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willienoel — Wavefront Technologies on Pixar Image Computer

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Published: 2023-07-30 00:36:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 741; Favourites: 3; Downloads: 0
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Description Wavefront Technologies was a computer graphics company that developed and sold animation software used in Hollywood motion pictures and other industries. It was founded in 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, by Bill Kovacs, Larry Barels, Mark Sylvester. They started the company to produce computer graphics for movies and television commercials, and to market their own software, as there were no off-the-shelf computer animation tools available at the time. In 1995, Wavefront Technologies was purchased by Kroyer Films, Silicon Graphics IRIS 4D/70GT, Rhythm & Hues and merged with Alias Research to form Alias|Wavefront.
The Pixar Image Computer is a graphics computer originally developed by the Graphics Group, the computer division of Lucasfilm, which was later renamed Pixar.

Software created by Pixar in the first few years (or expanded from that developed at the ILM division) included the ChapReyes renderer, Computer Animation Production System (developed for Disney), Marionette, an animation software system that allowed animators to model and animate characters and add lighting effects, and Ringmaster, which was production management software that scheduled, coordinated, and tracked a computer animation project. The film recording technology mastered by David DeFrancisco was incorporated into a new laser film recorder called PixarVision.

deGraf/Wahrman was founded in 1987 by former Robert Abel & Associates employee Michael Wahrman and former Digital Productions director Brad deGraf after the folding of DOA. Tom McMahon of Symbolics Graphics Division helped finance the company and provided equipment and software, including a Symbolics 3600 and the suite of Silicon Graphics software. Brad deGraf studied architecture at Princeton and Mathematics at the University of California at San Diego. He started his career as lead software designer and programmer at SAIC for the US Army National Training Center, and became Head of Technical Direction at Digital Productions before opening deGraf/Wahrman and serving as Director of Production. After deGraf/Wahrman, from 1992 through 1994, he was Director of Digital Media at Colossal Pictures, which he and his partners spun off to create Protozoa. deGraf/Wahrman created Mike Normal, or “Mike the Talking Head”, the first live performance of a virtual character. It was shown live at the Electronic Theater at SIGGRAPH 88 in Atlanta. deGraf also created “Moxy” on the Cartoon Network, the first virtual character for television, and Peter Gabriel’s Grammy award-winning video, “Steam”.

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willienoel [2023-07-30 00:37:19 +0000 UTC]

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