Toy Story: The First 3D Animation
An animation that did change the
animation industry is Toy story that was first released on November 1995. This
cartoon movie was like nothing that ever came before it as it was one of the
first fully computer animated movie on the Big screen and because of this the
animator team were on high stakes. The team had only one try to pull off a full
length computer animated movie with their deal of $26 million by the Pixar
company. If they succeeded then that would mean they created a new software and
hardware that them and many animators will use for future computer animation. “At that point, none of us knew what we were doing. We didn’t have any
production expertise except for short films and commercials. So we were all
complete novices,” Said Ed Catmull “But there was something
fresh about nobody knowing what the hell we were doing.”
Catmull also states that these young
production studios were in a corner: one failure and that would likely mean the
end of all 3 toy story movie contract and the end of Pixar studios. “We grew up with hand-drawn [animation], done
the best at Disney Studios,” Catmull says. “It was very subtle and very
emotional.” He comments about how Walt Disney used all the latest technology of
his time and that’s what makes the film so magical.
Catmull and the computer
scientists at Pixar was able to build a software that animators can use to
design the film Toy Story and they used this software on other movies like
RenderMan which was originally made from Catmull’s studies at the University of
Utah and Menv. Working with computers opened new possibilities with animations,
letting animators add in details that they couldn’t add in before or would
wanted to avoid like the plaid pattern on Woody’s shirt or the stickers on
Buzz’s curved glass helmet.
The software is good for
making geometric objects like blocks and bouncing balls: the types of things
you’d find in Andy’s room and toy box. Anything with an “organic” shape,
texture or look ended up looking like a plastic toy, this fits nicely with the
theme of toys and plastic objects coming to life “Toys always hung out in a
kid’s room” Lasseter added “which let animators do their illustrations on a
perfectly flat floor that was simple to render”.
Toy Story was the
highest selling film the first 3 weeks of its opening day. To be the first 3D
computer animated movie it was a huge milestone for animation and the most
significant since the start of colour animation.
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