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HummingbirdA ten minute computer animated film by Charles Csuri and James Shaffer. Awarded a prize at the 4th International Experimental Film Competition, Brussels, Belgium, 1967 and in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York City. The subject was a line drawing of a hummingbird for which a sequence of movements appropriate to the bird were programmed. Over 30,000 images comprising some 25 motion sequences were generated by the computer.
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First use of 2D computer animation in a significant entertainment feature film. The point of view of Yul Brynner's gunslinger was achieved with raster graphics.
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First use of 3D computer graphics for animated hand and face. Used 2D digital compositing to materialize characters over a background.
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The Secret History of Star Wars
First use of an animated 3D wire-frame graphic for the trench run briefing sequence. -
First film with a computer-generated title sequence.
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First CGI human character, Cindy. Also, first use of 3D shaded CGI.
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The History of Star Trek
ILM computer graphics division develops "Genesis Effect", first use of fractal-generated landscape in a film. Bill Reeves leads the Genesis Effect programming team, and creates a new graphics technique called Particle Systems. -
Light Cycle Scene
Extensive use (15 min. fully computer generated) of 3D CGI including the famous Light Cycle sequence. Also includes very early facial animation (for the Master Control Program). -
Lucasfilm's computer animation division creates an all-CGI-animated short. The first CGI animation with motion blur effects and squash and stretch motion.
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Dire Straits - Money For Nothing music video (Good quality, all countries)
The first computer-generated music video. The animators would go on to found Mainframe Entertainment -
Pixar: Luxo Jr. original 1986 short film (HQ)
First use of shadows in CGI, made with special developed software Renderman. First Pixar film, and CGI film to be nominated for an Academy Award. -
First TV series to include characters modeled entirely with computers
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First game show with interaction between humans and computer-generated surroundings
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First all-digital composite.
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Jurassic Park
First photorealistic CG creatures. -
First ever computer animated widescreen film.
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Star Wars:The Phantom Menace (Pod Racing Scene)
First film to use CG extensively for thousands of shots, including backgrounds, environmental effects, vehicles, and crowds. Several CG characters stood alongside real actors in dozens of shots, making them the first CG "supporting" cast members. -
The Lord of the Rings
First use of AI for digital actors (using the Massive software developed by Weta Digital). -
Beowulf
Entirely made in CGI, features motion capture for all actors and has realism as its foremost goal. The largest team ever assembled for an Imageworks-produced movie (as of 2007) generated new animation tools for facial, body, and cloth design especially for the movie, and elements of keyframe animation were incorporated into the movie to capture the facial expressions of the actors and actresses. -
First full length movie made using performance-capture to create photo-realistic 3D characters and to feature a fully CG 3D photo-realistic world. The first Virtual Art Department (VAD) and complete Virtual Production pipeline was developed by director James Cameron and team to create the film in real-time.
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First use of CGI in a live broadcast
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Use of CGI animation throughout the movie that looks almost exactly like reality
