SGI: Computer Graphics

This is a great episode of the old Discovery Channel program "Movie Magic" which explains the basic process of CG. There are plenty of shots of ancient Silicon Graphics hardware, and some interview footage of John Lasseter looking amazingly young and thin

Interesting site actually

Thanks for posting this - "Movie Magic" was what got me interested in SGIs to begin with. Brings back a lot of memories.

Very nice. I remember seeing this same episode on the tube way back when.

Any idea what the ascii terminal is being used for towards the end of the show when they're working on the cat? I've seen those being used on other making-of documentaries/shows featuring SGI's.

I always assumed it was for command line rendering on an Origin, Challenge, etc. Something to give them quicker results than the workstation's CPU.

great, thanks for the link.
a blast from the past

Downloading now...Looking forward to this! This is what got me into CG and computers (And Amiga 500's...)

eMGee wrote: (By the way, what year is this from?)

The film "Hocus Pocus" was released in July 1993; this episode is from the first season in 1994.

Holy crap. Not only do I remember this movie quite well but I remember seeing a lot of that demo CGI footage they showed as well from my collection of CGI demo reels (EG: The Minds Eye series).

Ditto - these shows got me really excited about visual effects and SGI hardware back in the 90's. Too bad they haven't been re-released on DVD, because they're hard to find otherwise. Even finding information about these shows is difficult - IMDB seems to have an episode list, but doesn't go into much detail.

Here's one more episode with a good amount of Silicon Graphics exposure - this one focuses on 2D digital enhancement: wire removal, compositing, digital crowds, etc.

Excellent, thanks!

I remember at least one other episode with a lot of SGIs. One of the parts that sticks in my mind was a sequence with a "Mr. Sunshine" style CGI character controlled in realtime (on an SGI) using a mechanical rig, much like a digital puppet.

You're welcome eMGee. For some reason, crowd generation never fails to impress, even though it's one of the more mundane applications of CG, maybe because it's easy for Joe-Six-Pack to understand

ajerimez wrote: Here's one more episode with a good amount of Silicon Graphics exposure - this one focuses on 2D digital enhancement: wire removal, compositing, digital crowds, etc.

thanks again

Would anyone know where anymore of these episodes may be lurking for download?

Timberoz>Craig

ajerimez

did you do the other stuff on the site?

Yep, that's the web site for an animated short that I made a while ago.