Thomas K. Porter
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Thomas K. Porter
Thomas K. Porter is the senior vice president of production strategy at Pixar and one of the studio's founding employees. Professional life After receiving a master's degree in computer science at Stanford University in 1975, Porter worked at the National Institutes of Health on computer visualization of molecular models and wrote software at Ampex for the world's first commercial digital paint program, AVA. Porter joined Lucasfilm's Computer Research and Development Division in early 1981. He and Tom Duff, another Lucasfilm employee, developed a new approach to compositing images; their 1984 paper, "Compositing Digital Images", is " e seminal work on an algebra for image compositing", according to Keith Packard. " Porter-Duff compositing" is now a key technique in computer graphics. Porter is listed as one of Pixar's 40 founding employees at the time of its spin-out as a corporation with funding from Steve Jobs in 1986. Porter expanded on Robert L. Cook’s research into Monte ...
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Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, California, United States. Since 2006, Pixar has been a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is another studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Pixar started in 1979 as part of the Lucasfilm computer division, known as the Graphics Group, before its spin-off as a corporation in 1986, with funding from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who became its majority shareholder. Disney purchased Pixar in January 2006 at a valuation of $7.4+ billion by converting each share of Pixar stock to 2.3 shares of Disney stock. Pixar is best known for its feature films, technologically powered by RenderMan, the company's own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan Interface Specification image-rendering API. The studio's mascot is Luxo Jr., a desk ...
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John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter (; born January 12, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, animator, voice actor, and the head of animation at Skydance Animation. He was previously the chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios, as well as the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering. Lasseter began his career as an animator with The Walt Disney Company. After being fired from Disney for promoting computer animation, he joined Lucasfilm, where he worked on then-groundbreaking use of CGI animation. The Graphics Group of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm was sold to Steve Jobs and became Pixar in 1986. Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer. In addition, he directed ''Toy Story'' (1995), ''A Bug's Life'' (1998), ''Toy Story 2'' (1999), ''Cars'' (2006), and '' Cars 2'' (2011). From 2006 to 2018, Lasseter also oversaw all of Walt Disney Animation St ...
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Cars (film)
''Cars'' is a 2006 American computer-animated Sports comedy, sports comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by John Lasseter from a screenplay by Dan Fogelman, Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Kiel Murray, Phil Lorin, and Jorgen Klubien and a story by Lasseter, Ranft, and Klubien, and was the final film independently produced by Pixar after its purchase by Disney in January 2006. The film features an ensemble voice cast of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman (in his final voice acting theatrical film role), Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, Michael Wallis, George Carlin, Paul Dooley, Jenifer Lewis, Guido Quaroni, Michael Keaton, Katherine Helmond, John Ratzenberger and Richard Petty, while race car drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr. (as "Junior"), Mario Andretti, Michael Schumacher and car enthusiast Jay Leno (as "Jay Limo") voice themselves. Set in a world populated entirely by Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic ...
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Monsters, Inc
''Monsters, Inc.'' (also known as ''Monsters, Incorporated'') is a 2001 American computer-animated Monster movie, monster comedy film produced by Pixar, Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Featuring the voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn, Mary Gibbs (actress), Mary Gibbs and Jennifer Tilly, the film was directed by Pete Docter (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Dan Gerson, Daniel Gerson. The film centers on two monsters, the hairy James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (Goodman) and his one-eyed partner and best friend Mike Wazowski (Crystal), who are employed at the titular energy-producing factory ''Monsters, Inc.'', which generates power by scaring human children. However, the monster world believes that the children are toxic, and when a little human girl Boo (Gibbs) sneaks into the factory, she must be returned home before it is too late. Docter began developing the film in 1996, and wrote the story ...
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SuperPaint
SuperPaint was a pioneering graphics software, graphics program and framebuffer computer system developed by Richard Shoup (programmer), Richard Shoup at PARC (company), Xerox PARC. The system was first conceptualized in late 1972 and produced its first stable image in April 1973. SuperPaint was among the earliest uses of computer technology for creative artworks, video editing, and computer animation, all of which would become major areas within the entertainment industry and major components of industrial design. SuperPaint had the ability to capture images from standard video input or combine them with preexisting digital data. SuperPaint was also the first program to use now-ubiquitous features in common computer graphics programs such as changing hue, saturation and value of graphical data, choosing from a preset color palette, custom polygons and lines, virtual paintbrushes and pencils, and auto-filling of images. SuperPaint was also one of the first graphics programs to use ...
