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105-461: It was one of four companies hired to create the 3D computer animation for the 1982 film Tron . MAGi was responsible for most of the CG animation in the first half of Tron , while Triple-I worked mainly on the second half of the film. MAGi modeled and animated the light cycles , recognizers and tanks . MAGi developed a software program called SynthaVision to create CG images and films. SynthaVision

210-566: A Special Achievement Award ( Toy Story ). Lasseter has been nominated on four other occasions—in the category of Animated Feature , for both Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Cars , in the Original Screenplay category for Toy Story and in the Animated Short category for Luxo, Jr. (1986)—while the short Knick Knack (1989) was selected by Terry Gilliam as one of the ten best animated films of all time. In 2008, he

315-413: A programming language called KPL that Ken Perlin had been developing, which was designed to run a full computer program at every pixel of an image. KPL was the first example of a general purpose procedural shader language , a concept which was subsequently adopted by Pixar for its Renderman platform, and which eventually led to the development of the modern Graphics processing unit (GPU) . Perlin noise

420-514: A 2D animated feature film directed by one of Lasseter's friends, Jerry Rees , and co-produced by Wilhite (who had, by then, left to start Hyperion Pictures ), and some of the staff of Pixar would be involved in the film alongside Lasseter. While putting together a crew for the planned feature, Lasseter had made some contacts in the computer industry, among them Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull at Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group . After being fired, and feeling glum knowing his employment with Disney

525-444: A 3D background pencil test based on Disney's story animatics . Lasseter and Keane at Disney then hand animated over the CG background wireframes. A tight bi-coastal production loop was designed. MAGi programmer Josh Pines developed film scanning software to digitize and clean up the final hand-drawn character film footage from Disney. The scanning software adapted to produce cleaner digitized images. Concurrently an ink and paint system

630-464: A 3D model is intended to be a solid color, it must be painted with " textures " for realism. A bone/joint animation system is set up to deform the CGI model (e.g., to make a humanoid model walk). In a process known as rigging , the virtual marionette is given various controllers and handles for controlling movement. Animation data can be created using motion capture , or keyframing by a human animator, or

735-400: A character's arms can have a skeleton applied, and the joints can have transformation and rotation keyframes set. The movement of the arm joints will then cause the arm shape to deform. 3D animation software interpolates between keyframes by generating a spline between keys plotted on a graph which represents the animation. Additionally, these splines can follow bezier curves to control how

840-689: A combination of both – that would be released theatrically. Lasseter said he sees this medium as an excellent way to train and discover new talent in the company as well as a testing ground for new techniques and ideas. In June 2007, Catmull and Lasseter were given control of Disneytoon Studios , a division of Walt Disney Animation Studios housed in a separate facility in Glendale. As president and chief creative officer, respectively, they have supervised three separate studios for Disney, each with its own production pipeline: Pixar, Disney Animation, and Disneytoon. While Disney Animation and Disneytoon are located in

945-599: A combination of the two. 3D models rigged for animation may contain thousands of control points — for example, "Woody" from Toy Story uses 700 specialized animation controllers. Rhythm and Hues Studios labored for two years to create Aslan in the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , which had about 1,851 controllers (742 in the face alone). In the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow , designers had to design forces of extreme weather with

1050-460: A computer - such fluid simulation . 'CG' Animators can break physical laws by using mathematical algorithms to cheat mass , force and gravity , and more. Fundamentally, computer-generated animation is a powerful tool which can improve the quality of animation by using the power of computing to unleash the animator's imagination. This is because Computer Generated Animation allows for things like onion skinning which allows 2D animators to see

1155-492: A computer and an animation software. Some impressive animation can be achieved even with basic programs; however, the rendering can require much time on an ordinary home computer. Professional animators of movies, television and video games could make photorealistic animation with high detail. This level of quality for movie animation would take hundreds of years to create on a home computer. Instead, many powerful workstation computers are used; Silicon Graphics said in 1989 that

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1260-431: A computer animation called " Kitty " was created with BESM -4 by Nikolai Konstantinov, depicting a cat moving around. In 1971, a computer animation called "Metadata" was created, showing various shapes. An early step in the history of computer animation was the sequel to the 1973 film Westworld , a science-fiction film about a society in which robots live and work among humans. The sequel, Futureworld (1976), used

1365-546: A computer graphics engineer at Apple Computer . They married in 1988, and have four sons together in addition to Nancy's son from a previous relationship, born between 1979 or 1980 and 1997. The Lasseters own Lasseter Family Winery in Glen Ellen, California. The property includes a narrow gauge railroad named the Justi Creek Railway, which is approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) long, including

1470-518: A delegation of animators to the Disney studio in 1981 and showed a clip from Miyazaki's first feature film, The Castle of Cagliostro (1979). Lasseter was so deeply moved that in 1985 he insisted on showing that clip and other examples of Miyazaki's work after dinner to a woman he had just met (who would become his wife). He visited Miyazaki during his first trip to Japan in 1987 and saw drawings for My Neighbor Totoro (1988). After Lasseter became

