Post by ziggy on Sept 6, 2024 4:55:41 GMT
So here's a fun one. A while back, I can't remember when because my concept of time is terrible, I became interested in the Computer Graphics Lab that was once housed at NYIT (New York Institute of Technology.) For those who don't know, the CGL was a research facility at NYIT that operated between 1974-1992. Some of the greatest computer scientists and artists worked there, most notably Alvy Smith, Ed Catmull and Lance Williams (along with Jim Blinn, I think.) The alpha channel was invented there, along with developments in 2D computer animation (complete with interpolated frames!) and computer art as a whole. There's a lot of story here, but, fascinatingly, there really hasn't been a whole effort dedicated into telling that story. There's been a few articles in the past, a footnote here and there in a textbook, but the most coverage it's ever gotten is a chapter in Tom Sito's book "Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation."
After I finished my documentary "ROTTEN: Behind the Foodfight" I decided it would be a fun project to do a documentary on the lab. I wasn't the only person to have this idea, and when I made my first contacts with past lab members I was told about a person named Oliver Levine. Oliver is an animator that had just graduated from college when I got in touch with him, just a few years older than me, and he too had wanted to create a documentary about the lab. During the pandemic he had interviewed some very important members from the lab, people he probably wouldn't have been able to interview at any other time, and I was pretty excited to get this off the ground. Over time, working with him and a few other lab members, we were able to share a large sum of material from the lab that had never been seen before. The main subject of his interview was lab member Lance Williams, a computer scientist and artist mainly known for the invention of mip-mapping and developing of face tracking technology. Because of this, a large amount of the material he had on hand, which he had scanned from the collection of Williams' widow, was about him. Lance was an incredible member of the team and the originator of "The Works," a project that he and a handful of others at the lab had intended to be the first fully computer-animated feature film. This was in 1979 and, just as Alvy Smith had predicted, impossible. The Works is a project that was shrouded in mystery for decades and I was extremely excited to be able to make public storyboards, wireframe print outs, concept art, and animation tests from the film on the Internet Archive, along with a ton of other work that was produced at the lab.
I don't have the time to write down everything I know about the lab, that would take hours, and I still only know a fraction of what went down there. I would normally make this post in the Projects category but there isn't really a project here, because I canceled the documentary about a month ago out of lack of motivation. The material we have will be showcased in fraction in a digital museum me and my team are working on called Oblitary. Eventually, that will have its own thread, but for now you'll just have to take my word for it.
Here's everything I've uploaded on the lab so far.
archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22nyit+computer+graphics+lab%22
The lab is a goldmine of information and an incredible story. I cannot wait to release the interviews that Oliver had conducted years ago to the public when we find the appropriate way to do so. There's still so much to learn, so I'll be making future posts here on any landmark discoveries.
After I finished my documentary "ROTTEN: Behind the Foodfight" I decided it would be a fun project to do a documentary on the lab. I wasn't the only person to have this idea, and when I made my first contacts with past lab members I was told about a person named Oliver Levine. Oliver is an animator that had just graduated from college when I got in touch with him, just a few years older than me, and he too had wanted to create a documentary about the lab. During the pandemic he had interviewed some very important members from the lab, people he probably wouldn't have been able to interview at any other time, and I was pretty excited to get this off the ground. Over time, working with him and a few other lab members, we were able to share a large sum of material from the lab that had never been seen before. The main subject of his interview was lab member Lance Williams, a computer scientist and artist mainly known for the invention of mip-mapping and developing of face tracking technology. Because of this, a large amount of the material he had on hand, which he had scanned from the collection of Williams' widow, was about him. Lance was an incredible member of the team and the originator of "The Works," a project that he and a handful of others at the lab had intended to be the first fully computer-animated feature film. This was in 1979 and, just as Alvy Smith had predicted, impossible. The Works is a project that was shrouded in mystery for decades and I was extremely excited to be able to make public storyboards, wireframe print outs, concept art, and animation tests from the film on the Internet Archive, along with a ton of other work that was produced at the lab.
I don't have the time to write down everything I know about the lab, that would take hours, and I still only know a fraction of what went down there. I would normally make this post in the Projects category but there isn't really a project here, because I canceled the documentary about a month ago out of lack of motivation. The material we have will be showcased in fraction in a digital museum me and my team are working on called Oblitary. Eventually, that will have its own thread, but for now you'll just have to take my word for it.
Here's everything I've uploaded on the lab so far.
archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22nyit+computer+graphics+lab%22
The lab is a goldmine of information and an incredible story. I cannot wait to release the interviews that Oliver had conducted years ago to the public when we find the appropriate way to do so. There's still so much to learn, so I'll be making future posts here on any landmark discoveries.