378:. Lasseter and Keane at Disney then hand animated over the CG background wireframes. A tight bi-coastal production loop was designed. MAGi programmer Josh Pines developed film scanning software to digitize and clean up the final hand-drawn character film footage from Disney. The scanning software adapted to produce cleaner digitized images. Concurrently an ink and paint system was written by Christine Chang, Jodi Slater and Ken Perlin for production. This early paint system filled in color within character line borders, applied shadow, and highlighted and applied a blur to the color areas to produce an
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22:
291:. Twenty minutes of CG animation, in the early 1980s, was extremely gutsy, and so MAGi was a portion of the CG animation, while other companies were hired to do the other animation shots. Since SynthaVision was easy to animate and could create fluid motion and movement, MAGi was assigned with most of Tron's action sequences. These classic scenes include the
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by a transcontinental computer hook-up. Before each scene was finalized in MAGi's lab in
Elmsford, New York, it was previewed on a computer monitor at Disney. Corrections could then be made in the scene immediately. Previously, the only way of previewing the scene was to film it, ship it to Burbank,
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sequence and Clu's tank and recognizer pursuit scene. Despite the high quality images that SynthaVision was able to create, the CSG solid modeling could not create anything with complex shapes and multiple curves, so simpler objects like the light cycles and tanks were assigned to MAGi. MAGi was
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radiation ray tracing techniques, the mathematicians could estimate exposures at various distances and relative locations in and around fictional structures. In 1972, the graphics group called MAGi/SynthaVision was formed at MAGi by Robert
Goldstein.
460:) division as the foundation of ISD (Interactive Solids Design), and MAGi was formally sold to a Canadian firm, Vidmax (which later went defunct); many of the employees left to other CG companies and universities.
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In 1984, MAGi opened an office in Los
Angeles, California, headed by Richard Taylor, who worked as Special Effects Supervisor while at Triple-I. Taylor, Wedge and Carle directed a test for a Disney film
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get corrections made, ship it back to
Elmsford, and continue this "ping-ponging" until the scene was correct. The computer link cut between two-and-a-half to five days from the creation of each scene.
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339:) to see some of the light cycle animation. Lasseter said in "The Making of Tron" featurette that the light cycle animation was the first CG animation he had ever seen.
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but the software and computing hardware proved insufficient for the proposed animation and effects. The Los
Angeles office was closed shortly after its establishment.
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called KPL that Ken Perlin had been developing, which designed to run at every pixel of an image. KPL was the first example of a general purpose
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MAGi developed a software program called SynthaVision to create CG images and films. SynthaVision was one of the first systems to implement a
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and many other engineers who were working in government contracts at MAGi were assigned into MAGi's "SynthaVision" division.
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Two of the first television commercial applications were storyboarded by Texas artist, Gordon
Blocker in 1973-4 for the
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and ray tracing (later to become plane firing) made it a very robust system that could generate high quality images.
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used CGI animation for the backgrounds and traditional 2D animation for the characters "Max" and his dog. Animators
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415:'84 Electronic Theater. To achieve organic textures such as clouds, water and bark, they made use of a
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Also in 1984 Michael
Ferraro and Tom Bisogno began production on a short film, “First Flight”, for the
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In 1983, Disney commissioned MAGi to create a test film featuring characters from the children's book
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of Disney directed the test for Disney. At MAGi, Larry Elin directed Chris Wedge and
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In 1972, MAGi/SynthaVision was started by Robert
Goldstein, with Bo Gehring and
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worked mainly on the second half of the film. MAGi modeled and animated the
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to create half of the majority of the 20 minutes of CG needed for the film
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158:. MAGi was responsible for most of the CG animation in the first half of
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effect. The final painted characters and CG-rendered backgrounds were
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MAGI also created a polygonal/2D test in the late 70s with legendary
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platform, and which eventually led to the development of the modern
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was also created by Ken Perlin as a built-in function within KPL.
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interface for the artists. In 1985 Josh Pines argued to use the
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covering the design and film/television interests, respectively.
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company founded in 1966 by Dr. Philip
Mittelman and located in
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Soon after, the SynthaVision software was sold to
Lockheed's (
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225:
15:
423:, a concept which was subsequently adopted by Pixar for its
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for any future software and production programming design.
228:, featuring 3D letters that flew out of an office machine.
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that most CG companies use today. The combination of the
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given $ 1.2 million to finance the animation needed for
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Phillip Mittelman, the founder of MAGi, died in 2000.
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MAGi created the world's first CG advertisement for
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It was one of four companies hired to create the 3D
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307:MAGi sped up the process of supplying its work to
916:Tron: Legacy – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
397:for lab processing and delivery back to Disney.
206:). SynthaVision's modeling method does not use
323:, animators and computer image choreographers
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194:(CSG) system, in that the geometry was solid
8:
48:introducing citations to additional sources
438:Much of the MAGi/SynthaVision software was
261:"Flag Card" commercial and a news open for
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640:
632:
909:Tron: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
393:and light-scanned back onto film with a
190:in rendering images. The software was a
38:Relevant discussion may be found on the
1078:1966 establishments in New York (state)
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1063:Software companies established in 1966
112:Mathematical Applications Group, Inc.
