History of Alvy Ray Smith and Pixel (Part 1), an unknown genius that supported Pixar's success
In 2007, a new documentary entitled "Pixar Story" was screened at the Milvary Film Festival.It spelled out the stunning days when the founders of Pixar Studios created a completely new type of movie.
What they were trying to create was a full computer animation of the vivid colors and textures, and incredibly lively characters proceeded while exchanging conversations backed by the skipping knowledge.It was a movie.
In the later panel discussion, interviewers asked provocative questions."It may be a little ridiculous question, but is there any relevant between counterculture and psychedelic world and pixar?"
The panelists on stage, Ed Catmaru and John Laceteter, the central figure of Pixar development, have fallen into an awkward silence.For those who work under the umbrella of Disney, who have been loved by children for many generations, drags and counter culture are a topic that they do not want to be touched very much.After a while, Laster, who finally opened his mouth, said:"Is Alvi Ray Smith here here?"
A man erased from the history of Pixar
If the bearded Pixar co -founder Smith was given a chance to answer the question, LSD helped me to determine my creative direction, which was Pixar's culture.He would have acknowledged that he had both technology.
Smith left the Pixar when the actual movie began to be made, but all of the frames of the movie were unable to remove the Smith without Smith.Because of the new technologies that Smith unraveled, it was possible to create a movie from only code and algorithm.Smith also made a great deal of contribution to the first digital paint software before and after Pixar, and has braided a function that has transformed the ability to manipulate images.
But the fact that Smith was sitting behind the venue, not on the stage, indicates another thing.It is a dissonance between his contribution and his reputation.Smith is a unique person in computer science and entertainment.He was undoubtedly bridgeed between the era of primitive line drawings drawn on the flashing oscillator and the immersive virtual world with dazzling computer images.
On the other hand, he was the one who touched everything he touched on the world view of the 1960s, as Rasseter hinted.Many of them still remain in our senses.Nevertheless, Smith, who has a healthy ego and a lively speaking speaker, Smith, after calling from Rasseter, and after some laughter in the room, the seat behind the venue.I didn't open my mouth with it.
Should it be seen that it was self -control?"In terms of history, he feels completely erased from Pixar's history and computer graphics in general," says Pixar and his colleague, Pam Carwin."All the techniques you are currently using are basically created by Alvi."
Even autonomous vehicles and AR technology are so.Because, "Because all of these technologies are related to image processing and mechanical visuals ... Alvi and his colleagues have brought all of these technologies to this world."
Pixar films were revolutionary, because the emotions unleashed in the film were alive as the emotions of human acting.Photograph by Cayce Clifford
However, the 77 -year -old Smith's feat is not limited to the past, and the world seems to keep up with his ahead talent.This summer, Smith's full -fledged book, A Biagraphy of the Pixel (Pixel History), has a Digital Expression District theory.
This book is a deep and challenging book that inherits the spirit of Douglas Hoffstar's "Gedel, Escher, Bach or Wonderful Ring", and the complex story of science, heroes and the tyrant, sometimes in the early 21st century.While traveling around, we go to the long -consecutive digital convergence [edited Note: Digital Technology develops all media into one and converge].
Almost all expressions, such as visuals, text, audio, and videos have moved to the computer world, but the world is so real that it is so real that it does not hit this physical real world at all.And it is not equivalent in a metaphor.According to Smith, it is equivalent in literal sense.
"Everything is just a wave"
Smith calls this second reality "digital light".It always comes to your eyes and ears unless everyone is inside the forest.However, it is not Smith that created the word.The first thing I uttered the word was an organizer of a meeting about a decade ago to give me a speech under the title."It was a word that contains everything I want," says Smith."The aspects of everybody performed with pixels were condensed in the words."
Smith says that digital light has appeared in the world after a long scientific process.The story of the birth is a turbulent story like Picares Croman, and the protagonists who decided to appear there were Jean -Batist Joseph Fourier, Vladimill Coternikov, Alan Tuuling.Smith draws with a passion like a genealist scholar who has been obsessed with something.
After summarizing the nature of light, sampling, and calculations, Smith develops a conviction that there is no difference between analog and digital reality.It's a belief that he has been holding for decades.Barbara Robertson, a journalist specializing in computer graphics, recalls a conversation with him in a cafe.After silent for a while, Smith said, "Because everything is just a wave."
To put it simply, the theme of the book depicting this pixel is not something we usually imagine.At this time, the wrong thought that pixels are one of the fine square on the screen will be thrown away.According to Smith's explanation, pixels are two processes, in which one element of some kind of content created is displayed on some display.
In other words, what everyone is looking at on the screen is not a pixel, but a "expression" of such pixels.Everyone is watching "digital light".Well, where is the pixel itself?Pixel is just a concept.If you notice this difference, you can clearly see that "digital light" is not inferior in reality.In the 21st century, it was the same.