1575-711: A good candidate for the film. Keane agreed, but first, they decided to do a short test film to see how it worked out and chose Where the Wild Things Are , a decision based on the fact that Disney had considered producing a feature based on the works of Maurice Sendak . Satisfied with the result, Lasseter, Keane and executive Thomas L. Wilhite went on with the project, especially Lasseter who dedicated himself to it, while Keane eventually went on to work with The Great Mouse Detective (1986). Lasseter and his colleagues unknowingly stepped on some of their direct superiors' toes by circumventing them in their enthusiasm to get

1680-413: A history of alleged sexual misconduct toward employees. In June 2018, Disney announced that he would be leaving the company at the end of the year when his contract expired; he took on a consulting role until then. Following his departure from Disney and Pixar, Lasseter was later hired by Skydance founder and CEO David Ellison to run the animation division Skydance Animation . John Alan Lasseter

1785-669: A new character animation program at the California Institute of the Arts (often abbreviated as 'CalArts') and decided to follow his dream of becoming an animator. His mother further encouraged him to take up a career in animation, and, after graduating from Whittier High School in 1975, he enrolled as the second student ( Jerry Rees was the first) in the CalArts Character Animation program created by Disney animators Jack Hannah and T. Hee . Lasseter

1890-423: A new level of visually stunning depth that had not been possible before. He knew adding dimension to animation had been a longtime dream of animators, going back to Walt Disney . Later, he and Glen Keane talked about how great it would be to make an animated feature where the background was computer-generated, and then showed Keane the book The Brave Little Toaster by Thomas Disch , which he thought would be

1995-477: A new similar image but advanced slightly in time (usually at a rate of 24, 25, or 30 frames/second). This technique is identical to how the illusion of movement is achieved with television and motion pictures . To trick the visual system into seeing a smoothly moving object, the pictures should be drawn at around 12 frames per second or faster (a frame is one complete image). With rates above 75 to 120 frames per second, no improvement in realism or smoothness

2100-430: A number of years included "grabbing, kissing, [and] making comments about physical attributes". The alleged sexual misconduct became so well-known that, according to Variety , at various times, Pixar had "minders who were tasked with reining in his impulses". In June 2018, Disney announced that Lasseter was leaving the company at the end of the year, taking a consulting role until then. On January 9, 2019, Lasseter

2205-504: A process known as tweening . However, in 3D computer animation, this is done automatically, and is called interpolation . Finally, the animation is rendered and composited . Before becoming a final product, 3D computer animations only exist as a series of moving shapes and systems within 3d software, and must be rendered . This can happen as a separate process for animations developed for movies and short films, or it can be done in real-time when animated for videogames. After an animation

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2310-477: A project that resulted in their first computer-animated short: The Adventures of André & Wally B. , meant to prove it was possible to do character animation on a computer. After his work on the Where the Wild Things Are -test, Lasseter assumed hand-drawn characters in a CGI environment was the only way, but Catmull insisted it could be done, it was just that nobody had given it an attempt before. Because Catmull

2415-509: A raster graphic alternative to animated GIF files that enables multi-level transparency not available in GIFs. Computer animation uses different techniques to produce animations. Most frequently, sophisticated mathematics is used to manipulate complex three-dimensional polygons , apply " textures ", lighting and other effects to the polygons and finally rendering the complete image. A sophisticated graphical user interface may be used to create

2520-518: A screening of Disney's 1963 film The Sword in the Stone at the Wardman Theater, he knew early in his youth that he wanted to become an animator. He then read Preston Blair 's book about animation, and made flipbooks based on Blair's walk cycles. One of his friends had a Super 8 camera that shot single frames, which was used to shoot some of his earlier animation efforts. Lasseter heard of

2625-544: A sequence titled "The Emperor and the Nightingale" (based on The Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen ) for a Disney project called Musicana . Musicana was never released but eventually led to the development of Fantasia 2000 (1999). However, after 101 Dalmatians (1961), which in Lasseter's opinion was the film where Disney had reached its highest plateau, he felt that the studio had lost momentum and

2730-554: A settlement." In his role at Skydance, Lasseter serves as producer on all feature films and executive producer on all series, along with Skydance Media CEO David Ellison . Lasseter lives in Glen Ellen, California , with his wife Nancy, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University , whom he met at a computer graphics conference in San Francisco in 1985. Nancy majored in computer graphics applications, and previously worked as

2835-404: A similar manner to those who use the commercial grade equipment. The realistic modeling of human facial features is both one of the most challenging and sought after elements in computer-generated imagery. Computer facial animation is a highly complex field where models typically include a very large number of animation variables. Historically speaking, the first SIGGRAPH tutorials on State of

2940-414: A simplified representation of a character's anatomy, which is analogous to a skeleton or stick figure . They are arranged into a default position known as a bind pose , or T-Pose. The position of each segment of the skeletal model is defined by animation variables, or Avars for short. In human and animal characters, many parts of the skeletal model correspond to the actual bones, but skeletal animation