7:
14:
59:"Mathematical Applications Group"
1037:
1036:
31:relies largely or entirely on a
20:
404:Something Wicked This Way Comes
134:. By modeling structures using
429:Graphics processing unit (GPU)
1:
370:and produced a 3D background
283:In 1981, MAGi was hired by
192:constructive solid geometry
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421:procedural shader language
335:(who would later co-found
241:Coyote and the Road Runner
132:nuclear radiation exposure
130:, where it was evaluating
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932:Tron: Legacy Reconfigured
352:Where the Wild Things Are
319:During the production of
140:mathematics and applying
1073:Visual effects companies
950:The Ghost in the Machine
622:"The Aha Moment, Part 7"
607:"The Aha Moment, Part 5"
374:based on Disney's story
186:algorithmic approach to
451:programming environment
495:Dr. Eugene Troubetzkoy
467:MAGi staff (1975–1985)
188:hidden surface removal
137:combinatorial geometry
417:programming language
387:digitally composited
44:improve this article
988:TRON Lightcycle Run
880:Disney Infinity 3.0
871:Dream Drop Distance
831:Armagetron Advanced
581:"MAGI/Synthavision"
481:Harold S. Schechter
300:. MAGi needed more
259:Texas Commerce Bank
202:operators (such as
124:computer technology
1068:Computer animation
887:Disney Mirrorverse
762:Adventures of Tron
619:Ken Perlin's Blog
604:Ken Perlin's Blog
472:Dr. Phil Mittelman
178:Product and legacy
170:, recognizers and
152:for the 1982 film
150:computer animation
128:Elmsford, New York
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204:Boolean operators
120:MAGi/SynthaVision
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583:. Archived from
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478:Robert Goldstein
356:Wild Things test
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562:Dr. Naoko Akagi
526:Christine Chang
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391:color-corrected
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122:) was an early
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309:Disney Studios
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271:Houston, Texas
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239:featuring the
219:solid modeling
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42:. Please help
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748:Discs of Tron
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587:on 2012-11-08
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360:John Lasseter
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333:John Lasseter
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200:combinatorial
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61: –
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55:Find sources:
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45:
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35:
34:
33:single source
29:This article
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17:
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930:
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829:
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797:Battle Grids
795:
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781:
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769:Solar Sailer
767:
760:
755:Deadly Discs
753:
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739:
713:
694:
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678:
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589:. Retrieved
585:the original
575:
550:Alison Brown
547:Mike Ferraro
462:
455:
437:
433:Perlin noise
410:
402:
399:
395:Celco camera
351:
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233:Warner Bros.
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168:light cycles
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100:October 2022
97:
87:
80:
73:
66:
54:
30:
1024:Jay Maynard
1009:Light Cycle
983:PeopleMover
967:Attractions
726:Video games
556:Glenn Alsup
544:David Brown
535:Paul Harris
520:Gene Miller
514:Carl Ludwig
511:Tom Bisogno
507:Chris Wedge
489:Marty Cohen
372:pencil test
325:Bill Kroyer
293:light cycle
237:Chuck Jones
184:ray tracing
142:Monte Carlo
1057:Categories
1004:Characters
823:Unofficial
806:Tron RUN/r
707:Television
591:2010-02-18
567:References
559:J.A. Lopez
553:John Beach
541:Tom Miller
532:Kevin Egan
523:Josh Pines
517:Jan Carlee
503:Evan Laski
499:Ken Perlin
485:Larry Elin
475:Bo Gehring
364:Glen Keane
329:Jerry Rees
252:Larry Elin
196:primitives
70:newspapers
790:Evolution
718:(2012–13)
425:Renderman
376:animatics
368:Jan Carle
235:animator
212:wireframe
40:talk page
1042:Category
1019:Triple-I
957:Betrayal
923:Derezzed
813:Identity
776:Tron 2.0
733:Official
715:Uprising
413:SIGGRAPH
380:airbrush
331:invited
208:polygons
164:Triple-I
162:, while
114:(a.k.a.
997:Related
848:Related
440:Fortran
313:Burbank
302:R&D
263:KHOU-TV
246:History
84:scholar
942:Comics
858:series
838:GLtron
699:(2025)
691:(2010)
688:Legacy
683:(1982)
444:Ratfor
354:. The
343:After
285:Disney
215:meshes
86:
79:
72:
65:
57:
901:Music
672:Films
458:CADAM
337:Pixar
269:) in
198:with
172:tanks
91:JSTOR
77:books
1014:MAGI
976:TRON
974:Elec
741:Tron
696:Ares
680:Tron
664:Tron
448:Unix
383:2.5D
362:and
345:Tron
327:and
321:Tron
298:Tron
289:Tron
278:Tron
160:Tron
155:Tron
116:MAGi
63:news
978:ica
311:in
267:CBS
226:IBM
210:or
118:or
46:by
1059::
864:II
431:.
389:,
273:.
174:.
925:"
921:"
655:e
648:t
641:v
624:.
609:.
594:.
406:,
265:(
102:)
98:(
88:·
81:·
74:·
67:·
50:.
36:.
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