Computer Generated Images: Difference between revisions

== Films -- Animation ==

* ''[[Toy Story]]'' was the first fully-computer-generated feature film.

* ''[[The Black Cauldron]]'' is the first traditionally animated film to use CGI. This consisted of [[Rotoscoping]] wire-frame graphics onto animation cels, creating an effect similar to [[Cel Shading]]. Objects created this way include the cauldron itself and the boat used to escape the Horned King's castle. Disney had previously done this sort of shortcut for animating solid objects by rotoscoping models with lines painted on the edges.

 

* [[George Lucas]] and [[Industrial Light and Magic]] were big drivers behind the use of CGI. ''[[Star Wars]]'' was the first major mainstream use, but only for small details. Yet over the years, ILM has been behind many of the developements and successful uses.

** ''Star Wars: [[Revenge of the Sith]]'' was pretty famous for not having a single on-location shot, with everything done with green-screen studios. But one set was a complete set with nothing green in it except for Yoda: the ''Tantive IV'' that would become Leia's ship in the opening of ''[[A New Hope]]''.

* ''[[The Last Starfighter]]'' was the first film to use CGI for spaceships. (It shows.)

* ''[[Tron]]'' is usually cited as the first film to use CGI extensively, although due to the enormous complexity and expense of this, it only has twenty minutes of actual full CGI. The rest was specially designed sets, matte paintings, and hand-drawn effects (for the glowing [[Tron Lines]]).

** The "Solar Sailor" sequence in ''TRON'' is not only the first use of actual polygonal rendered geometry on film (as opposed to rendered primitives like the Recognizers and Light Cycles), it is also still considered a triumph in the art even today.

* The stain-glass knight in ''Young Sherlock Holmes'' is the first computer-generated character in a feature film. It was done by [[Pixar]], back when it was still part of ILM.

* ''[[Sin City]]'' had sets that were almost 100% computer generated and CGI was used to spot-color many shots or even splice two actors into the same scene.

* ''[[Terminator]] 2'' introduced the T-1000 liquid metal android, complete with transforming its arms into blades and turning into different characters. One of the most iconic shots from the film is the completely silver humanoid figure [[Unflinching Walk|marching out of a fireball and slowly reforming into a cop]].