Blasts from the past: vintage CG

[Roger]

 

 

 

 

[Shelton]

Thanks Roger.  

 

There were a couple animations that got me interested in this stuff.  The Atari logo flying in was one and I think it was created on the Atari itself.  I was a big Atari computer guy and own all the main animation packages that was produced for the Atari.  Sculpt, Neon Graphics Lexicor Software same stuff on the SGI machines, Black Scorpion Apex media.  That makes me want to get my Falcon030 running again!!

[CaptBobo]

It’s amazing to think that these demo reels were state of the art 40 odd years ago and how far it’s come in that time. Still, these animations hold a certain charm even to this day. 🙂

[Shelton]

I would agree with that.  When I see the animation from the music video, Money for nothing, I am transported back to my college days.  The animation is simple but it still makes me smile.

[robcat2075]

I wonder if the 1974 reel got them much work. Even though it's cutting edge for CG at the time it still falls way short of what traditional methods could have done for advertising eye-candy .

The '80 and '84 reels look more competitive.

I spotted Chris Wedge's name in the credits. He would later go on to found Blue Sky studios. I went to a talk he gave where he spoke of working on "Tron" and how all the modeling and animation was done by typing in code on punch cards. There was no GUI to it as we have today or even as we would have in the later 80s on our AMIGAs

And Ken Perlin... of "Perlin" textures fame. They seem to be demonstrating one at 2:11 in the '84 reel.

 

[Roger]

Glad you guys enjoyed them, I know I like looking at this type of stuff for inspiration.   It definitely puts the tools we have access to today in a completely different light, just real-time shaded previews make such a huge difference and were a dream on home PCs of the 80s and early to mid 90s.   I don't think it really became practical until 2002-2004 or so on home gear.  

Also gives you a bit of perspective when you realize you don't have to plot everything out by hand and then code things in with a scripting language and wait for a batch job to complete overnight before you can see what you worked on.   😂

[robcat2075]

I think this was our first glimpse of home computer ray-tracing in 1986 and then we got "Sculpt 3D" the next year...

 

[Roger]

Apparently Pixar did a redesign of one of the characters in Knick Knack from the original 80s version for the early 2000s re-release:

 

 

 

I'm having problems posting the redesigned version but they made Miss Sunny Miami and the mermaid significantly less busty. 

[CaptBobo]

On 5/12/2022 at 2:06 PM, robcat2075 said:

And Ken Perlin... of "Perlin" textures fame. They seem to be demonstrating one at 2:11 in the '84 reel.

Oh, yes!  I saw Ken Perlin's name in there too.  It's kinda cool when you see the names of CG pioneers in the credits -- Ken Perlin, Ed Catmull, etc.

[CaptBobo]

BTW, found this side-by-side comparison of the original "Knick-Knack" and 2003 remake:

 

 

[Roger]

2 hours ago, CaptBobo said:

BTW, found this side-by-side comparison of the original "Knick-Knack" and 2003 remake:

 

 

Cool, thanks for posting that.   I was thinking about doing some screengrabs to show the changes. 

[robcat2075]

The probably got more people looking for the old boobs than if they had left them unaltered.

[Wildsided]

It boggles my mind that there are people who looked at the original animation and their big takeaway was "Those 3D Plastic women's boobs are far too big, reduce them immediately!" But maybe that says more about me than society.