In case you didn’t know where the Pixar logo comes from
Last week, I got caught up on a couple of Pixar flicks I missed on release (Tangled and Brave). A great joy. I’ve been a huge animation fan since forever and a computer graphics perfeshunal since pretty much the beginning, so it’s a cinch I’m a ginormous fan of 3D animation.
Damn, but the early stuff was awful. I had a friend who dated a guy who wrote software for 3D modeling in the early 80s. I thought that was the shit. They had this big expensive rig that built and animated a 3-D teapot. I think it took, like, three days to render a single freaking teapot. And it looked like ass. I loved it.
In 1988, I got to go to SIGGRAPH for the first and only time, and there I saw my very first Pixar film. Which was THE very first Pixar film — or at least the first one released under the name Pixar.
I still think Luxo jr is a masterpiece of character animation. I’m not alone. When it first started to roll — given when this was made — I think most of us just expected a render test (Pixar made their money selling dedicated animation hardware and software in those days). I was not expecting a clean, simple, brilliant short film.
Sadly, this was 1988, so I also got to see Pixar’s second and third releases at the same sitting — Red’s Dream and Tin Toy. Oh, jesus, that godawful clown! Oh god, that hideous lumpy baby! Brrrrrrr.
Even now. Every single time Pixar tries to do realistic humans — oh that Uncanny Valley!
November 15, 2013 — 12:33 am
Comments: 16