - Alias|Wavefront's Chris Landreth is nominated for an Academy Award for the short film, The End, to test new features added to the development of Maya including motion capture, facial animation and hair.

1997- Alias|Wavefront reports a 44% increase in its sales over the previous year in industrial design sales and attributes it to the delivery of new advances in CAID technology as well as the release of new product versions: AliasStudio 8.5, Alias AutoStudio 8.5 and Alias Designer 8.5 Its existing customers include Philips design, Daewoo(UK), Rubbermaid, BMW, Renault, Honda and Audi. 1997 - Ford Motor Company chooses AliasStudio to standardize its existing computer-aided industrial design processes. Valued at over $4 million in sales and services, this is one of the largest sales in the company history. As a significant step in the implementation of Ford's C3P program, the purchase of AutoStudio represents the automaker's decision to replace its existing computer-aided industrial design processes and standardize on Alias|Wavefront software. 1997 - Launch of Composer 4.5 featuring motion blur, lens distortion and time warp technology. Effects created with Composer are featured in many Hollywood films including Mars Attacks, Dante's Peak, Casino, Broken Arrow and Waterworld.

1998 - Alias|Wavefront introduces its new 3D flagship product Maya. Maya is a leader in the industry in the following key areas: bringing characters to life, explosive visual effect and system architecture. Representatives from Blue Sky/VIFX, Cinesite, Dream Pictures Studio, Dream Quest Images, GLC Productions, Kleiser-Walczak, Rhonda Graphics, Square, Santa Barbara Studios and Imagination Plantation were among many of the BETA customers to support Maya. Industrial Light & Magic makes a strategic investment in purchasing enough seats of Maya to give technical directors and artists throughout its digital production departments extensive use of Alias/Wavefront's most advanced 3D software.

1998 - Academy Award Plaques are awarded to Bill Kovacs and Roy Hall of Wavefront for the development of Advanced Visualizer. Certificates are awarded to Jim Keating, Michael Warhman and Richard Hollander for their contribution to the development of the Advanced Visualizer. Plaques are also awarded to John Gibson, Rob Krieger, Milan Novacek, Glen Ozymok and Dave Springer for PowerAnimator. Advanced Visualizer is acknowledged by the Academy as the first commercial software package for modeling, animating and rendering adopted into widespread use to create digital images with sufficient quality for motion pictures.

1998 - Chris Landreth produces Bingo, an animated short, to run Maya through its paces, pushing the product to its limits and making sure it lives up to the industry's expectations. In Bingo, Chris Landreth introduces a cast of animated characters who are human-like and disturbingly freakish. Bingo garners international attention and is recognized at film festivals around the world.

1999 - Alias|Wavefront announces industrial design software Studio and DesignStudio for the Windows NT platform. Studio and DesignStudio are the choice of major automotive companies such as BMW, Fiat, Ford, Honda, Italdesign, and Renault.

1999 - Maya Complete incorporates all of the tools and features for world class animation on both IRIX and NT platforms. Maya Complete has been developed to provide state-of-the-art 3D solutions for a more broader, professional market. It includes Alias|Wavefront's award winning 3D modeling, rendering, and animation technology.

1999 - Maya Unlimited, the new graphics production suite for high-end film and video industry is introduced. Maya Unlimited incorporates all of Maya Complete elements plus Maya Cloth, Maya Fur, Maya Live, and Maya Power Modeling. It addresses the unique needs of high-end production houses, by providing them with tools that will help solve complex problems.

1999 - A subset of Maya Complete, Maya Builder was optimized to address the specific needs of level designers and programmers in the game and interactive title development community.

1999 - Alias|Wavefront announces at SIGGRAPH '99 that Maya has been used by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) in the summer blockbusters Star Wars: Episode I "The Phantom Menace," The Mummy, and Wild, Wild West.

2000 - Alias |Wavefront includes a universal rendering policy for the release of Maya 3 that enables Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited customers to "float" the Maya Batch Renderer across any number of machines on Windows NT, IRIX and Linux platforms.