3045-768: A successful director and producer at Pixar, he went on to serve as executive producer on several of Miyazaki's films for their release in the United States and oversaw the translation and dubbing of their English language soundtracks. In addition, the forest spirit Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro makes an appearance as a plush toy in Toy Story 3 (2010). Lasseter is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and served nine consecutive years on its board of governors from 2005 to 2014 when he had to relinquish his seat due to term limits. His last position on

3150-500: A test for a Disney film Something Wicked This Way Comes , but the software and computing hardware proved insufficient for the proposed animation and effects. The Los Angeles office was closed shortly after its establishment. Also in 1984 Michael Ferraro and Tom Bisogno began production on a short film, “First Flight”, for the SIGGRAPH '84 Electronic Theater. To achieve organic textures such as clouds, water and bark, they made use of

3255-452: A train station and water tower Lasseter purchased from former Disney animator Ward Kimball . Their residence has a swimming pool with a lazy river that runs through a cave. Lasseter owns a collection of more than 1,000 Hawaiian shirts and wears one every day. Lasseter also collects classic cars , such as a black 1952 Jaguar XK120 . On May 2, 2009, Lasseter received an honorary doctorate from Pepperdine University , where he delivered

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3360-769: Is a career path which involves separate workflows, and different software and tools. The combination of all or some 3D computer animation disciplines is commonly referred to within the animation industry as the 3D animation pipeline. 2D computer graphics are still used for stylistic, low bandwidth, and faster real-time renderings . Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to stop motion techniques, but using 3D models, and traditional animation techniques using frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations. For 2D figure animations, separate objects (illustrations) and separate transparent layers are used with or without that virtual skeleton. In 2D computer animation, moving objects are often referred to as " sprites ." A sprite

3465-422: Is a digital successor to stop motion and traditional animation . Instead of a physical model or illustration, a digital equivalent is manipulated frame-by-frame. Also, computer-generated animations allow a single graphic artist to produce such content without using actors, expensive set pieces, or props . To create the illusion of movement, an image is displayed on the computer monitor and repeatedly replaced by

3570-403: Is also used to animate other things, with facial features (though other methods for facial animation exist). The character "Woody" in Toy Story , for example, uses 712 Avars (212 in the face alone). The computer does not usually render the skeletal model directly (it is invisible), but it does use the skeletal model to compute the exact position and orientation of that certain character, which

3675-677: Is an American film director, producer, and animator. He has served as the head of animation at Skydance Animation since 2019. Previously, he acted as the chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios , Walt Disney Animation Studios , and Disneytoon Studios , as well as the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering . Lasseter began his career as an animator with The Walt Disney Company . After being fired from Disney for promoting computer animation , he joined Lucasfilm , where he worked on then-groundbreaking usage of CGI animation. The Graphics Group of

3780-437: Is an image that has a location associated with it. The location of the sprite is changed slightly, between each displayed frame, to make the sprite appear to move. The following pseudocode makes a sprite move from left to right: Computer-assisted animation is usually classed as two-dimensional ( 2D ) animation and is also known as digital ink and paint. Drawings are either hand drawn (pencil to paper) or interactively drawn (on

3885-544: Is attended by thousands of computer professionals each year. Developers of computer games and 3D video cards strive to achieve the same visual quality on personal computers in real-time as is possible for CGI films and animation. With the rapid advancement of real-time rendering quality, artists began to use game engines to render non-interactive movies, which led to the art form Machinima . CGI short films have been produced as independent animation since 1976. Early examples of feature films incorporating CGI animation include

3990-517: Is eventually rendered into an image. Thus by changing the values of Avars over time, the animator creates motion by making the character move from frame to frame. There are several methods for generating the Avar values to obtain realistic motion. Traditionally, animators manipulate the Avars directly. Rather than set Avars for every frame, they usually set Avars at strategic points (frames) in time and let

4095-512: Is not always to emulate live action as closely as possible, so many animated films instead feature characters who are anthropomorphic animals, legendary creatures and characters, superheroes, or otherwise have non-realistic, cartoon-like proportions. Computer animation can also be tailored to mimic or substitute for other kinds of animation, like traditional stop-motion animation (as shown in Flushed Away or The Peanuts Movie ). Some of

4200-510: Is not composed solely of rendering). A workstation typically costs $ 2,000 to $ 16,000 with the more expensive stations being able to render much faster due to the more technologically advanced hardware that they contain. Professionals also use digital movie cameras , motion/ performance capture , bluescreens , film editing software , props, and other tools used for movie animation. Programs like Blender allow for people who can not afford expensive animation and rendering software to be able to work in

4305-633: Is now complete, so your employment with the Disney Studios is now terminated." Wilhite, who was part of Disney's live-action group and therefore had no obligations to the animation studio, was able to arrange to keep Lasseter around temporarily until the Wild Things test project was complete in January 1984, but with the understanding there would be no further work for Lasseter at Disney Animation. The Brave Little Toaster would later become

