40 Year Old 3D Computer Graphics

In 1972 Ed Catmull (founder of Pixar) and his colleagues created the world’s first 3D rendered movie, an animated version of Ed’s left hand. This is the film that they produced. It includes some “making of” footage (around 1:30) and some other early experiments.


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2 Comments

  1. See also this piece from the University of Illinois: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMeSw00n3Ac
    No shading (indeed, a vector display not capable of doing shading), but lots of technical details.

    The UofI folk came by and talked to my computer graphics class (and showed this film) when I was in college. Very neat.

    Note how NOT real-time these renderings are. You’re talking several minutes to put the an image on a screen and snap ONE FRAME of film…

  2. whoa that face looks kinda like alex from half-life 2

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