2000 - Alias|Wavefront announces its intentions in bringing Maya to the Apple® Mac® OS X platform. 2000 - Alias|Wavefront was rewarded with its largest, single software agreement ever from General Motors. The primary software provided is AutoStudio, SurfaceStudio, and StudioPaint

2000 - Maya was used to create the top four selling December 2000 titles for the PlayStation® 2 console. Electronic Arts (EA) Madden NFL 2001 led the list of top-sellers for December with SSX: Snowboard Supercross (EA) second, Tekken Tag Tournament (Namco) third, and NHL 2001 (EA) fourth. All three nominees for Best Visual Effects in a motion picture used Alias |Wavefront software. The Matrix, (Manex) Stuart Little, (Sony) and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, (ILM) were rewarded with nominations for the ground breaking work in film. The Matrix went home with the Oscar.

2001 - In March, Alias|Wavefront ships entire suite of Maya 3D software products to the Red Hat™ Linux® operating system.

2001 - Alias|Wavefront expansion program continues with the release of version of its 3D computer-aided industrial design (CAID) software family, StudioTools, made specifically for the Hewlett-Packard® HP-UX® operating system. 2001 - Maya software played a pivotal role in allowing Square® USA to create a 23-digital-person cast for the much anticipated summer film Final Fantasy.

2001 - The recently unveiled mental ray® for Maya technology ships.