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4410-407: Is perceivable due to the way the eye and the brain both process images. At rates below 12 frames per second, most people can detect jerkiness associated with the drawing of new images that detracts from the illusion of realistic movement. Conventional hand-drawn cartoon animation often uses 15 frames per second in order to save on the number of drawings needed, but this is usually accepted because of

4515-711: Is possible with traditional animation , while still retaining the stylistic elements of traditionally drawn characters or objects. Examples of films produced using computer-assisted animation are the rainbow sequence at the end of The Little Mermaid (the rest of the films listed use digital ink and paint in their entirety), The Rescuers Down Under , Beauty and the Beast , Aladdin , The Lion King , Pocahontas , The Hunchback of Notre Dame , Hercules , Mulan , Tarzan , We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story , Balto , Anastasia , Titan A.E. , The Prince of Egypt , The Road to El Dorado , Spirit: Stallion of

4620-426: Is recorded to a computer using video cameras and markers and that performance is then applied to the animated character. Each method has its advantages and as of 2007, games and films are using either or both of these methods in productions. Keyframe animation can produce motions that would be difficult or impossible to act out, while motion capture can reproduce the subtleties of a particular actor. For example, in

4725-595: Is rendered, it can be composited into a final product. For 3D models, attributes can describe any characteristic of the object that can be animated. This includes transformation (movement from one point to another), scaling, rotation, and more complex attributes like blend shape progression (morphing from one shape to another). Each attribute gets a channel on which keyframes can be set. These keyframes can be used in more complex ways such as animating in layers (combining multiple sets of key frame data), or keying control objects to deform or control other objects. For instance,

4830-452: Is required, but the types of characters required exceed what can be done throughout the conventional costuming. 3D computer animation combines 3D models of objects and programmed or hand "keyframed" movement. These models are constructed out of geometrical vertices, faces, and edges in a 3D coordinate system. Objects are sculpted much like real clay or plaster, working from general forms to specific details with various sculpting tools. Unless

4935-548: Is then used to in a two-level structure – the PAD-PEP mapping and the PEP-FAP translation model. Realism in computer animation can mean making each frame look photorealistic , in the sense that the scene is rendered to resemble a photograph or make the characters' animation believable and lifelike. Computer animation can also be realistic with or without the photorealistic rendering . One trend in computer animation has been

5040-485: Is to use procedural tools such as 4D noise . Noise is any algorithm that plots pseudo-random values within a dimensional space. 4D noise can be used to do things like move a swarm of bees around; the first three dimensions correspond to the position of the bees in space, and the fourth is used to change the bee's position over time. Noise can also be used as a cheap replacement for simulation . For example, smoke and clouds can be animated using noise. Node-based animation

5145-485: Is useful for animating organic and chaotic shapes. By using nodes, an animator can build up a complex set of animation rules that can be applied either to many objects at once, or one very complex object. A good example of this would be setting the movement of particles to match the beat of a song. There are many different disciplines of 3D animation, some of which include entirely separate artforms. For example, hair simulation for computer animated characters in and of itself

5250-470: The Church of Christ church his family regularly attended. As a child, Lasseter would race home from school to watch Chuck Jones cartoons on television. While in high school, he read The Art of Animation by Bob Thomas . The book covered the history of Disney animation and explored the making of Disney's 1959 film Sleeping Beauty , which made Lasseter realize he wanted to do animation himself. When he saw

5355-447: The Where the Wild Things Are project into motion. The project was canceled while being pitched to two of Lasseter's supervisors, animation administrator Ed Hansen, and head of Disney studios, Ron W. Miller , due to lack of perceived cost benefits for the mix of traditional and computer animation. A few minutes after the meeting, Lasseter was summoned by Hansen to his office. As Lasseter recalled, Hansen told him, "Well, John, your project

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5460-593: The light cycle sequence and Clu's tank and recognizer pursuit scene. Despite the high quality images that SynthaVision was able to create, the CSG solid modeling could not create anything with complex shapes and multiple curves, so simpler objects like the light cycles and tanks were assigned to MAGi. MAGi was given $ 1.2 million to finance the animation needed for Tron . MAGi needed more R&D and many other engineers who were working in government contracts at MAGi were assigned into MAGi's "SynthaVision" division. MAGi sped up

5565-552: The solid modeling and ray tracing (later to become plane firing) made it a very robust system that could generate high quality images. MAGi created the world's first CG advertisement for IBM , featuring 3D letters that flew out of an office machine. MAGI also created a polygonal/2D test in the late 70s with legendary Warner Bros. animator Chuck Jones featuring the Coyote and the Road Runner In 1972, MAGi/SynthaVision

5670-477: The 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest , Bill Nighy provided the performance for the character Davy Jones . Even though Nighy does not appear in the movie himself, the movie benefited from his performance by recording the nuances of his body language, posture, facial expressions, etc. Thus motion capture is appropriate in situations where believable, realistic behavior and action

