Make a search on the web for the term The Adventures of André and Wally B. YouTube, archive.org, or some other site should have the video. This was Pixar's first animation. It was made in 1984. It was directed by John Lassiter, who had been a traditional cel animator at Walt Disney and was familiar with standard animation principles. The modeling is very simple, and the storyline goes right back to the complexity of Felix the Cat. So you can see, even successful and modern companies have learned from the old school, just as you're doing by reading this chapter.
Watch it now and enjoy it.
The Adventures of André and Wally B was a landmark film in a number of aspects. It took ten VAX-11/750 super-minicomputers and a Cray X-MP/48 supercomputer to render it out, and it was the first computer animation to use motion blur. But more importantly, it was the first computer animation to have animation principles used seriously. You can see the difference. This was such a breakthrough that the Association of Computing Machinery had John Lassiter write up a paper called Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation for the July 1987 issue of Computer Graphics.
You learned about classic animation principles. The Adventures of André and Wally B allows us to see how these applied to computer animation.
Notice how all the trees are similar? Is this an application of a master object and instance as invented by Ivan Sutherland?
What has John Lassiter done to make Wally B so threatening to André?
Lassiter has employed a number of classic animation techniques like anticipation and squash and stretch; the way Wally's feet float as a secondary action is a good example. What are some of the other things Lassiter has done in this that reflect classic animation techniques? Does he use anticipation for Wally's final attack?
Compare how dynamic these characters are with Adam Powers by Triple I.
Often animations have inside jokes. Did you notice the gloves on André's hands? Which other animated character wore gloves like that?
There is a lot of great animation to look at. You can never watch too much. If you have time, watch any Pixar shorts you can find. You might also want to check out the following films for a better idea of the range of animation that was happening back then. Do you see differences in the styles of the Americans, the Europeans, and the Japanese?
VintageCG on YouTube has a good collection of early computer animation. Some of the titles are:
MAGI Synthavision Demo Reel 1982, this was Triple I's main competitor. Both worked on Tron.
Sogitec Showreel (1985), this is a European competitor. They used some of the equipment that Triple I built, but had their own studios.
Japan Computer Graphics Lab (1985) shows what the Japanese were doing at that time.
Stanley & Stella in Breaking the Ice (1987), the first animation with flocking behaviors to control the birds and fish.
Another one you might want to see is:
Reboot Intro (1994), this was the first half hour TV show that was entirely computer generated.
Your greater understanding of animation will increase your ability to create it.
So far, we've studied the roots of animation and of computers. It's good to see that the great started humbly, and see how things improved as they practiced. That gives us inspiration. It's the journey we are all on. The changes from Adam Powers to The Adventures of André and Wally B are impressive, as an animation professional moved in and showed the computer boys what using the principles of animation could do for their computer generated animations.