NOTE: In October of 2005 Autodesk announced that it had signed an agreement to acquire Alias. In January of 2006, the acquisition was finalized for US$197M in cash. Softimage The following history of Softimage was extracted from corporate historical accounts. Softimage was founded in 1986 by National Film Board of Canada filmmaker Daniel Langlois. Langlois wanted to create animated films but was dissatisfied with the existing technology, which he felt was insufficient for his needs and designed to be used by computer scientists and technologists. His vision was a software company that addressed the creation of 3-D animation software not only for, but by artists. He felt that the concept marked a fundamental shift in how the industry viewed visual effects creation and generated a new breed of visual effects artists and animators. Other important members of the company included artist Char Davies (Davies left the company at the end of 1997 to pursue her artistic research separately. ) Several important milestones that have influenced the industry have come from the "artist/technology" vision: the first integrated animation and effects system the first company to port animation tools to PC (NT) a broadening of integration to include post-production – with the release of SOFTIMAGE|DS (now Avid|DS) and SOFTIMAGE|XSI the expansion of animation and effects tool accessibility to the mass-markets in games and web content industries. The first development effort for the startup company was the Softimage Creative Environment system, with "creative workflow and process integration". In 1987 Langlois and engineers Richard Mercille and Laurent Lauzon began development of the company’s 3-D application software. Creative Environment 1.0 was launched at SIGGRAPH '88. For the first time, all 3-D processes (modeling, animation, and rendering) were integrated. The system featured advanced tools and the first production-speed ray tracer. Creative Environment (eventually to be known as SOFTIMAGE®|3D), became the standard animation solution in the industry. Over the next several years the development team at Softimage released new versions of the 3-D software that included new innovations in image creation. For example, Creative Environment 1.65 added texture mapping (1989), Creative Environment 2.5 (1991) featured the Actor Module with IK (inverse kinematic), enveloping, and constraints, which enabled animators to combine conventional techniques (such as editing and keyframing) with these new capabilities. The system later won an award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. In 1990, the software was sold with an SGI workstation for $65,000. Softimage went public on NASDAQ in 1992. That same year they started an aggressive acquisition effort, with the inclusion of the EDDIE® software and Painterly Effects. This provided a complete effects generation toolkit with advanced image processing tools for color correction, filtering, rotoscoping, morphing and painting. 1992 also saw an important corporate philosophy realized as Softimage opened their software to third-party developers. The channels performance capture technology offered a new dimension to CG character animation. The technology was used that year to create a memorable spot featuring 3-D dancing cars and gas pumps for Shell Oil. 1993 saw the second public offering of Softimage stock. The expansion of the creative product environment continued, with an agreement between Softimage and mental images that addressed rendering technology. Creative Environment 2.6 was released, featuring file management, metaclay, clusters, flock animation, weighted envelopes, channels, and an expansion of the open system policy. The Creative Toonz 2-D animation package automated the more tedious tasks involved in 2-D cel animation, such as inking-&-painting, while still maintaining the look of hand-drawn images and characters. With computer workstations advancing to be able to handle video, Softimage began the development of Digital Studio, as a step towards integrating the 2D/3D production pipeline. The power of a post-production environment in a software-based solution is consistent with Langlois' original vision for the company. mental ray®, an advanced stand-alone rendering system and Particles, an interactive particle animation system used to create natural phenomena such as clouds, snow, fire, etc. became part of the Softimage stable. In 1994 Softimage merged with Microsoft Corporation. Creative Environment 2.65 was released which featured expressions, dopesheet, ghost mode, and shape interpolation. The IDEAS (Interactive Developer's Entertainment Authoring Software) with ProPlay and ProPlay Plus was released. This software included Softimage Creative Environment, NURBS support, polygon and color reduction tools, dynamic simulations and inverse kinematics. It also Featured Eddie compositing, video-effects software, distributed ray tracer and the 3-D particles kit. Much of this system was aimed at the evolving game developer market. Exploiting the power of the Pentium processor, Softimage developed the first high-end product on Irix and Windows NT in 1995. Creative Environment became SOFTIMAGE|3D with a release that featured NURBS modeling, relational maudlin, trimming, instantiation, polygon reduction, tangent-to-path, constraint, Q-stretch, expressions, motion control, Actor, Particle, mental ray rendering, and Metaclay. (Langlois received a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 1998 for Actor). User-interface enhancements included hot-key remapping. The SOFTIMAGE|3D "extreme" version included Osmose (virtual reality), the new Virtual Theatre (featuring performance capture and real-time compositing), and mental ray. The SOFTIMAGE|Toonz version 3.5 and SOFTIMAGE|Eddie version 3.2 were also released. The next two years saw the release of SOFTIMAGE|3Dv 3.5 and SOFTIMAGE|SDK Trance, "Sumatra"(code name) and RenderFarm, and