From: jk87377@lehtori.cc.tut.fi (Kouhia Juhana)
Newsgroups: alt.cult-movies,comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: Computer animation
Date: 12 Jan 1993 13:30:24 +0200
Organization: Tampere University of Technology
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: cc.tut.fi


I forwarded the article posted in alt.cult-movies to Tony Apodaca at Pixar.
Here is a reply by him.

Note that I have crossposted this article to comp.graphics.animation
newsgroup too -- better this way.

===clip===

In article <Jan.11.02.38.19.1993.670@pilot.njin.net>
mongoose@pilot.njin.net (Gregory Daniels) writes:
>donnell@tuna.micro.umn.edu (BogusMan) writes:
>
>>The best computer animation I have seen was for a short promo piece for
>><I think> Pixar. Called "A lone Rays Journey into Light". Wonderful
>>graphics and a nice sense of pace. Lovely.
>
>Actually, "A Long Ray's Journey Into Light" was done pre-Pixar... on
>the old Apollo computer system. If my membry(sic) serves me correctly,
>it was one of the first ever computer animations produced, taking
>"hundreds of thousands of simulated man-hours" to render the full
>piece.
>
>Of course, my membry is a little hazy on this information... it's been
>about 5 or 6 years since I'd been exposed to any information about
>LRJIL... but it *is* on The Mind's Eye vidtape.

        Pixar never had anything to do with this, of course.
 
        "ALRJIL" was done in 1985 or so, at Apollo Computer Inc.,
(before Apollo was swallowed by Hewlett-Packard) by James Arvo and
a huge list of other people at Apollo.  Because it was ray-traced
in 1985, it did take hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of CPU hours.
Fortunately, they had the entire Apollo corporate network to compute on,
which numbered around a thousand of machines if memory serves.  It mentions
all the statistics in the credits, or at least it did in its first showing
at Siggraph, I don't know if that stuff made it into "The Mind's Eye".
        A sequel was done a year later, but for the life of me I can't
recall it's title.  It took place in a circus/amusement park of sorts,
and included forward-ray-tracing.  It was more visually interesting, and
had even less storyline.
 
        As for being "one of the first ever", well, it probably counts
as one of the first hundred ray-traced animations ever produced, and
was almost certainly the most expensive CG animation produced up to
that point in time.  However, CG people have been doing animation
for over 20 years now, so it only counts as "one of *the* first"
to people with very short memories.
 
UUCP:           {uupsi,ucbvax}!pixar!aaa        Tony Apodaca
Internet:       aaa@pixar.com                   Pixar, Richmond, CA,
USA
    "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

===clip===


The sequel animation might be Quest by Sciulli, Arvo and White in
SIGGRAPH video review issue 21, 1985.
I also recall animation called Fair Play; what was that?

I can't find the ARLJIL or Fair Play from the SIGGRAPH issue info,
so the ARLJIL might be the Quest because of the release year 1985,
and the Fair Play is the sequel. I dunno.

There's an article on Apollo graphics with lotsa glass balls in IEEE
Computer Graphics & Applications May 1985.


A while ago it was posted a very good list of Pixar animations;
did somebody save it and the list is still available near?
Maybe we should have comp.graphics.animation FAQ with info
on animation companies, and why not on memorable animations?

It is much easier to clear misthoughts in the Net, if there's
something where to clip the exact info.


Juhana Kouhia
Newsgroups: alt.cult-movies