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Quantel paintbox was introduced as a workstation to assist in the composition of graphics for broadcast and tv

This tool was revolutionary in its use of a tablet with a pressure sensitive stylus that could be used to generate graphics for television in real time

When it began retailing commercially, it cost $125,000 and became fundamental to developing the visual style of MTV, which was launched in the same year

In the late 1980’s, the Doctor Who series made use of the technology, primarily to alter background or re-colour alien skies

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A CGI scene from Tron (cultureslate.com, 2023)

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Tron was the first film to combine CGI technology with live action sequences

CGI was in its infancy and only had the capacity to generate static images

Each scene was mapped out on graph paper by animators, followed by the painstaking, manual insertion of  coordinates by computer engineers

Around 600 coordinates were required to produce just four seconds of footage

Only fifteen minutes of the total film were exclusively CGI. Throughout the film, parts of the live action footage were digitally manipulated and used in conjunction with more traditional methods, such as rotoscoping (tracing over live action footage, frame by frame), backlit animation and matte painting

The film's director, Steve Lisburger has stated that Tron is widely considered to be “the bridge from analog to digital”. Tron may have flopped at the box office, but its cult following can undoubtedly be attributed to its distinctive visual style and its unique approach of integrating traditional methods of animation with CGI

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A screenshot of the music video (vice.com, 2019)

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In 1985, Dire Straits became the first band to use CGI in their music video for the song “Money for Nothing”

It is regarded as the first depiction of entirely computer animated characters on television and utilised The Bosch FGS-4000 Computer Graphics Interface system

The set design and characters’ movements were blocked over the course of several weeks and resulted in a video that was the first of its kind

This computer workstation was developed specifically for the music video by Ian Pearson and Gavin Blair of the British animation studio Pearson Associates

It functioned in a similar manner to previously mentioned Quantel Paintbox and following the release of the music video, the technology was further developed for use in television and broadcasting and was integrated into the overall production workflow

Both live broadcast and pre-recorded programs made use of the system to create graphics, titles and other visual elements

Money for Nothing amassed a cult following and brought CGI into the collective consciousness

As a result, the use of CGI by mainstream media became widespread and led to many advancements in CGI related technology

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A CGI owl (the-animatorium.blogspot.com, 2014)

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Jim Henson’s 1986 cult classic Labyrinth was the first film to incorporate a realistic CGI animal

In the opening credits, a 3D model of an owl was rendered and its movements programmed by animators using early CGI technology

Although Jim Henson is widely known for his use of puppetry and animatronics, the use of CGI in tandem with practical effects can be seen throughout the movie

This burgeoning technology was also used to animate the rotating staircase that can be seen in the movie's penultimate scene

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A screenshot of buzz lightyear in Renderman (medium.com) May 30, 2023

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Toy Story paved the way for animation produced by Pixar as the first 3D computer-animated feature-length film.

Renderman has been used by Pixar to create many films over the decades, developing and created by Loren Carpenter, Rob Cook ED Catmull, Tom Porter, Pat Hanrahan, Tony Apodaca, Darwin Peachey, and John Lasseter. It became the industry standard as well as the first software to win an Oscar. (Pixar | Renderman about website )

With the development of Toy Story and many other films, a new technology added shaders on the models. adding layers on top of one another to create detail and texture which was used for some of the models in a bug's life.

(Dutta, 2023)

Pixar has used Renderman to produce and make Toy Story, having to produce Toy Story required a lot of technological innovation with Pixar spending $15 million on designing their own Renderman rendering software. (Martinez, 2022) In which the Total rendering times are added out as 800,000 machine hours across a render farm. With 27 animators in a team of 110 individuals (Cook, 2020)

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screenshot from A Bugs Life 1998 Trailer HD | Disney | Kevin Spacey (YouTube.com)

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After the success of Toy Story, many advancements went on to be implemented for A Bug Life as well, of course making it a lot easier to produce.

Such as when modelling and adding texture they noticed that some of the bugs had the same plastic look to them (Gomez, 2020).

But there were still many advancements and techniques such as John Lasseter wanting to implement the sunlight shining through the leaves. Trying to replicate that stained-glass ceiling look,(Guttman, 2020) so the animators had to implement a technique that was called subsurface scattering (SSS) that just allows objects to give the appearance that light is penetrating through the translucent surface such as leaves or grass.

