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Chapter 4 : A HISTORY OF COMPUTER ANIMATION 3/20/92 40 identically, written out in lower resolution, blockpix style (fig . 70), and used as maps (once they got invented) . The First Animation Languages Subroutine Packages During the 1960's specialized languages for computer animation were also developed . Software began to get understood toward the end of the 1950s ; the first operating systems, assemblers, and languages were all invented during this period . The first widely distributed graphics software package was a standardized subroutine interface defined by Calcomp (1959)(fig . ) ; a similar package by North American Rockwell Corporation was developed to support the SD-4020 and helped accelerate progress during the latter 1960s . The first animations were programmed in languages like Fortran, the first animation languages were Knowlton' BEFLIX (1964) and Anderson's CALD (196_) . 2D and 3D drawing languages The pioneers also simulated the process of animation . In fact, it was one of their very first tasks . Animation strikes to the heart of computer graphics because it allows the researcher or artist to use the temporal axis to explore variance . But simulation of the animation process goes beyond making variance inside of do-loops and plotting frames of the result . Simulation of animation implies the computerization of ways to organize and manipulate type, graphical objects sets, cameras, animation stands, and cameras, and backgrounds . Tacit here is an understanding of sculpting temporal events ; this distinguishes animation from static graphic software ; 70 . The blockpix technique evolved from the work of several people, and it is symbolic of the new breed of "digital effects" that emerged around 1976 . Leon Harman earlier at Bell researched recognizable digital resolutions, but never made animation . Ed Manning performed the effect using an analog optical device in an optical printer . At III, Whitney and Demos did the effect in full color also, only digitally . They first struck pan masters from the OCN, digitied them on the flying spot scanner/COM, averaged the pixels in each square of the output, and wrote out new color optical negatives on the scanner/COM . The effect instantly became a metaphor for the computer's point of view . After frame buffers were invented it could also be done in video .
Chapter 4 : A HISTORY OF COMPUTER ANIMATION 3/20/92 41 functional control of temporal parameters are almost as fundamental as color, 2 or 3D objects, or pixels . The pioneers tackled this problem with specialized languages . The first graphics languages-integrated graphical commands and were not simply subroutine libraries . One of the first of these is Ken Knowlton's BEFLIX, written at Bell Labs in 1964 . The BEFLIX primitives manipulate a 252 by 184 pixel grid, and include pixel read, pixel write, area write, area scale, area copy, area permutation by rule and others . For example the command PAINT A B WRITE 20 means write the value of 20 into a rectangle with its opposite corners at pixels A and B . BEFLIX is sort of an animation language because it may be programmed to calculate temporal sequences . A movie language must contain instructions to specify image change, usually motion, in addition to instructions for image definition . In order to do this a language must have some kind of looping capability, an if-go-tolabel, a do-while-loop, a-or-start-repeat ( or else it can't iterate) . In practice it is almost useless to make a computer graphics language that won't change over time because so often graphics are a vehicle to communicate temporal displacements . BEFLIX can be used as a tool for picture representation, enhancement and analysis . But it can also function as a cellular automa test bench ; or a tool for movie making . Other 1960s approaches dealt with manipulating 2D polygons as well as 3D geometry and cameras . A group of animation languages by Sherwood Anderson and Donald Weiner at Syracuse : CALD (Computer Aided Line Drawing), CAPER (Computer Aided Perspective Drawing), and CAMP (Computer Aided Movie Production) employed commands to define basic objects, move them, employ elementary arithmetical operations, iterate and issue frame advances (fig caption : A typical command might read : LOCI SPHERE 4.2 5 .1 6.2 .787 . This means to create and place a sphere at location 4.2,5.1,6 .2 with a radius of .787 and store it in LOCI . Subsequent handling of this object is then via its name, for example LOCI TRANSLATE .2 0 0 means to move the sphere .2 of a unit in X .) . Movement is accomplished by specifying initial and terminal parameters for variables, and calculating interpolants for each iteration of the do-loop . A slightly more advanced syntax evolved at MAGI called Synthavision, it could also define colors, lights, and unions between objects . The disadvantage of the full graphical language as compared to the graphical subroutine package is that from a programmer's point of view it is one extra level of structure to build for each new
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Chapter 4: A HISTORY OF COMPUTER ANIMATION ... - Vasulka.org

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