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Digital Painting
Digital painting is an established art medium that typically combines a computer, a graphics tablet, and software of choice. The artist uses painting and drawing with the stylus that comes with the graphics tablet to create 2D paintings within a digital art software. There are multiple techniques and tools that are utilized by digital artists, the first being digital brushes. These come standard with all digital art programs, but users can create their own by altering their shape, texture, size, and transfer. Many of these brushes are created to represent traditional styles like oils, acrylics, pastels, charcoal, and airbrushing, but not all. Other effective tools include layers, lasso tools, shapes, and masks. Digital painting has evolved to not just mimic traditional art styles, but fully become its own technique. Digital painting is used by amateur and professional artists alike. Its use is particularly prevalent in commercial production studios that create games, television ...
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San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de Young. The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. It is the only major daily paper covering the city and county of San Francisco. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and had the largest newspaper circulation on the West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like other newspapers, it experienced a rapid fall in circulation in the early 21st century and was ranked 18th nationally by circulation in the first quarter of 2021. In 1994, the newspaper launched the SFGATE website, with a soft launch in March and official launch November 3, 1994, including both content from the newspaper and other sources. "The Gate" as it was known at launch was the first large market newspaper ...
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Digital Compositing
Digital compositing is the process of digitally assembling multiple images to make a final image, typically for print, motion pictures or screen display. It is the digital analogue of optical film compositing. Mathematics The basic operation used in digital compositing is known as 'alpha blending', where an opacity value, 'α', is used to control the proportions of two input pixel values that end up a single output pixel. As a simple example, suppose two images of the same size are available and they are to be composited. The input images are referred to as the foreground image and the background image. Each image consists of the same number of pixels. Compositing is performed by mathematically combining information from the corresponding pixels from the two input images and recording the result in a third image, which is called the composited image. Consider three pixels; * a foreground pixel, f * a background pixel, b * a composited pixel, c and * α, the opacity value of the ...
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RenderMan
The name RenderMan can cause confusion because it has been used to refer to different things developed by Pixar Animation Studios: * RenderMan Interface Specification (RISpec), an open API (technical specification) developed by Pixar for a standard communications protocol (or interface) between 3D computer graphics programs and rendering programs to describe three-dimensional scenes and turn them into digital photorealistic images ** RenderMan Shading Language, a component of the RenderMan Interface Specification used to define shaders * Pixar RenderMan Pixar RenderMan (formerly PhotoRealistic RenderMan) is proprietary photorealistic 3D rendering software produced by Pixar Animation Studios. Pixar uses RenderMan to render their in-house 3D animated movie productions and it is also available as ..., a RenderMan Interface Specification-compliant rendering software system developed by Pixar based on their own interface specification * RenderMan, also commonly used to refer to other ...
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Motion Blur
Motion blur is the apparent streaking of moving objects in a photograph or a sequence of frames, such as a film or animation. It results when the image being recorded changes during the recording of a single exposure, due to rapid movement or long exposure. Usages / Effects of motion blur Photography When a camera creates an image, that image does not represent a single instant of time. Because of technological constraints or artistic requirements, the image may represent the scene over a period of time. Most often this exposure time is brief enough that the image captured by the camera appears to capture an instantaneous moment, but this is not always so, and a fast moving object or a longer exposure time may result in blurring artifacts which make this apparent. As objects in a scene move, an image of that scene must represent an integration of all positions of those objects, as well as the camera's viewpoint, over the period of exposure determined by the shutter speed. In ...
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Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion pictures. The Academy's corporate management and general policies are overseen by a board of governors, which includes representatives from each of the craft branches. As of April 2020, the organization was estimated to consist of around 9,921 motion picture professionals. The Academy is an international organization and membership is open to qualified filmmakers around the world. The Academy is known around the world for its annual Academy Awards, now officially and popularly known as "The Oscars". In addition, the Academy holds the Governors Awards annually for lifetime achievement in film; presents Scientific and Technical Awards annually; gives Student Academy Awards annually to filmmakers at the undergraduate and graduate level; ...
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Academy Scientific And Technical Award
The Scientific and Technical Awards are three different Honorary Awards that are given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) during the annual Academy Awards season. The Awards have been presented since the 4th Academy Awards in November 1931, to recognize original developments resulting in significant improvements in motion picture production and exhibition. The Awards are presented at a formal dinner ceremony a couple weeks before the principal Academy Awards ceremony. These awards recognize significant milestones in the development of technology for motion pictures and are conferred by vote of the Academy Board of Governors. Potential nominations for awards are investigated by a special committee within the Academy, "The Scientific and Technical Awards Committee", which presents a written report and recommendation to the Board of Governors. Additionally, the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation, given for "outstanding service and dedication in up ...
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