( Videocopilot)

It was also impractical to assign each ant to be animated individually to move and animate them, and it wasn't agreed upon to animate them in unison. So software was developed to help fix this issue taking a cluster of ants and duplicating them while some of them had different animations to give a sense of variation and randomly placing them into group scenes. (Gomez, 2020)

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screenshot CinemaSix | When Animators are given half the time and money that Disney gets (youtube.com) 

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Style: this type of mixed media style wasn't too uncommon but it was unique by bringing 2d and 3d and blending the style loo and environment so naturally

both the Iron Giant and railroads where 3d models

Brad Bird one of the writers and directors of the movie was keen on making CGI look hand-drawn ( Formenti, Kristina Jared Robinson, 2021 )

it took months to create the computer program that wobbles the lines of the giant to make it as if the robot was drawn traditionally or blended within its 2d environment. altering the shading varying the lighting and darkening some frames to help him blend within the 2d style ( Formenti Kristina Jared Robinson, 2021 )

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1:22 / 4:0 Screenshot 1Disney's DINOSAUR ''Aladar Joins The Herd'' 3D Workbook Only uploaded by Johnathon Barker (YouTube.com) 

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Dinsey's Dinosaur movie (2000) -Technology

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Dinsey's Dinosaur movie (2000) -Technology

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They used live-action backgrounds with computer animation for the dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures.

walt Disney's feature animation computer graphics unit ended up merging with the Dream Quest images to create Disney's secret lab department.

Disney helped to develop the additional technology needed to make the dinosaur movie. spent several years on developing the software as well and mainly using the Maya software for the film (Taylor, 2020)

they also used Ailis Maya to do lip-syncing animation

so the studio executive realised the film could be produced and made through mix of mediums such as stop motion animation animatronics and live-action photography

(Taylor, 2020)

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photo from the article How Pixar creative genius John Lasseter became the next Walt Disney. Jun 18 2016 ( Business Insider) 

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John Lassiter is a very well known American animator and made big contributions in the success of Pixar in the film industry. has worked on Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Cars, and Cars 2. and has won two Academy Awards for the animated short film Tin Toy and Toy Story the first-ever computer-generated film, as well as having a big involvement in the success of Pixar animation studios through computer animation. ( Maddaus, 2018)

he was born on January 12 1957 in California U.S

After reading about the making of the Walt Disney Company animated film Sleeping Beauty (1938) he was inspired to pursue his career in being an animator. ( Crain, 2024)

after he got fired from Disney due to his interest in computer animation he began to work in the computer graphics division of Lucas Itd. The film company gave him his first assignment in directing the animated short film '' The Adventures of Andre and Wally B"", which was one of the first movies that featured computer-generated characters ( Crain, 2024)

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Screenshot from Monsters Inc. (Docter, 2001) 

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Developed by David Baraff and Andy Witkin at Pixar Studios.

Fiz-T is a computer simulation that incorporates the natural laws of physics on things such as clothing and hair (Ultimate History of CGI, 2019)

It was developed specifically for Monsters Inc and primarily to simulate the character Sully's 2.3 million strands of hair and it was also used to simulate Boos oversized t-shirt to react to physics properly as well. (Clewley, 2001)

Pixar then continued to use Fiz-T in all of their future films and continue to do so.(Ultimate History of CGI, 2019)

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Shot of Gollum showing the sub surface scattering on his skin (Jackson, 2002)

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Developed by Henrik Jensen, Ken ​McGaugh and Joe Latteri at Weta FX in (2002)

Subsurface Scattering on skin is an academy award winning technology that was developed to give the character Gollum more realistic lighting on his skin inherently bringing him more to life. (Jackson, 2002)

Similar to how a candles light diffuses through its wax, skin diffuses light the same way (Conrad, 2018)

Subsurface scattering was also used in the movie 'A Bugs Life' (1998) for the lighting on the leaves but Gollum was the first to have this technique implemented on the skin.

