first ever 3d animation (40 year old 3d computer graphics pixar 1972)

This historical video was recently re-discovered after being lost for many years. It was produced in 1972 and is believed to be the world's first computer-generated 3D animation. It was created by Ed Catmull, a true pioneer of 3D technology, who was a computer scientist at the University of Utah (birthplace of the famous Utah teapot.) If the name sounds familiar, it's because a few years later he was one of the founders of Pixar.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• first
• ever
• 3d
• animation
• historical
• video
• Ed
• Catmull
• pioneer
• of
• technology
• utah
• pot
• pixar

[supertaurus2008]

Oh wow thanks for the info. I think we are missing out a lot of basic foundation that we need, when we have softwares at present that does everything for us in a point and click way ..well these people were creating everything from scratch right ? ...

[SonicKillMario]

The fact that this is the first CG animation is cool enough, but what surprises me more is how the Utah teapot originated in 1975 and has become so commonplace that it's a standard primitive in 3ds Max.

[super58173]

I find it kinda amusing that even then, it seemed like CG had a ridiculous amount of potential, and that anything was possible with it, pretty much how people still look at it today. Computer Animation hasn't really changed in spirit, other than gaining more polygons.

[SALEMATIAZZAM]

@supertaurus2008 Yes that true

also thanks to these guy today we have all these software/hardware that we see/use them every day

[ashinms]

whats even cooler is this was all done in assembly code and the data was entered without a mouse or keyboard.

[VincentGreece]

That was better than lara (psx) pioneers

[Neojhun]

The most ironic thing: One of the first ever purely digital animation was archived on Film. That group of people were well ahead of their time. I just read they also made the first 3GiB machine (network in todays term).