5775-479: The 3D wire-frame imagery, which featured a computer-animated hand and face both created by University of Utah graduates Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke . This imagery originally appeared in their student film A Computer Animated Hand , which they completed in 1972. Developments in CGI technologies are reported each year at SIGGRAPH , an annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques that

5880-644: The Cimarron and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas . Early digital computer animation was developed at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the 1960s by Edward E. Zajac, Frank W. Sinden, Kenneth C. Knowlton, and A. Michael Noll. Other digital animation was also practiced at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory . In 1967, a computer animation named "Hummingbird" was created by Charles Csuri and James Shaffer. In 1968,

5985-654: The Computer Division of Lucasfilm was sold to Steve Jobs and became Pixar in 1986. Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects. He personally directed Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Cars (2006), and Cars 2 (2011), and executive-produced all other Pixar films through 2018. From 2006 to 2018, Lasseter also oversaw all of Walt Disney Animation Studios' (and its division Disneytoon Studios') films and associated projects as executive producer. His works have grossed more than US$ 19 billion, making him one of

6090-678: The Los Angeles area, Pixar is located over 350 miles (563 kilometers) northwest in the Bay Area, where Catmull and Lasseter both live. Accordingly, they appointed a general manager for each studio to manage day-to-day business affairs, then established a routine of spending at least two days per week (usually Tuesdays and Wednesdays) in Southern California. Lasseter is a close friend and admirer of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki , whom he first met when TMS Entertainment sent

6195-634: The Walt Disney Company at Disneyland in Anaheim during summer breaks and got a job as a Jungle Cruise skipper, where he learned the basics of comedy and comic timing to entertain captive audiences on the ride. Upon graduating in 1979, Lasseter immediately obtained a job as an animator at Walt Disney Productions mostly due to his success with his student project, Lady and the Lamp . The studio had reviewed approximately 10,000 portfolios in

6300-444: The animation and arrange its choreography. Another technique called constructive solid geometry defines objects by conducting Boolean operations on regular shapes, and has the advantage that animations may be accurately produced at any resolution. Some notable producers of computer-animated feature films include: John Lasseter John Alan Lasseter ( / ˈ l æ s ə t ər / LASS -ə-tər ; born January 12, 1957)

6405-467: The animation industry's needs typically caused graphical innovations in workstations. Graphics workstation computers use two to four processors, and they are a lot more powerful than an actual home computer and are specialized for rendering. Many workstations (known as a " render farm " ) are networked together to effectively act as a giant computer, resulting in a computer-animated movie that can be completed in about one to five years (however, this process

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6510-535: The art in Facial Animation in 1989 and 1990 proved to be a turning point in the field by bringing together and consolidating multiple research elements and sparked interest among a number of researchers. The Facial Action Coding System (with 46 "action units", "lip bite" or "squint"), which had been developed in 1976, became a popular basis for many systems. As early as 2001, MPEG-4 included 68 Face Animation Parameters (FAPs) for lips, jaws, etc., and

6615-535: The board was as first vice president. Lasseter received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood in 2011, located at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard. In November 2017, Lasseter took a six-month leave of absence after acknowledging allegations of workplace sexual misconduct that he described as "missteps" with employees in a memo to staff. The alleged sexual misconduct toward multiple employees over

6720-433: The computer interpolate or tween between them in a process called keyframing . Keyframing puts control in the hands of the animator and has roots in hand-drawn traditional animation . In contrast, a newer method called motion capture makes use of live action footage. When computer animation is driven by motion capture, a real performer acts out the scene as if they were the character to be animated. Their motion

6825-446: The computer scientists about filmmaking, animation, and art. The short turned out to be more revolutionary than Lasseter first had visualized before he came to Lucasfilm. His original idea had been to create only the backgrounds on computers, but in the final short everything was computer-animated, including the characters. After the short CGI film was presented at SIGGRAPH in the summer of 1984, Lasseter returned to Los Angeles with

6930-438: The computer) using different assisting appliances and are positioned into specific software packages. Within the software package, the creator places drawings into different key frames which fundamentally create an outline of the most important movements. The computer then fills in the "in-between frames", a process commonly known as Tweening . Computer-assisted animation employs new technologies to produce content faster than

7035-586: The effort to create human characters that look and move with the highest degree of realism. A possible outcome when attempting to make pleasing, realistic human characters is the uncanny valley , the concept where the human audience (up to a point) tends to have an increasingly negative, emotional response as a human replica looks and acts more and more human. Films that have attempted photorealistic human characters, such as The Polar Express , Beowulf , and A Christmas Carol have been criticized as "disconcerting" and "creepy". The goal of computer animation

