Fond memories ...

This trailer brings back fond memories as I learned 3D graphics on the MAGI system in the late 70's. Did no animation per se but did create high resolution 3D fine art constructions using their tech as the weapon of choice. Gotta see the flick as it was the wild west back in the day and ... Fortran 77 lives. :) On the commercial end, yours truly did 3D graphics for Forbes during the late 70's and early 80s using MAGI for the Gartner Group so I guess I was a pioneer as this was one of the first times state of the art 3D CG was used on a main line publication in America. Lastly, the guys that did TRON were rebels as well in creating art on software originally designed to determine ... what paths would radiation take when a 20 megaton nuke goes off? Hypothetical target? NYC." 

The ray-tracing algorithm builds an image by extending rays into a scene and bouncing them off surfaces and towards sources of light to approximate the color value of pixels.

It is hopefully not to gross a generalization to point out that animators are different from you and me. And this holds whether the animator works in hand drawing, stop-motion, or computer graphics. Obsessiveness that goes beyond dedication to work is a common trait. As is social awkwardness.

The Canadian-born computer animation innovator Steve Williams was and remains so overtly brash that he inverts the latter characteristic into the kind of awkwardness that, well, can often get you fired. Williams is the guy who enabled the effects team at Industrial Light and Magic to build many of the dinosaurs for the 1993 film “Jurassic Park” inside a computer.

I resemble that remark. :)

Ambiguity 101 - 1979