Pixar's Toy Story: Greatest Milestone Achieved In Animation History

Tami Nguyen

September 25, 2015

CO101 B7

TA: Haley Bascom

Introduction of CGI in Disney and Pixar’s Toy Story:

Greatest Milestone Achieved in Animation History

Imagine drawing thousands of movie scenes at the pace of 24 frames per second. One may forget that many beloved animated movies were once drawn by hand. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Dumbo were a few of the first films released by Disney. Now with the availability and increasing use of technology, the so-called impossible scenes can be achieved with the rise of CGI, Computer Generated Images. Disney and Pixar created a stunning impact in the film industry by transitioning into the digital world and incorporating computers in their animated musical films at the end of

the 20th century. Walt Disney Animation Studios approached a computer-based company, called Pixar, with the idea of collaboration, “suggesting that Pixar make a CG (computer generated) feature that Disney would finance and distribute” (Finch), and together they created one of the greatest pivotal films of all time: Toy Story.

The stunning animation was the first feature film from Disney and Pixar, and the studios presented this masterpiece in 1995, which triumphantly brought the film protagonists, Woody and Buzz, to life with their cutting edge 3D animation and flawless storyline. Toy Story blossomed into a well-marketed film that not only targeted imaginative children, but it was—and still is—appealing to audiences of all ages. Derived from hundreds of artists who used 3D computer graphics tools to entirely create the film, Toy Story proudly brings toys to life and presents the first full-length, all-digital movie (Robertson). The animation, which successfully became one of the greatest trilogies that spanned over fifteen years elaborates

on the power of technology and special effects and the path it has created for future animated films, affecting the film industry and its society tremendously.
Unlike other feature animation films, which use cel animation to allow hand-drawn animated characters, 3D computer graphic tools created “depth and breadth” in Toy Story, easily bringing at least seventy-six characters to life and providing “a wide variety of sets and locations just as actors might in a live-action movie” (Robertson). Released just days before Thanksgiving in 1995, the feature holiday movie paved a path for future movies involving computer graphics:
In all, Toy Story has about 1700 shots, and each shot has been modeled, animated, texture-mapped, shaded, lighted with a combination of proprietary and off-the-shelf computer graphics tools (running primarily on Silicon Graphics workstations), and rendered on rack after rack of Sun SPARCstation 20s--87 dual-processor and 30 quad-processor SPARCstations (294 processors in all) running 24 hours a day in a special room aptly named the "Sunfarm." It's just frame-by-frame animation, but Pixar has, somehow, imbued it with life (Robertson).

In a digital age where technology is incorporated in every day tasks, technology was taken to a whole new level with a “remarkable creative team at Disney and Pixar's brilliant computer graphics scientists” provided by the talented John Lasseter, Toy Story’s film director, and his creative team consisting of one hundred and ten people, which included thirty technical directors as well as twenty-eight animators

(Robertson).
Lasseter once said, “The [Toy Story] world is a caricatured world. The audience knows it doesn't exist, but [with 3D] there is a sense of reality that's greater than with cel [animation].” Cel animation had always been the gateway for past animations, but with the availability of 3D computer graphics, Toy Story is brought to life as realistically as possible with one of the main protagonists, Buzz, having “rivets and embossing on his butt that says 'copyright Disney' that's there because [Lasseter’s] GI Joe had [embossing],” (Robertson). CG animation also guarantees consistency, whereas “With hand-drawn animation, characters can change significantly when drawn by two different animators, even if both are equally skilled draftsmen” (Finch). Lasseter believed “This collaboration of art and technology is absolutely vital” (Robertson), and he used many variations of new technological programs to mold the blueprint for Toy Story.
Unusual for an animated film, Toy Story introduced over three hundred and sixty-six objects, and the details are the most intricate ever seen in animations. Realistic models were created, “including Andy's bed, the minivan, Andy himself, Andy's sister's tea set, etc” (Robertson). Pixar not only used 3D computer graphics that already existed, they also created many new creative computer tools to help design animations, including Toy Story. According to CGW magazine, “Through the years, the group grew as it developed technology and invented the algorithms that made computer graphics useful for the film industry,” (Robertson). Among these contributions are programs like the Alias software and patch-editing tools in MenV. The Alias gave the character, Buzz, a “manufactured look”, and the MenV gave an organic look for Woody and the humans (Robertson). Interestingly enough, the program MenV was designed originally for Lasseter, the film’s director, by technical directors Eben Ostby and Bill Reeves (Robertson). Also, rather than assigning characters and objects to certain animators, Disney and Pixar decided to give all characters to all animators, allowing the awareness “of what everyone else was doing,” thus changing the way animation is created for future film projects (Robertson).
After modeling was finished, “Shaders, which describe surfaces and define how the surfaces react to light, were used for general ‘distressing’ for splotches, stains, spills, cracks--to ‘visually present the disparity between a manufactured look of the toys and a human look’” (Robertson). For example, Woody gets burned by a magnifying glass in Toy Story. The texture of the smoke and the burn mark far exceeded any expectations from a computer generated movie, especially in a movie meant for children. The audience can actually see the most realistic smoke. It is groundbreaking for the world to observe what once was a dream by Ed Catmull, the President of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation. Shaders gave what past Disney animations could have not achieved: presenting multilayered texture and actual humanlike flaws. According to Thomas Porter, Toy Story’s visual effects director, “It's unrealistic to have a plastic-looking baseboard when you know it's been kicked,” (Robertson). Therefore, Porter gathered a team to add the imperfections and splotches to give the illusion of realism. With the grand team from Pixar and Disney and the power of technology, Toy Story opened the door for future feature animations, timing it perfectly after the Disney Renaissance in the 1990s, eight hundred thousand hours and 114,240 frames of animation later (Finch).
Triumphantly, Disney and Pixar established a monumental movement for all animations, and perfected the combination of art and technology. They brought the “magic and believability” that depended “on the imaginations of the story team and on the creative achievements of the technical team, which quite simply blew audiences away” (Finch). The characters moved and acted just as professional actors and actresses in live-action movies. Unlike past Disney movies, “Wood looked like wood, plastic looked like plastic, metal looked like metal and, even more remarkably, hair looked like hair” (Finch). Pixar allowed their audience to experience another whole world: the Toy Story world, and it has been embedded into our daily lives, with sweet nostalgia and every day references. The marriage of computer animation and storytelling were both enjoyable to the audiences of all ages, due to the manifestation of “gags or allusions often accessible only to older viewers” (Gilbey). Steve Jobs successfully pushed “Pixar into a brand so that when people go see a Pixar film, there's a certain level of integrity they can trust, even without seeing anything in advance about the film” (Gilbey). Toy Story created an animation revolution by transitioning hand-drawn features into computer graphics, and fortunately, it did not lose the animation elements that offer timeless entertainment. Buzz Lightyear’s phrase “To Infinity and Beyond” became a marketing success and Mr. Potato Head and Etch-A-Sketch merchandises rose, becoming instant childhood classics that are filled with the right amount of reminiscence. The world renowned film, Toy Story, introduced new technology and special effects used by hundreds of animators today and established the path for many more future animated films in today’s society.