7140-636: The field has made significant progress since then and the use of facial microexpression has increased. In some cases, an affective space , the PAD emotional state model , can be used to assign specific emotions to the faces of avatars . In this approach, the PAD model is used as a high level emotional space and the lower level space is the MPEG-4 Facial Animation Parameters (FAP). A mid-level Partial Expression Parameters (PEP) space

7245-493: The field of special effects ) skyrocketed during the modern era of U.S. animation . Films like Avatar (2009) and The Jungle Book (2016) use CGI for the majority of the movie runtime, but still incorporate human actors into the mix. Computer animation in this era has achieved photorealism, to the point that computer-animated films such as The Lion King (2019) are able to be marketed as if they were live-action. In most 3D computer animation systems, an animator creates

7350-519: The first fully computer-generated photorealistic animated character, a knight composed of elements from a stained glass window. This effect was the first CGI character to be scanned and painted directly onto film using a laser. Lasseter and Catmull's collaboration, which has since lasted over thirty years, would ultimately result in Toy Story (1995), which was the first-ever computer-animated feature film . Additionally, Lasseter created THX 's robot mascot Tex. He made his first appearance in 1996 with

7455-457: The first light cycle sequences for an upcoming film entitled Tron (1982), featuring state-of-the-art computer-generated imagery (CGI), that he saw the huge potential of this new technology in animation. Up to that time, the studio had used a multiplane camera to add depth to its animation. Lasseter realized that computers could be used to make films with three-dimensional backgrounds where traditionally animated characters could interact to add

7560-426: The flow of their work all at once, and interpolation which allows 3D animators to automate the process of inbetweening . For 3D computer animations, objects (models) are built on the computer monitor (modeled) and 3D figures are rigged with a virtual skeleton . Then the limbs, eyes, mouth, clothes, etc. of the figure are moved by the animator on key frames . Normally, the differences between key frames are drawn in

7665-410: The gap by giving amateurs access to professional animations as clip art . The oldest (most backward compatible) web-based animations are in the animated GIF format, which can be uploaded and seen on the web easily. However, the raster graphics format of GIF animations slows the download and frame rate, especially with larger screen sizes. The growing demand for higher quality web-based animations

7770-497: The help of video references and accurate meteorological facts. For the 2005 remake of King Kong , actor Andy Serkis was used to help designers pinpoint the gorilla's prime location in the shots and used his expressions to model "human" characteristics onto the creature. Serkis had earlier provided the voice and performance for Gollum in J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Computer animation can be created with

7875-455: The hope of directing The Brave Little Toaster at Hyperion Pictures. He soon learned that funding had fallen through and called Catmull with the bad news. Catmull called back with a job offer, and Lasseter joined Lucasfilm as a full-time employee in October 1984 and moved to the Bay Area. After that, he worked with ILM on the special effects on Young Sherlock Holmes , where he made

7980-496: The late 1970s in search of talent, then selected only about 150 candidates as apprentices, of which only about 45 were kept on permanently. In the fall of 1979, Disney animator Mel Shaw told the Los Angeles Times that "John's got an instinctive feel for character and movement and shows every indication of blossoming here at our studios ... In time, he'll make a fine contribution." At that same time, Lasseter worked on

8085-526: The live-action films Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Tron (both 1982), and the Japanese anime film Golgo 13: The Professional (1983). VeggieTales is the first American fully 3D computer-animated series sold directly (made in 1993); its success inspired other animation series, such as ReBoot (1994) and Transformers: Beast Wars (1996) to adopt a fully computer-generated style. The first full-length computer-animated television series

8190-761: The long-standing basic principles of animation , like squash and stretch , call for movement that is not strictly realistic, and such principles still see widespread application in computer animation. The popularity of websites that allow members to upload their own movies for others to view has created a growing community of independent and amateur computer animators. With utilities and programs often included free with modern operating systems , many users can make their own animated movies and shorts. Several free and open-source animation software applications exist as well. The ease at which these animations can be distributed has attracted professional animation talent also. Companies such as PowToon and Vyond attempt to bridge

8295-418: The majority of the 20 minutes of CG needed for the film Tron . Twenty minutes of CG animation, in the early 1980s, was extremely gutsy, and so MAGi was a portion of the CG animation, while other companies were hired to do the other animation shots. Since SynthaVision was easy to animate and could create fluid motion and movement, MAGi was assigned with most of Tron's action sequences. These classic scenes include

8400-541: The more complex vector graphic animations had a slower frame rate due to complex rendering compared to some of the raster graphic alternatives. Many of the GIF and Flash animations were already converted to digital video formats, which were compatible with mobile devices and reduced file sizes via video compression technology. However, compatibility was still problematic as some of the video formats such as Apple's QuickTime and Microsoft Silverlight required plugins. YouTube

8505-418: The most financially successful filmmakers of all time. Of the ten animated films that have grossed over US$ 1 billion, five of them were executive produced by Lasseter: Toy Story 3 (2010)—the first animated film to surpass $ 1 billion—and Frozen (2013)—the third-highest-grossing animated film of all time—as well as Zootopia (2016), Finding Dory (2016), and Incredibles 2 (2018). Frozen also held

