Computer Graphics In 1980s Movies

This is an overview of selected examples of the state of the art in computer graphics animation as illustrated at various points in the 1980s. I am going to talk specifically about prerendered (non-realtime) animations, since in any case realtime videogame-style 3D was practically unheard of back then.

During this time, there was nothing really close to realistic human computer-generated figures. The best that could be done in the earlier part of the decade shows up in Looker (1981). This one is notable for having a few attempts at modelled human shapes: a face with a moderately decent polygon count that resembles actor Susan Dey, a somewhat lower-poly hand, a pair of eyeballs, and a (briefly-glimpsed) complete figure. And there is no attempt at animation of these shapes, beyond simple rotations of the entire objects. The rest is a heavy dose of wireframe renderings (including human outlines)--very common during this period.

Tron (1982) was a pioneering early example of the use of CG in movies. But the rendered graphics were mostly very stylized and geometrical. This was artistically acceptable, since they were portraying an artificial, fantasy world, namely the internal operations of a computer. The only renderings of human figures are wireframes.

The Last Starfighter (1984) was a rare high-quality example in this decade: its detailed, realistic spaceship models and scenes (no renderings of human figures) would have still seemed impressive (at least to me) if they had come out ten years later. The only problem was, in 1984 it took a Cray X-MP, one of the most powerful computers in the world, to do the CG rendering. The fee to Digital Productions, the company contracted to create all the CG, was apparently about one-third the entire production cost of the movie. At least the results took up a comparable proportion of the running time. Still, an amazing technical achievement.

Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing” music video (which may be viewed online here) was released in 1985, to much critical acclaim. Myself, I found it less than exciting, even back then. The models (including attempts at human figures) are heavily geometrical and simplistic, and the rendering not only lacks shadows, but its frame rate is so low (maybe 10fps) as to be noticeably juddery. All inevitable consequences of working to a tight budget. Apparently they couldn’t even put buttons on the outfit of one of the characters because they ran out of money.

It is worth mentioning too the short feature Quest (which may be viewed online here), which was created by Apollo Computer to show off the power of its workstations in 1985. This is also heavily geometrical (with nothing resembling human figures), but it has some simplistic shadows, and a lot of mirroring (ray-traced or environment-mapped?) on the bouncing spheres and on the water. Though I can see no sign of ray-traced refraction, not even on the transparent pyramids and spheres, and certainly not on the water.

A notable example from 1986 was the Amiga Juggler (described  here, and a real-time modern-day recreation is introduced here). While the animation is crude and the modelling completely geometrical, the Juggler was the first pure ray-traced animation, and caused a stir because it was rendered entirely on modestly-priced personal computers.

Another example from 1986 is Pixar’s Luxo Jr. By avoiding human figures (the main characters are two desk lamps), they were able to reduce the realism problem, while still producing a high-quality, lifelike animation and rendering. Though apparently they couldn’t afford, within the available hardware budget and time, to manage anything other than black for the background.

A little bit later in 1987, a couple of TV advertisements were made for the tobacco company Benson & Hedges. I remember seeing these on Malaysian TV (even though tobacco advertising was technically banned by then), and being very impressed. Leaving aside their purpose, the quality of the modelling and rendering is remarkable. As with “Quest”, the copious reflections could have been done with environment-mapping rather than ray-tracing (note the lack of refraction and minimal shadows for the most part), but still, there is plenty of detail to admire.

By the way, at the start of the first ad in the above clip, there is a dancing flute-playing figure. I pondered this for a long time, trying to decide whether it was CG or a live actor. In the end, I believe it was a live actor. The fluidity of movement and the subtlety of the shadowing were simply not possible (or at least, impractically expensive) with the technology of this period.

In general, there is no clear steady progression from lesser to better quality throughout the decade. Certainly the resources available to the creators of these animations varied widely, and the main limitation was computing power. In those days there was a huge gulf in cost as well as performance between a common PC (or even a more expensive Unix workstation) and a Cray supercomputer. So among the rare, outstanding ventures into greater photorealism, we continue to see a plethora of simplistic geometric models and characters. And this would continue into the 1990s.