| Terranova School
Carla Donoso 1st Bach 06/04/10
History of Animation
Animation is the art of trying to capture moves and actions in a sheet of paper. Since the beginning, the first civilizations used to express their everyday life, by telling their stories in drawings. Since then and so long, men have tried to capture motion. There are the Egyptians, Japanese, and works from the Renascence which prove this theory.
In the year 1828, Paul Roget, proved a new theory of human’s eye view, which would since then animation possible. He proved his view by a simple experiment; he drew a bird in one side of a disc and in the other side, a cage. Then he would made the disc twirl, it would seem that the bird was in the cage. “This proved that the eye retains images when it is exposed to a series of pictures, one at a time.”
Before, in 1826, Joseph Plateau, invented the phenakistoscope which was a card in a circular shape with a series of drawings on the edge of the card, when putted in move would show a moving scene. After, by the year 1860, Pierre Desvignes made a zoetrope which was similar to the phenakistocope but this time, it was made in several common cards with the drawings on the inside, which was on a drum, that when it was twirled, people would see the movement put into action.
Thomas A. Edison, was the first to develop animation projected on a camera. In 1906 Stuart Blackton made a short film, cold “Humourous Phases of Funny Faces” in which he drew series of comic faces, pictured them one by one and captured it in a camera making drawings move. People then started to use it frequently, but then its fame started to fall, for there was never a true story of a characters life.
Windsor McCay created a film, “Gertie the Dinosaur” in 1914 by which he told a story about a dinosaur. Otto Messmer, with “Felix the Cat” was also famous, but people started getting tired of it too, for only poor special effects were shown. These cartoons were mostly of gags and violence, in which two characters would fight one another and when beaten be magically restored.
Walt Disney produced several movies which would persist forever, such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, “Pinocchio”, “Lady and the Tramp” and "The Jungle Book". Here is a timeline of the main events on Animation History.
Compiled History of Animation
(joshuamosley.com)
1824:
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Peter Roget presented his paper 'The persistence of vision with regard to moving objects' to the British Royal Society.
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1831:
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Dr. Joseph Antoine Plateau (a Belgian scientist) and Dr. Simon Rittrer constructed a machine called a phenakitstoscope. This machine produced an illusion of movement by allowing a viewer to gaze at a rotating disk containing small windows; behind the windows was another disk containing a sequence of images. When the disks were rotated at the correct speed, the synchronization of the windows with the images created an animated effect.
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1872:
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Eadweard Muybridge started his photographic gathering of animals in motion.
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1887:
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Thomas Edison started his research work into motion pictures.
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1889:
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Thomas Edison announced his creation of the kinetoscope which projected a 50ft length of film in approximately 13 seconds.
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1889:
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George Eastman began the manufacture of photographic film strips using a nitro-cellulose base.
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1892:
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Emile Renynaud, combining his earlier invention of the praxinoscope with a projector, opens the Theatre Optique in the Musee Grevin. It displays an animation of images painted on long strips of celluloid.
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1895:
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Louis and Augustine Lumiere issued a patent for a device called a cinematograph capable of projecting moving pictures.
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1896:
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Thomas Armat designed the vitascope which projected the films of Thomas Edison. This machine had a major influence on all sub-sequent projectors.
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1906:
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J. Stuart Blackton made the first animated film which he called "Humorous phases of funny faces." His method was to draw comical faces on a blackboard and film them. He would stop the film, erase one face to draw another, and then film the newly drawn face. The Ôstop-motionÕ provided a starting effect as the facial expressions changed be fore the viewerÕs eyes.
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1908:
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In France Emile Cohl produced a film, Phantasmagorie which was the first depicting white figures on a black background.
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1910:
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Emile Cohl makes En Route the first paper cutout animation. This technique saves time by not having to redraw each new cell, only reposition the paper.
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1911:
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Winsor McCay produced an animation sequence using his comic strip character "Little Nemo."
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1913:
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J.R. Bray devised "Colonel Heeza Liar," and Sidney Smith created "Old Doc Yak."
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1914:
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John R Bray applies for a patent on numerous techniques for animation. One of the most revolutionary being the process of printing the backgrounds of the animation.
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1914:
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Winsor McCay produced a cartoon called "Gertie, The Trained Dinosaur" which amazingly consisted of 10,000 drawings.
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1914:
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Earl Hurd applies for a patent for the technique of drawing the animated portion of an animation on a clear celluloid sheet and later photographing it with its matching background. [Cel animation]
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1917:
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The International Feature Syndicate released many titles including "Silk Hat Harry","Bringing Up Father", and "Krazy Kat".
