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...From 1983! This is a frame grab (made from an Ektachrome slide taken at the time) from an eight minute video for the Burroughs computer company of Plymouth, Michigan. This was not made on one of their computers ironically enough. The computer we used was a $250,000 monstrosity called "Aurora" (if I'm remembering the name correctly.) Like Robinson Caruso, it was primitive as can be. I used the machine under duress complaining that it would eat up our feeble budget very quickly (it did.) I brought the film in under budget, but I had to use every shortcut I could think of to do it.
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File Size 227 kB
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The thing might be valuable now... maybe. Nobody would've had any room to store it. I had a very large console for the operator, about ten feet wide. It needed a separate room for the mainframe which had a six-foot stack of hard drives. Today an iPhone has more computing power.
This is the kind of stuff I love! I am getting a real computer history lesson here. I thought I knew everything about classic computer animation, but I've never heard of the Aurora. Could you please tell us more about this project or any other details? I just gotta know!
This reminds me of when I was talking to a friend about old computer animation. He said something like "a computer could probably do in-betweens easily" and I explained VideoCel to him. VideoCel was an impressive piece of technology but it was also creepy as hell. Have you ever been unfortunate enough to work with something like that? These days Adobe Flash has tried to bring back some of the ideas that were started with VideoCel.
This reminds me of when I was talking to a friend about old computer animation. He said something like "a computer could probably do in-betweens easily" and I explained VideoCel to him. VideoCel was an impressive piece of technology but it was also creepy as hell. Have you ever been unfortunate enough to work with something like that? These days Adobe Flash has tried to bring back some of the ideas that were started with VideoCel.
My dad showed me a Mentor Graphics workstation at his work a few decades ago, which was running a Flowerbox demo in shaded 3D. The very first comment from my father as he pointed to the huge, humming steel desk was, "this computer cost a million dollars."
Having also used an Amiga1000 at the time, I was strangely unimpressed.
Having also used an Amiga1000 at the time, I was strangely unimpressed.
The computer we used was not a 3-D type, but a flat graphic type. Bitmap and very low-res.
I never worked with VideoCel, but I have worked on Flash projects, but not as an animator. I was a storyman on what was likey to have been the Flash feature (I will admit the name only under duress) and as a writer and director on "Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi" and in both cases I needed to get familiar with the Flash process to do my job right. My feeling was that it looked too mechanical. The more work you let the program do, the more mechanical and unearthly it looks. We had a crew of very talented animators who worked hard to improve the look of Flash but at the end of the day it still looked like Flash.
I never worked with VideoCel, but I have worked on Flash projects, but not as an animator. I was a storyman on what was likey to have been the Flash feature (I will admit the name only under duress) and as a writer and director on "Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi" and in both cases I needed to get familiar with the Flash process to do my job right. My feeling was that it looked too mechanical. The more work you let the program do, the more mechanical and unearthly it looks. We had a crew of very talented animators who worked hard to improve the look of Flash but at the end of the day it still looked like Flash.
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