When starting a project it's important to understand a bit about the subject's history, its background, and its development. I decided to investigate the world of 3D in order to give me a better understanding for my project. This section examines the very beginnings of animation, as well as the history of CGI and film special effects.

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The Beginning

Since the very dawn of time humans have somehow been able to represent motion within individual drawings and paintings. Going back as far as 2000 BC we see examples of how the Egyptians used progressive comic strip like series of images to depict continuous stories. Even during times of the cavemen humans were expressing their artistic skills by painting on walls and rocks. We see many examples of movement in these pictures, usually portraying humans and animals.

Even though there are lots of instances of early man showing pictures describing motion, the movement itself has never really been displayed. It has taken the technical inventions of the early 19th century for the task of animating to become truly real.

Firstly, in 1824, Peter Mark Roget developed the idea of ‘persistence of vision’. This theory explains that objects will appear to be moving if there is a short gap between the showings of each image. It works on the principal that the human eye maintains images for a very short time after it’s seen. As a result of this principal, John Ayrton Paris invented and marketed the Thaumatrope, a device used to rapidly display two separate images one after the other. It works by suspending a piece of card between 2 pieces of string. The card disc has an image on each side; one side usually showing an empty cage, the other side showing a bird. By pulling the string apart the disc rotates very quickly, showing the images in quick succession. If this is done fast enough it looks as though the bird is sitting inside the cage. The image below helps to illustrate this –

Using the principals of the persistence of vision, Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau created the Phenakistoscope in 1832. This is a circular disc attached to a spindle with images drawn around the circumference. The disc is attached to another disc with slots in it, and when they are rotated the images can be seen to move when looking through the slits. A further development of this idea was made into the Zeotrope, created by William Horner. The Zeotrope uses a long strip of paper which is placed around the inside circumference of a rotating drum. Slits cut around the top edge of the drum act as viewing holes, and when the drum rotates the images loop to create a sense of motion. Below, the image on the left shows a Phenakistoscope while the image on the right is a Zeotrope -

Many years later in 1868 John Barnes Linnett patented the Kineograph, which today is also known as a ‘flip book’. The flip book works by binding sheets of paper together, and then drawing slightly different images on each sheet of the paper. Each image is a small progression from the previous, and so when the pages of the book are flicked it looks as though the drawings are moving.

After these early technical developments in the world of animation, it was really the invention of the projector and motion camera by Thomas Edison that allowed for a feasible means of animation.

One of the first major films as a result of the invention of the motion camera was called Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, created by James Stuart Blackton in 1906. The film consisted of a series of blackboard drawings showing comical faces with facial expressions. The effect was created using stop motion techniques, and was truly ground breaking at the time. Audiences everywhere were amazed by how the characters came to life. The original movie can be seen by clicking below –

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Humorous Phases of Funny Faces shows how using stop motion techniques can bring animation to life. >> Play Movie (13.3M)

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In the following years audiences started to become bored with the monotonous animations and lack of storytelling or character development seen within the cartoons. This was true until Winsor McCay produced Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914 and Otto Messmer created Felix the Cat in 1919. Both characters had a certain personality and life to them that audiences loved, which is why they were so popular and successful. The only difference between the two characters was the Felix was created by a studio, and so viewers could look forward to seeing appearances of him again and again.

An example of the Gertie the Dinosaur animation can be viewed by clicking below-

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Gertie the Dinosaur is one of the first displays of an animated character coming to life and having a real personality. >> Play Movie (2.3M)

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In the years to come cartoon making became a commercialised business. Studios were given quotas on the number of shots they had to produce each day, and cartoons were being made quickly, and in quantity.

This commercialised, Henry Ford like manufacturing process of cartoons gave way to undoubtedly the most influential cartoon studio of all time, Walt Disney Studio. Its first creation was Steamboat Willie, which came to the screen in 1928 and featured the studios most famous export, Mickey Mouse. Later, the animation mammoth would produce such greats as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Lady and the Tramp, and Pinocchio (arguably an example of one of the most technically brilliant animation masterpieces to date).

After Disney came the arrival of other instrumental companies and people such as Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes (under the direction of Chuck Jones) and Bill Hannah and Joe Barbara, creators of the Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Nowadays cartoons are serious business, and recently with the likes of Pixar, Blue Sky, and Dreamworks, computer generated imagery is playing a huge part in the creation of modern day cartoons.