SOFTIMAGE|DS, one of the world’s most comprehensive nonlinear production systems (NLP™) for creating, editing and finishing videos. SOFTIMAGE|DS enabled users to seamlessly integrate picture and audio editing, compositing, paint, image treatment, special effects, character generation and project management into one environment. In 1998 Avid Technology, Inc. acquired Softimage. The two companies joined forces to develop the next generation tools for digital artists. The Animation Sequencer was introduced, and in 1999 "Sumatra" became the world’s first nonlinear animation editing system and merged all 3-D animation, editing, and composting tasks. In 2000 The Motion Factory, Inc., was acquired. The Fremont, CA-based company specialized in applications for the creation, delivery and playback of interactive rich 3-D media for character-driven games and the Web. In 2001 Softimage entered into an Xbox tools and middleware agreement with Microsoft, and they announced support for Linux. Softimage and Electric Rain collaborated to bring Flash, EPS, AI and SVG exports to SOFTIMAGE|XSI customers. Michael Stojda became the Managing Director of the company in April of 2001 after working at Softimage and Avid and managing a wide range of effects, editing, and finishing products at both companies. Softimage customers include some of the most prominent production studios, such as Industrial Light and Magic, Digital Domain, Sega, Nintendo, and Sony . They have used Softimage to create animation for hundreds of major feature films ( Jurassic Park, Titanic, The Matrix, Men in Black, Star Wars – the Phantom Menace, Gladiator, Harry Potter, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Pearl Harbor, Queen of the Damned ), games (Super Mario 64, Tekken, Virtual Fighter, Wave Race, NBA Live) and thousands of commercial, corporate and student projects. Related note: In the Spring of 1997 through an endowment provided by Daniel Langlois, the Daniel Langlois Foundation was established. It is a private philanthropic organization whose scope of activity is international. The purpose of the Foundation is to further artistic and scientific knowledge by fostering the meeting of art and science in the field of technologies. "The Foundation's mission is to promote contemporary artistic practices that use digital technologies to express aesthetic and critical forms of discourse, to encourage interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research projects and, in general, to support the development of projects calling for cooperation between people from a variety of fields, such as artists, scientists, and engineers or technologists ," explained the Foundation's Director of Programs, Jean Gagnon. Side Effects The following history of Side Effects was extracted from http://www.sidefx.com Based in Toronto, Canada, Side Effects Software was established in 1987 by Kim Davidson and Greg Hermanovic, an animation director and programmer respectively. This duo founded their new production/software company on a 3D animation package, PRISMS, which they had acquired from their former employer Omnibus. Side Effects Software developed this procedural modeling and motion product into a high-end, tightly-integrated 2D/3D animation software which would incorporate a number of technological breakthroughs. Prior to co-founding Side Effects, Hermanovic worked as the Director of Research at Omnibus. When the company went bankrupt in 1987 he teamed up with Director of Animation, Kim Davidson, to buy the rights to the company's PRISMS 3D animation software code. The two partners incorporated Side Effects and set out both to provide content for the Toronto broadcast market and to continue developing PRISMS. In the time that has elapsed since then, the company has turned its attention fully toward development and grown to become one of the world's leading 3D animation software providers. Throughout his career with Side Effects Software, Hermanovic was the driving force behind the implementation of such cutting edge innovations as: procedural modeling, morphing and CHOPs (nonlinear, nondestructive motion editing). Hermanovic was experimenting with C-music and algorithmic composition as far back as 1982. In February 2000, he founded Derivative, Inc. to bring professional special-effects technology to the VJ (visual jockey) scene. Derivative produces innovative tools for designing and performing interactive 3D artworks and live visuals. Davidson also owns Catapult Productions, which was founded in 1992 for the purpose of creating entertainment using computer character animation. Their specialty is children's content. He graduated from the University of Waterloo with degrees in Architecture and Mathematics and has done extensive graphics programming since 1980. He was the animation director at two large commercial animation houses in Toronto from 1986-1990 and worked on or directed over 300 hundred computer animated pieces in that time. PRISMS was used extensively to create visual effects for broadcast and feature films in the late '80s and '90s. Early film projects included: Apollo 13; Twister; The Fifth Element, Independence Day and Titanic - the last two having won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. The company would continue to develop and support PRISMS until version 7.1 in 1998. At Siggraph 1996 Side Effects Software introduced Houdini: a next-generation 3D package that would prove to be more sophisticated and artist-friendly than its predecessor. From the following year to the present Houdini has been honored with numerous awards including an annual CGW Innovation Award. Houdini is used around the world to develop cutting edge 3D animation in the film, broadcast and gaming industries. To better serve the needs of its West Coast clients, Side Effects opened a Santa Monica, California-based office in 1995. The positive results can be seen in such recent hit movies such as Fight Club, Hollow Man and