8610-478: The next 10 years, Pixar evolved from a computer company that did animation work on the side into an animation studio. Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer. As well as Toy Story , he also personally directed A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Cars (2006), and Cars 2 (2011). He has won two Academy Awards , for Animated Short Film ( Tin Toy ), as well as

8715-420: The only company he had ever wanted to work for, Lasseter could not find the strength to tell Catmull that he had been fired. Catmull later telephoned Smith that day and mentioned that Lasseter was not working at Disney. Smith told Catmull to put down the phone and hire Lasseter right now. Lasseter agreed instantly to work freelance with Catmull and his colleagues and joined them for a week of December 1983 on

8820-539: The original theatrical release of Independence Day . Since then, Tex has appeared in some THX trailers. Due to George Lucas 's financially crippling divorce, he was forced to sell off Lucasfilm Computer Graphics, by this time renamed the Pixar Graphics Group, founded by Smith and Catmull, with Lasseter as one of the founding employees. It was spun off as a separate corporation with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as its majority shareholder in 1986. Over

8925-615: The process of supplying its work to Disney Studios in Burbank by a transcontinental computer hook-up. Before each scene was finalized in MAGi's lab in Elmsford, New York, it was previewed on a computer monitor at Disney. Corrections could then be made in the scene immediately. Previously, the only way of previewing the scene was to film it, ship it to Burbank, get corrections made, ship it back to Elmsford, and continue this "ping-ponging" until

9030-404: The scene was correct. The computer link cut between two-and-a-half to five days from the creation of each scene. During the production of Tron , animators and computer image choreographers Bill Kroyer and Jerry Rees invited John Lasseter (who would later co-found Pixar ) to see some of the light cycle animation. Lasseter said in "The Making of Tron" featurette that the light cycle animation

9135-452: The spline curves relative to the keyframes. Using interpolation allows 3D animators to dynamically change animations without having to redo all the in-between animation. This also allows the creation of complex movements such as ellipses with only a few keyframes. Lastly, interpolation allows the animator to change the framerate, timing, and even scale of the movements at any point in the animation process. Another way to automate 3D animation

9240-801: The stylized nature of cartoons. To produce more realistic imagery, computer animation demands higher frame rates. Films seen in theaters in the United States run at 24 frames per second, which is sufficient to create the illusion of continuous movement. For high resolution, adapters are used. Computer-generated animation is an umbrella term for three-dimensional ( 3D ) animation, and 2D computer animation. These also include subcategories like asset driven , hybrid, and digital drawn animation. Creators animate using code or software instead of pencil-to-paper drawings. There are many techniques and disciplines in computer generated animation, some of which are digital representations of traditional animation - such as key frame animation - and some of which are only possible with

9345-519: The title of the highest-grossing animated film of all time until 2019, and was the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time at the end of its theatrical run. He has won two Academy Awards , for Best Animated Short Film (for Tin Toy ), as well as a Special Achievement Award (for Toy Story ). In November 2017, Lasseter took a six-month sabbatical from Pixar and Disney Animation after acknowledging what he called "missteps" in his behavior with employees. According to various news outlets, Lasseter had

9450-520: Was ReBoot , which debuted in September 1994; the series followed the adventures of characters who lived inside a computer. The first feature-length computer-animated film is Toy Story (1995), which was made by Disney and Pixar : following an adventure centered around anthropomorphic toys and their owners, this groundbreaking film was also the first of many fully computer-animated movies. The popularity of computer animation (especially in

9555-673: Was also created by Ken Perlin as a built-in function within KPL. Much of the MAGi/SynthaVision software was Fortran -based, with a Ratfor interface for the artists. In 1985 Josh Pines argued to use the Unix programming environment for any future software and production programming design. Soon after, the SynthaVision software was sold to Lockheed's ( CADAM ) division as the foundation of ISD (Interactive Solids Design), and MAGi

9660-636: Was also relying on the Flash plugin to deliver digital video in the Flash Video format. The latest alternatives are HTML5 compatible animations. Technologies such as JavaScript and CSS animations made sequencing the movement of images in HTML5 web pages more convenient. SVG animations offered a vector graphic alternative to the original Flash graphic format, SmartSketch . YouTube offers an HTML5 alternative for digital video. APNG (Animated PNG) offered

9765-741: Was born on January 12, 1957, in Hollywood , California . His mother, Jewell Mae (née Risley; 1918–2005), was an art teacher at Bell Gardens High School , and his father, Paul Eual Lasseter (1924–2011), was a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership. Lasseter is a fraternal twin ; his sister Johanna Lasseter-Curtis, who became a baker based in the Lake Tahoe area, is six minutes older. Lasseter grew up in Whittier, California . His mother's profession contributed to his growing preoccupation with animation. He often drew cartoons during services at