CGI also plays a massive role in the development of feature films… just take a look at Lord of the Rings and Star Wars for example. The boundaries that cartoon animation pushed made way for its use in films, in productions like Willis O’Brian’s The Lost World (1925) and Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts (1963), these stop motion classics are still inspiring film makers today.

With the technology now available only getting better and better, the possibilities are endless… these are exciting times for the world of CGI!

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CGI History <top>

Below is a hand picked timeline of what I think are some of the most important developments and achievements within the world of 3D to date –

Date		Company	Details
1968-		MGM	2001: A Space Odyssey
1977-		LucasFilm, ILM	Star Wars: A New Hope
1980-		LucasFilm, ILM	Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
1982-		MAGI	Tron – 3D effects used to create the ships and ‘Master Control Program’ face
1983-		LucasFilm, ILM	Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
1984-		Pixar	John Lasseter’s company Pixar opens
1984-		Pixar	Pixar release their first animated short; Andre and Wally B
1984-		Rushes	Dire Straits release one of the first music videos ever, for the song Money For Nothing. The video features an animated CGI character
1984-		Digital Productions	The Last Starfighter - photorealistic 3D images were created and rendered using a Cray X-MP supercomputer
1986-		Pixar	Luxo Jr. is nominated in the AMPAS Animated Short Films Category.
1987-		Pixar	Red’s Dream, animated short
1987-		John Lasseter	John Lasseter publishes ‘Principals of traditional animation applied to 3D computer animation’
1988-		ILM	Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Combing motion video with cartoon effects
1988-		Pixar	Tin Toy wins the AMPAS Animated Short Films Category
1989-		ILM	The Abyss – The pseudopod was the first real CGI character
1989-		Pixar	Knickknack
1991-		ILM	Terminator 2 - Morphing techniques were used and natural human motion was mimicked for the creation of the new terminator
1993-		ID Software	The first person shooter Doom is released. Computer games are changed forever
1993-		ILM	Jurassic Park – Bump mapping techniques, digital compositing and inverse kinematic techniques were all used to create the ultra realistic dinosaurs
1993-		Pixar	Pixar receive a Technical Academy Award for RenderMan
1995-		ID Software	The computer game Quake is released
1995-		Pixar	Toy Story – The worlds first feature length CG movie
1997-		Pixar	Geri’s Game wins the AMPAS Animated Short Films Award
1997-		Digital Domain	Titanic
1997-		Digital Domain	Starship Troopers
1998-		Pixar	A Bug's Life
1998-		Dreamworks	Antz
1999-		Pixar	Toy Story 2
1999-		LucasFilm, ILM	Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
1999-		Various	The Matrix
2000-		Pixar	For the Birds, winner of Best Animated Short Film AMPAS award
2001-		Dreamworks	Shrek released and winner of the new AMPAS category ‘Best Animated Feature’ (Monsters, Inc. was a runner up)
2001-		Mill	Mill Film announces it is to stop working on films, will only focus on broadcast projects
2001-		Pixar	Mike's New Car, animated short
2001-		Weta Digital	Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2001-		Pixar	Monsters, Inc.
2002-		LucasFilm, ILM	Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
2002-		Blue Sky	Ice Age matches the quality seen in Pixar's productions
2002-		Weta Digital	Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2003-		Jeff Lew	Killer Bean 2 is released, showing off excellent animation and storytelling techniques
2003-		Shynola	The London based team use Maya to produce a phenomenal promo for rock band Queens of the Stone Age, the song being Go With the Flow
2003-		Weta Digital	Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2003-		Studio Ghibli	Oscar nominated Belleville Rendezvous unites old style cel animation with 3D (thanks to Lightwave)
2003-		Pixar	Finding Nemo released, the most successful animated film of all time
2003-		Brian Taylor	An animated short known as Rustboy continues development. An impressive trailer can be seen at www.rustboy.com

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The Future <top>

Pixar are clearly pioneering the way forward for 3D animation, with 5 feature films and 8 animated shorts under their belt, they definitely know what they’re doing. Their recent success of Finding Nemo (being the top grossing animated feature ever made), and their departure from the constraints of Disney means that Pixar are now free to do what they like, when they like, and the only way is up.

With new projects from Pixar like Boundin’ and The Incredibles soon to be released, it’s a busy time for CG animations. As well as this, Shrek 2 is under development, and feature movies such as the Garfield Movie and Hellboy are coming soon.

Weta Digital, with their work on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Frightners are also a company to look out for in the coming years. They’re currently working on King Kong, which is due for release in 2005.