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1919:
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Pat Sullivan created an American cartoon "Felix the Cat."
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1926:
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The first feature-length animated film called "El Apostol" is created in Argentina.
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1923:
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Walt and Roy Disney found Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio.
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1923:
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Walt Disney extended Max Fleischer's technique of combining live action with cartoon characters in the film "Alice's Wonderland".
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1927:
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Warner Brothers released "The Jazz Singer" which introduced combined sound and images.
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1928:
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Walt Disney created the first cartoon with synchronized sound called "Steam Boat Willy".
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1930:
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The King of Jazz is produced by Universal. In it is a short animated sequence done by Walter Lantz. It is the first animation done with the two strip technicolor process
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1934:
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Urb Irwek creates a multi-plane camera. This camera is capable of filming several separate layers of cels giving the final frame a truly three dimensional look.
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1943:
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John and James Whitney produced "Five Abstract Film Exercises."
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1945:
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Harry Smith produced animation by drawing directly onto film.
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1957:
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John Whitney used 17 Bodine motors, 8 Selsyns, 9 different gear units and 5 ball integrators to create analog computer graphics.
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1961:
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John Whitney used differential gear mechanisms to create film and television title sequences.
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1963:
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Ivan Sutherland and SKETCHPAD at MIT/Lincoln Labs
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1964:
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Ken Knowlton, working at Bell Laboratories, started developing computer techniques for producing animated movies.
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1972:
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University of Utah, Ed Catmull develops an animation scripting language and creates an animation of a smooth shaded hand. Ref: E. Catmull, "A System for Computer Generated Movies", Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, 1972. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
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1972:
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University of Utah, Fred Parke creates first computer generated facial animation. >Ref: F. Parke, "Computer Generated Animation of Faces", Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, 1972. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
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1974:
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National Research Council of Canada releases Hunger/La Faim directed by Peter Foldes and featuring Burtnyk and Wein interactive keyframing techniques. Ref: N. Burtnyk and M. Wein, "Interactive Skeleton Techniques for Enhancing Motion Dynamics in Key Frame Animation", Communications of the ACM, 19(10), October 1976. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
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1982:
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Tron, MAGI, movie with CG premise
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1983:
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Bill Reeves at Lucasfilm publishes techniques for modeling particle systems. "Demo" is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. The paper also promotes motion blur. Ref: W. Reeves, "Particle Systems -- A Technique for Modeling a Class of Fuzzy Objects", Computer Graphics, 17(3), July 1983. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
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1984:
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The Last Starfighter, CG is used in place of models
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1984:
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Porter and Duff at Lucusfilm publish paper on digital compositing using an alpha channel. Ref: T. Porter and T. Duff, "Compositing Digital Images", Computer Graphics, 18(3), July 1984. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
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1985:
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Girard and Maciejewski at OSU publish a paper describing the use of inverse kinematics and dynamics for animation. Their techniques are used in the animation "Eurythmy." Ref: M. Girard and A. A. Maciejewski, "Computational Modeling for the Computer Animation of Legged Figures", Computer Graphics, 19(3), July 1985. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
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1985:
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Ken Perlin at NYU publishes a paper on noise functions for textures. He later applied this technique to add realism to character animations. Ref: K. Perlin, "An Image Synthesizer", Computer Graphics, 19(3), July 1985. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
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1987:
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John Lasseter at Pixar publishes a paper describing traditional animation principles. "Demos" are Andre and Wally B and Luxo Jr. Ref: J. Lasseter, "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation", Computer Graphics, 21(4), July 1987. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
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1987:
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Craig Reynolds then at Symbolics (now at Dreamworks SKG) publishes a paper on self-organizing behavior for groups. "Demos" are Stanley and Stella and Batman Returns. Ref: C. W. Reynolds, "Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model", Computer Graphics, 21(4), July 1987. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
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1988:
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Willow uses morphing in live action film
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1992:
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Beier and Neely, at SGI and PDI respectively publish an algorithm where line correspondences guide morphing between 2D images. "Demo" is Michael Jackson video Black and White. Ref: T. Beier and S. Neely, "Feature-Based Image Metamorphosis", Computer Graphics, 26(2), July 1992. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.) v
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1993:
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Chen and Williams at Apple publish a paper on view interpolation for 3D walkthroughs. Ref: S. E. Chen and L. Williams, "View Interpolation for Image Synthesis", Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, 1993. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
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1993:
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Jurassic Park use of CG for realistic living creatures
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1995:
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Toy Story first full-length 3D CG feature film
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