Panasonic "Glider" 1981

[kinmanyuen]

dont you love those sharp iluminating lines

It cannot be done with pixels

[explosionsfrommybutt]

I LOVE THE FUTURE

[nozoto]

@explosionsfrommybutt

It's not the future I love. It's its minimalist, zonked out, misconception on the '80.

It fascinates me. Kinda like watching educational videos about sex from the '50. An experience so in discrepancy with reality it becomes deliciously deviant.

[explosionsfrommybutt]

@nozoto ha just drake n joshin

[weiner66]

According to some article I read, this was meant to depict the Japanese coup de grace to America's TV manufacturing biz. Panasonic pwns Quasar.

[paulomuniruequed]

omg, HDR effects on the glider

[XSilverXSaberXMikaX]

Is it just me, or do these sorts of things seem alot cooler than some of what we see in alot of computer programs today?

[kinkabala]

@XSilverXSaberXMikaX no its not just you... trust me its like how special effects today with cgi still falls short compared to older effects i.e. star wars illustrated that well

[antonio53857]

¡Sencillamente genial!

[alcohalls]

This is fantastic.

[TrainmasterCurt]

Was this done by Triple I? And yes, the music does sound like Isao Tomita or Hideki Matsutake

[secretsocietyof]

beautiful.

[willdye]

I remember seeing this for the first time -- I think it was at Siggraph '81. I was even more amazed when they explained that it was filmed off the monitor screen in real time, not rendered in a big batch job. Yes, the graphics are tame by today's standards, but back then this was an impressive achievement. It's great to see it again. What impresses me now is how well the clip has aged. It's still beautiful, and unlike a lot of old films, it doesn't really seem "old", at least not to me.

[hilarioph]

Amazing graphics 

[medicalgarbage]

this is too. cool.

[macmangan]

I remember seeing this many years ago, and I still think its amazing and beautiful.

[cartoonfan1920s]

BTW I believe the tune maybe from Kosmos (1977) or The Ravel Album (1979) , i'll listen to them more closely later.

[cartoonfan1920s]

Not exactly a composer, he has composed a handful of works, but mostly he plays works of other composers on synthesizers. I really like his work, I own his Planets on vinyl. The best way to hear Tomita is on vinyl, the CD versions are poorly mixed. I have yet to see a proper digital master of them..I really dig early computer animation like this.

[DeepGarageHead]

Honestly, we really should expose kids to this to give them a frame of reference.

[cartoonfan1920s]

I agree, for some reason I like older computer animation better than new CGI, the old stuff feels more magical and enchanting. This one in particular reminds me of my dreams!

[vapourmile]

I also agree. I'm always looking up old CGI. I think it's just down to a revolution being more pioneering and exciting to be a part of while its breaking. Many of these old cgi clips were made with brand new tools the animators themselves had made and new ground was being laid. One the products that led to the industry's commercialisation reached a viable maturity the truly febrile, fertile period dwindled.

Todays computer animated films don't seem to be achieving something quite so innovative.

[dairenn]

That is SO awesome. So much work has gone into evolving CGI to the point that it looks as photorealistic as possible complete with the shaky handheld camcorder look that the inherent beauty of luminescent polygons and mechanical pans and dollies has disappeared. Ask any fan of retro video games and the clearly computer-generated graphics have, unto themselves a certain aesthetic which, I believe, should be revived. It might be considered Electronic Classicism, if I were an art scholar.

[atarian2049]

I think I saw this during an episode of 3-2-1 Contact when I was a kid. If this was the same video, then I think I this was the very video that inspired me to consider working with computer graphics.

[xpez]

Now a days all the motion graphic companies ONLY want to mimic stuff like this because its so "cool" & "ironic"....with no shared spirit of the originators who were just trying to do something they haven't seen before with the tech of the day.

[ersoupio]

This prob took FOREVER on the processors of 1981.

[perfectseanie]

Actually, there's no rendering involved. The E&S Picture System used to create this was very fast at manipulating vector images and geometry. The time consuming part was photographing each frame off the monitor multiple times with separate gels for all the color layers since it's a black and white display.

[homesca]

Thanks for the explanation !

[pHr33kAcHu]

@perfectseanie Did you make this? It's beautiful!

[perfectseanie]

@pHr33kAcHu No, but I got to know and work with several of the folks that did which was a dream come true. I also got to use the very E&S workstation that was used for this and many other beautiful pieces done at Robert Abel & Associates and Abel Image Research. Con Pederson had already ported his A-Pix vector modeling and animation software to SGI (B-Pix) when I was trained on it but they still had the E&S. It was so scifi!

[pHr33kAcHu]

@perfectseanie Awesome! :3

[perfectseanie]

@pHr33kAcHu Vector animation pretty much disappeared as an art form all its own by the early 1990s, which is a shame. Con continued working on "vector fill" techniques in later versions of the software though even though raster techniques were taking over commercial CGI. Colored vector animation, like optical printer animation, is now basically a lost art. Thankfully, every now and again, you still see its influence.

[bigkingsha]

thats the 1978 Superman movie theme...a redux

[Benedingo]

Yeah, bigkingsha. Exactly is the Love Theme of Superman movie.

[cartoonfan1920s]

It sounds a bit like Isao Tomita don't you think?

[UltraBibendum]

this is really beautiful.

[gyrophuz]

what is this song from?

[G4mm4G0bl1n]

For this time, is this absolutly awesome and those videos are the reason why i would ever be 3d designer

[Watcher3223]

Hmm, from what I gather on the beginning of the clip, this animation was done by the famous Robert Abel and Associates.

[holke79]

soft..

[deejaydubla]

that's almost sublime...in a Tron sorta way