"Listening to a very simple idea of separating pixels from the display elements will make it easy for those who don't understand the technology," Robertson says.
The history of this computer graphics is a shadow of Smith.That part starts just half of the 560 -page large book.Smith reproduces there when the famous Citar player Ravi Shancarl visits the Lucas film Smith Lab.
Shankar is fascinated by the flower born of the algorithm, and shouts, "Aruwi!"From that moment, Smith appears in the pixel story as an unforgettable important person, further forming himself and almost killing people.In other words, Steve Jobs, George Lucas, and Alex Sure are unknown self -proclaimed pioneons.As one of the participants in this revolution, Smith will turn us to the turn of the 21st century.At that time, the world was trying to stand in the digital convergence.
"I have something more artistic"
It took me 10 years for Alvy Ray Smith to create this book.No, maybe 50 years.It depends on whether you think that the beginning of this book is when Smith has begun writing, or when you start living in this book.
"Once in my head, I've tried Alvi's life as a script. In fact, I thought it would be a wonderful movie," said Smith's wife, Alison Gopinic.Allison met Smith after her life was quite late."The first scene starts in the New Mexico desert. There is only one small blonde boy. There are horses around and cacti lined up.Appears, the boy looks up at the rocket. "
In fact, Smith lived in a ruscluses in New Mexico when he was not two years old.Smith said that the 1945 trinity nuclear test was heard in the town 100 miles (about 160 km).His father was absent on the battlefield at the time.My parents got married and had children, but they thought they might never be able to meet each other again.The father eventually returned from the war and decided to operate livestock feed in a small town called Clovis, which is near the northernmost Texas State.
Smith was excellent in his performance, especially mathematics.But I also loved spending time with his professional artist.Uncle George was allowed to join his atelier alone, and it was one of Smith Tatada, and his boyhood Smith put his uncle put on Kanvas, mixed oil paint and telepin oil, and used his pigment to make a white Kanvas life.I was watching the creation silently.
When I visited scientists at the nearby White Sands Missile Experiment Station, I had a chance to experience a little computer programming.He studied electrical engineering at New Mexico State University and proceeded to Stanford to start research on artificial intelligence.But he learned in California only about computers.
"In the next year, my hair became quite long, and I was grabbing all kinds of drags and something in the Golden Gate Park," Smith says.And after doing LSD, he was convinced:"I'm not suitable for just a programmer -I need to do something more artistic."
Marriage with art and computer
It took a little more time to realize it.Smith eventually goes to the research of cell automaton.Cell automaton is a digital organizer that is generated by a system -based system and continues to duplicate self -duplication.After his Ph.D., Smith moved to New York and became a teaching job at a university.They also design the cell automaton pattern on the cover of the February 1971 issue of "Scientific American" magazine.But despite the pleasure of the city of New York, research at university was not satisfactory to Smith.
In the mid -70's, while working at New York Institute of Technology, Smith was always eating instant serial snacks."Certainly, it was a grapnut serial," Smith says."I was always in a hurry to make my work proceed and miss one," Photograph by David DefranceSco
In December 1972, when Smith was sliding on the ski slopes of New Hampshire, the knit hat fell and covered the face (later, the tag inside the hat was knitted."I noticed that it was written.)Because of that, the other skiers who lost the controls were invisible to go straight and collided.Smith suffered a severe spiral fracture on the right femur, and for three months, the chest to the toes was completely fixed with a cast.
"I kept thinking non -stop for 15 hours a day and reconsidered the whole world," says Smith.What he wanted to do all the time was the fusion of computers and art.But suddenly, art was lost in him."I told myself," Alvi, you've made a terrible mistake, "says Smith.
Smith resigned from the University of New York and returned to California.He slept on the floor of his friend's house for one year and waited for something to happen.And something actually happens.One day in May 1974, his friend Richard Shaup called out to Smith and invited him to come to his workplace, Zerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).The team of computer scientists was working on the inventions that would revolutionize the computer using the funds of a company that reigned in the copy unit.
Shap's own project, called "Super Paint," wasn't very familiar with the plan and was not accepted by others.It was the world's first interactive color graphic program, basically it was like painting a picture on a color TV display with a paint brush software, but the user creates images and makes it possible for the first time to manipulate it.was.
Smith saw this and was shocked enough to drop the pills in the meds from their hands.It was the discovery of "digital light"."Even if I continued to play the program for 13 hours in a row, I didn't want to leave the place yet," he said."This was a marriage between art and computer!"
World of great chaos
At that time, I rarely found a full -color graphic on my computer.Even to create only one image, we needed a huge amount of memory known as a frame buffer."In order to upload a picture on the display, I had to store the picture once in something. That" something "costs $ 500,000," PARC.Alan Kay, who led the team, says.In the research center lab, there was only a frame buffer that was late and did not move as expected, but it enabled the birth of Super Paint.
