Luxo Jr. (1986)

Luxo Jr. (1986)

Advanced CGI shading

Video (HD 1080p)

CGI making of video

Wireframe test video (1986)

Trivia:

1) Made with the specially developed software Photorealistic Renderman.

2) First CGI film to be nominated for an Academy Award, added to the National Film Registry in 2014.

3) Catmull (Computer Animated Hand (1972) and Lasseter worked around the clock, and Lasseter even took a sleeping bag into work and slept under his desk, ready to work early the next morning. In total it took about four and a half months to do.

4) Luxo Jr. is regarded as a breakthrough in the animation medium as a whole, changing traditionalists interpretation of computer animation. 

5) In 1985, Director John Lasseter paticularly admired a piece of character animation called Tony de Peltrie, from a group at the University of Montreal; it featured a strikingly expressive human character, an aging piano player who entertained while inwardly reflecting on better days, which inspired Luxo Jr.