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cave paintings were the earliest form of animation. They were either done on cave walls or ceilings .
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This famous waterwork of Chatuea Heilbrunn featured various animated hyrdomechanical devices. It had 256 figures, 199 of which were animated by a single water turbine.
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Jacques created a few famous automaton but his most famous of them all was his mechanical duck. His duck automaton was the last and was very complex, in one wing there were over 400 moving pieces.
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Thomas Edison announced his creation of the kinetoscope which projected a 50ft length of film in approximately 13 seconds.
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J. Stuart Blackton made the first animated film which he called "Humorous phases of funny faces." His method was to draw comical faces on a blackboard and film them. He would stop the film, erase one face to draw another, and then film the newly drawn face.
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Winsor McCay produced an animation sequence using his comic strip character "Little Nemo."
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Winsor McCay produced a cartoon called "Gertie, The Trained Dinosaur" which amazingly consisted of 10,000 drawings.
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Walt and Roy Disney found Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio.
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Walt Disney created the first cartoon with synchronized sound called "Steam Boat Willy".
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Urb Irwek creates a multi-plane camera. This camera is capable of filming several separate layers of cels giving the final frame a truly three dimensional look.
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Ken Knowlton, working at Bell Laboratories, started developing computer techniques for producing animated movies.
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University of Utah, Ed Catmull develops an animation scripting language and creates an animation of a smooth shaded hand.
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George Lucas creates Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). Among the employees are Ed Catmull and Alvey Ray Smith.
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Bill Reeves at Lucasfilm publishes techniques for modeling particle systems
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James Cameron and ILM produce "Terminator 2". This film is a turning point in the history of computer effects because it was the first time that film makers realised the potential of computer effects.