9870-564: Was formally sold to a Canadian firm, Vidmax (which later went defunct); many of the employees left to other CG companies and universities. Phillip Mittelman, the founder of MAGi, died in 2000. Computer animation Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images , while computer animation only refers to moving images. Modern computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics . Computer animation

9975-649: Was hired to head Skydance Animation , a new animation division of Skydance Media formed in 2017. In a statement, Lasseter said "I have spent the last year away from the industry in deep reflection, learning how my actions unintentionally made colleagues uncomfortable, which I deeply regret and apologize for. It has been humbling, but I believe it will make me a better leader." An investigation conducted prior to his hiring found that no previous claims of sexual assault, propositioning or harassment had been filed against Lasseter, and "[...] there were no findings of secret settlements by Disney or Lasseter to any parties asking for

10080-931: Was honored with the Winsor McCay Award , the lifetime achievement award for animators. Disney announced that it would be purchasing Pixar in January 2006, and Lasseter was named the chief creative officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Feature Animation, the latter of which he renamed Walt Disney Animation Studios . Lasseter was also named principal creative adviser at Walt Disney Imagineering , where he helped design attractions for Disney Parks . He oversaw all of Walt Disney Animation Studios' films and associated projects as executive producer. He reported directly to Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger , bypassing Disney's studio and theme park executives. He also received green-light power on films with Roy E. Disney 's consent. In December 2006, Lasseter announced that Disney Animation would start producing animated shorts – 2D, CGI, or

10185-509: Was met by a vector graphics alternative that relied on the use of a plugin . For decades, Flash animations were a common format, until the web development community abandoned support for the Flash Player plugin. Web browsers on mobile devices and mobile operating systems never fully supported the Flash plugin. By this time, internet bandwidth and download speeds increased, making raster graphic animations more convenient. Some of

10290-499: Was not allowed to hire animators, he was given the title "Interface Designer"; "Nobody knew what that was but they didn't question it in budget meetings". Lasseter spent a lot of time at Lucasfilm in the San Francisco Bay Area in the spring of 1984, where he worked together closely with Catmull and his team of computer science researchers. Lasseter learned how to use some of their software, and in turn, he taught

10395-467: Was often repeating itself. Between 1980 and 1981, he coincidentally came across some video tapes from one of the then new computer-graphics conferences, who showed some of the very beginnings of computer animation, primarily floating spheres and such, which he experienced as a revelation. But it was not until shortly after, when he was invited by his friends Jerry Rees and Bill Kroyer , while working on Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983), to come and see

10500-428: Was one of the first systems to implement a ray tracing algorithmic approach to hidden surface removal in rendering images. The software was a constructive solid geometry (CSG) system, in that the geometry was solid primitives with combinatorial operators (such as Boolean operators ). SynthaVision's modeling method does not use polygons or wireframe meshes that most CG companies use today. The combination of

10605-536: Was started by Robert Goldstein, with Bo Gehring and Larry Elin covering the design and film/television interests, respectively. Two of the first television commercial applications were storyboarded by Texas artist, Gordon Blocker in 1973-4 for the Texas Commerce Bank "Flag Card" commercial and a news open for KHOU-TV ( CBS ) in Houston, Texas . In 1981, MAGi was hired by Disney to create half of

10710-490: Was taught by three members of Disney's Nine Old Men team of veteran animators— Eric Larson , Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston —and his classmates included future animators and directors like Brad Bird , John Musker , Henry Selick , Tim Burton , and Chris Buck . During his time there, he produced two animated shorts— Lady and the Lamp (1979) and Nitemare (1980)—which each won the student Academy Award for Animation. While at CalArts, Lasseter first started working for

10815-459: Was the first CG animation he had ever seen. In 1983, Disney commissioned MAGi to create a test film featuring characters from the children's book Where the Wild Things Are . The Wild Things test used CGI animation for the backgrounds and traditional 2D animation for the characters "Max" and his dog. Animators John Lasseter and Glen Keane of Disney directed the test for Disney. At MAGi, Larry Elin directed Chris Wedge and Jan Carle and produced

10920-681: Was to end shortly, Lasseter visited a computer graphics conference in November 1983 at the Queen Mary in Long Beach , where he met and talked to Catmull again. Catmull inquired about The Brave Little Toaster , which Lasseter explained had been shelved. From his experience at Lucasfilm, Catmull assumed Lasseter was simply between projects since Hollywood studios have traditionally laid off employees when they lack enough productions to keep them busy. Still devastated at being forced out of

11025-642: Was written by Christine Chang, Jodi Slater and Ken Perlin for production. This early paint system filled in color within character line borders, applied shadow, and highlighted and applied a blur to the color areas to produce an airbrush 2.5D effect. The final painted characters and CG-rendered backgrounds were digitally composited , color-corrected and light-scanned back onto film with a Celco camera for lab processing and delivery back to Disney. In 1984, MAGi opened an office in Los Angeles, California, headed by Richard Taylor, who worked as Special Effects Supervisor while at Triple-I. Taylor, Wedge and Carle directed

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