Smith realized intuitively that with this "Super Paint" and a frame buffer, it could create animation."We immediately noticed that we could move what we drew," says Smith.He visited the lab and began to create a cinematic sequence.It is an image that an anime person crack down on and turn the centerpiece.
Smith wanted to be in PARC, but the lab did not want to hire him in full time.Ultimately, with Kay's advice, PARC executives braided a low risk method to secure Smith.As if borrowing one device, he decided to pay a reward by ordering a purchase order to Smith.PARC has ordered a "professional labor service" for 857 hours.
Soon, a video artist named David Difranchesco began to enter the lab.Smith has built an interface that looks good on the Shap system, and is now using the first idea of the personal graphics program that millions of people are using it as a matter of course.Smith used the software to make animation, and Difranchesco recorded the video.It was a wonderful chaos world.
Smith, whose hair is ponytail, started working at the Zerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1974.Therefore, Smith is instantly attached to the digital video program called "Super Paint".Photograph by David Defrancesco
But their peaceful paradise did not last long.One day, a group of executives told Smith and Difranco, telling him that it would strengthen the monochrome department in the future, and the "Super Paint" became a paid box.The purchase order for Alvi Ray Smith was canceled.
A movie for theatrical graphics alone
Still, Smith has already found his mission.Build the future of computer graphics.Smith and Difranco got on the white Ford Turin in Smith, skipped the state -of -state expressway, aiming for Utah University, which is hard to say that Mecca in the field.I managed to find a new job there.
Computer graphics researchers at Utah University are doing research specializing in practical applications such as computer support design, and for psychedelic drawing technology that blows color pixels on the screen.Was not interested.In the end, Utah University did not hire Smith and Difranco, but as a person with exactly the same idea as them, they taught them the name of Ed Catmaru, who had just graduated from Utah University.
Catmaru, who was not 30 years old, was seriously believing that computer graphics would be the opposite of revolutionizing entertainment.Catmaru had a job in a place that was not similar to New York Institute of Technology.The sound resembled the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but the reputation of the university in 1975 was almost a third -class university that mass -produced graduation certificates (its reputation is now considerably improved).
The university, located on the northern shore of Long Island, owned several mansions like Great Gatsby.Alex Sure, a self -proclaimed "educational entrepreneur", was partitioning the university, and had an unknown source of income.He had always denied rumors that he was aiming for the second Walt Disney, but probably because he continued to deny it, everyone aware that Sure's goal would be Disney.
Sure was pouring a lot of money to the production of animation based on an orchestra song for children called Tuba's Tabby.He hired 100 animators involved in the project and hired Catmaru in hopes of automating some of the production.
Edwin Catmaru was convinced that computer graphics would revolutionize the entertainment world early.Photograph by Cayce Clifford
When Katmaru heard from the Stakeholders at the University of Utah, he called out to Smith and Deflane Chesco, and they immediately jumped on the plane and headed to Long Island to join his group.The group's base was on one garage in the old mansion.Catmaru, a moldy mormon, was already a family, but quickly became friends with Smith.
"Alvi had a black and long beard and stretched his hair for a long time, but he didn't mind that. He was a smart and attractive person."Say.The most happy thing for Catmaru was that Smith shared his dream of creating a theater movie made with just one whole computer graphics.They called that dream "that movie".
Academy Award for Alpha Channel invention
Smith has become Catmaru's de facto partner.The computer graphics at that time was just a fiery child clinging to the computer science, and was still limited to the limited power of the primitive machine.However, they are convinced that the fact that it will eventually be known as Moore's law changes to that state, and thought that it would be the key to strengthening their research fields and connecting computers and entertainment.。
Sure also cooperated fully and purchased a 18 -frame buffer for hundreds of thousands of dollars.The equipped team has begun to create a short animated movie.Their enemies were "Jaggy".Jaggy is a jagged edge that appears on the edge of coarse drawing processing.To eliminate this jaggy, it requires an anti -alias processing technology.In order to create a higher resolution graphic by performing this process, a computer with high calculation capabilities and high technical skills were required.
Thanks to the added buffer, Smith and Catmaru will greatly evolve the color concept.That is the alpha channel.Normally, the basic three -colored color channel of red, green, and blue is combined in various ways to create a full -colored palette, but they have added elements that control the transparency of pixels there.
By fine -tuning the transparency of the object over time, it has become possible to blur the movement and modify the unpleasant tricks that have ruined the early digital animation.
Everyone started using the alpha channel, and everyone came to accept their existence very naturally."Even if someone invented Alpha Channel, Alvi would not understand what it means. Now, Alpha Channel has been incorporated from the beginning of everything related to graphics.Glenetis says.
Entis was a student who was lectured at the New York Institute of Technology at the time, and later founded a graphics company related to "Srek" and "Madagascar".Smith and his colleagues later won the Academy Award for his achievements in his invention.This is one of the two Oscars in the two technical departments of Smith (the other was given to the invention of Super Paint and was a joint -awarded Shawp).
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