This technology is still used to this day notably in the Avatar (2010)

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Shot of all the monsters in Monsters vs. Aliens (Monsters vs. Aliens | Rotten Tomatoes, 2009)

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First movie to be shot in Stereoscopic 3D meaning it was made fully in 3 dimensions start to finish

The directors even had to view the daily takes with 3D glasses on

Phil “Captain 3D” McNally was the stereoscopic supervisor of dreamworks and mastermind behind this technique (Cohen & Writer, n.d.)

This style was then used to film many other 3D movies however it is much more expensive to achieve

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Explorer headshot by Robert Ascroft/© ROLEX

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James Cameron (Avatar, 2009)- Practitioner 

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James Cameron (Avatar, 2009)- Practitioner 

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James Cameron is a Canadian director (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019) most known for his innovative work on the movie Avatar (2009).

The level of CGI in Avatar (2009) was well before its time and the movie received numerous awards including three academy awards and two golden globes.

Cameron himself received the Academy Award for Best Director in 2010 for this film as well (Avatar (2009) - Awards - IMDb, n.d.).

Cameron is also known for directing the 1997 film Titanic.

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Screenshot of Merida's Hair in Taz (Failes, 2021)

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Taz is a mass-spring hair simulation system that can animate any hair type, from straight to curly (Failes, 2021).

It was developed by Lena Petrovitch and Andrew Witkin in 2008 (Robertson, 2012).

It was developed because FizT couldnt animate Braves Meridas curls (Robertson, 2012).

This technology was specifically programed for Brave and is the only film to use this software (Robertson, 2012).

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Screenshot from Into the Spiderverse, showing the comic book style (Synder, 2019)

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Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (2018)- Animation Style

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Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (2018)- Animation Style

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Spiderman into the Spiderverse (2018) had a unique animation style that looked like it had been ripped from a comic book (Synder, 2019) they did this by applying a 2.5D animation style, adding 2D elements ontop of 3D ones.

This came about because creative minds Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, behind Spiderman into the Spiderverse (2018) wanted to create a new style that would look different to the more realistic animated films at the time. They wanted to stick to how a comic book print looked. (Synder, 2019).

The Hand-Drawn look was achieved by painting 2D ink strokes onto the 3D models of characters and their environments. (Synder, 2019).

Motion Blur was removed from the film and replaced with Smear frames from early cartoons to add to this comic book style. (Synder, 2019).

In the Spidy people, animators could explore different animation styles such as Manga(Peni and Robot Spidy), Classic Old-School Cartoon style (Ham) and a black and white style (Spider Noir). (Synder, 2019).

The only other film to use this style is the sequel to this film, Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse which was released in 2023.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are also the creative minds behind The Lego Movie Franchise, 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, Cloudy and a chance of meatballs 1 and The last man on Earth.(Sony Pictures Animation)

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Screenshot of How To Train Your Dragon: Hidden World. Showing off MoonRay's Lighting (Giardina, 2019)

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Moon Ray is a Monte Carlo Ray Tracing (MCRT) Render created and developed by Dreamworks

It is in continuous active development.

MoonRay enhances the rendering process, making animations seem more lifelike and realistic by improving lighting, textures and overall visual quality (OpenMoonRay-about)

MoonRays first official debut was in DreamWorks Short Film, Bilby in 2018. (Jackles,2019)

The first feature-length Film to show MoonRay’s Abilities was How to Train Your Dragon: Hidden World, where Moonray shows its capabilities in lighting and environments.

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Screenshot of Joel Crawford From TMDB (n.d.)

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Joel Crawford is an American storyboard artist and director who works at Dreamworks Animation(Animation Film Festival)

Hes been working there since 2006, amassing a large list of movies he has worked on.

His work as a storyboard artist includes the bee movie, the kung fu panda series, shrek forever after, Rise of the Guardians and Trolls 1 where he was the head of story

At dreamworks animation, his work as a director includes: Trolls Holiday, The Croods: A new age and Puss in Boots: The last wish.(Animation Film Festival)

Prior to joining Dreamworks he worked on the spongebob movie: Sponge out water and Alvin and the chipmunks:Chipwrecked as a storyboard artist(Animation Film Festival)

The most famous work was Puss in Boots: The last wish, which was animated in a similar style to Spiderverse, in 2.5D animation. This type of animation style made the film look choppy and illustrated whilst being in 3D. (Romberg,2023).