X-Men as well as Academy Award winners: What Dreams May Come and The Matrix. In 1998 the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences presented a Technical Achievement Award to Side Effects Software principals Kim Davidson and Greg Hermanovic and programmers Paul Breslin and Mark Elendt, for the development of the procedural modeling and animation components of PRISMS. Whether it's procedural motion/animation, or motion and audio editing, Side Effects Software has proven itself time and again to be an industry innovator. Some of the first breakthroughs that Side Effects included a high-end commercial 3D animation package: 1987 First to put a GUI on a procedural modeling system 1988 First to incorporate an expression language in the user interface 1989 First to add metaballs; First to have a polygon reduction tool (greduce) 1992 First to include a particle system; First to have a morphing package (mojo) 1993 First to have integrated motion capture (moca); First to include time frame sampling (tima) 1995 First to integrate all components (modeling, animation, rendering, compositing) into one executable;First to support NURBS, polygons, and Beziers as "equal citizens" 1998 First to have audio editing (Chops); First to put a GUI on a procedural particle system; First to introduce hierarchical splines 1999 First to port to the Linux O/S http://www.sidefx.com Autodesk (3D Studio and Autodesk Animator) Autodesk Inc. was founded in 1982 with a focus on design software for the PC. They went public in 1985. Note: if you really want a trip, read John Walker's online history of Autodesk at http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/ told through the letters and memos from and to the inner circle of the company. Autodesk in 1986 began efforts to develop an animation package. Key developers were Jamie Clay and Autodesk founder John Walker. Autodesk's first animation package was AutoFlix (for use with AutoCAD and AutoShade), and AutoFlix 2.0 which included the Animation Tool Kit for AutoCAD. In early 1988, Gary Yost left Antic, developers of software for the Atari, to pursue a contract development deal with Eric Lyons and David Kalish at Autodesk and to begin work on Autodesk 3D Studio (code-named THUD after its principal developer Tom Hudson), and Autodesk Animator. Gary brought Jack Powell along, too, and the Yost Group, Inc. was born. (The Yost Group was eventually bought by Autodesk.) At the 1989 SIGGRAPH in Boston, Autodesk unveiled a new PC based animation package called Autodesk Animator. As a full featured 2D animation and painting package, Animator was Autodesk's first step into the multimedia tools realm. The software-only animation playback capabilities achieved very impressive speeds and became a standard for playing animation on PCs. This early PC based animation software was used to visualize how nano machines might look. This animation was used in the BBC documentary "Little by Little" and was the first time an Autodesk animation product had been used for broadcast television. Shortly before the release of the next generation of 3d Studio in 1996, the product MAX, the Multimedia Division of Autodesk was renamed to Kinetix, A Division of Autodesk. MAX shipped as Kinetix 3D Studio MAX. Since its release in 1997, 3D Studio VIZ continues to gain more acceptance within the architectural community for design and visualization. As a result it has shifted more specialized architectural users from MAX to VIZ. 3D Studio VIZ enables professionals in the architectural, land design and mechanical design sectors to design in 3D Studio VIZ and then transfer the images directly into a CAD environment. Discreet, a division of Autodesk, was established in 1999 after Autodesk acquired Discreet Logic Inc. for US$520M and merged its operations with Kinetix®. Autodesk is the world's leading design and digital content creation resource. The company provides software and Internet portal services to help customers drive business through the power of design. One of the largest software companies in the world, Autodesk helps more than 4 million customers in over 150 countries turn designs into reality. From an investment banker's research analysis: "Since its launch, 3D Studio Max has had a phenomenal impact on the 3D animation market. Originally priced much lower than some of its counterparts who’s products ranged anywhere from $10,000 to $45,000, 3D Studio Max was quickly viewed as the attainable solution for professionals that had some price/performance issues. It continues to maintain strong price/performance value for users and the product’s expectancy remains high. One of the key success factors of 3D Studio Max has been the product’s ability to address the needs of a wide range of 3D animation professionals. Of all the animation packages 3D Studio Max runs across more vertical markets than any other package. Its largest user base continues to be within the game development sector. Aside from game development, it is used in film and broadcast, corporate design, industrial design and visualization, educational, forensic, and now Internet design." One of the keys to this broad base of users is it’s open architecture and support of third party vendors. This has enabled the product to build up over 100 plug-in products for more specialized functionality. Third party developers can develop standalone software modules (plugins) which can interface with the 3D Studio product. One of the more prominent plugins is Character Studio, developed by Susan Amkraut and Michael Girard of Unreal Pictures. Girard and Amkraut were the creators of the famous animation Eurhythmy while they were students at Ohio State, and developed the cult legend "Dancing Baby" as a test of their software. In 2004, Autodesk division Discreet acquired Unreal Pictures. In January of 2006 Autodesk acquired Alias for $197M in cash, bringing the StudioTools and Maya software products under the Autodesk banner.