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> Even the CG was horrible. There wasn't any. From TFA: > first attempt to visualise the digital realm itself Few people realise that in 1982 there was no CG

> Even the CG was horrible. There wasn't any. From TFA: > first attempt to visualise the digital realm itself Few people realise that in 1982 there was no CGI. Tron is mainly rotoscoped [1] but also a composite of creative effects and techniques. Tron is a remarkable movie for a different reason most people miss today. It was seminal in defining the aesthetic of computer graphics to come by "faking it till you make it". Without the actual technology for model wirefame and rendering at the time, the visual directors (Steven Lisberger and Donald Kushner) used a combination of drawn animation (Jean Giraud), special lighting and costume, and actual CGI overlays from the "Super Foonly F-1" PDP-10 [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tron&section=5 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tron&section=5

wodenokoto 4y ago
I think grand parent wished there was a third movie and parent was complaining about the cgi in the sequel.
ekianjo 4y ago
> There wasn't any. From TFA: You probably missed the fact I was talking about the second movie, full of CGI.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Sorry. I can well imagine that the sequel was shite. Also in comparison to the first movie real CGI failed to live up to the "fake" standard set by the first.
lordfrito 4y ago
There was a full 15 minutes of true CGI in the first film, an incredible accomplishment back in 1982. It was in fact too much CGI for any one company to produce, they had to hire 4 different companies to handle the workload (MAGI, Triple-I, Robert Abel and Associates, and Digital Effects). They broke up the VFX scenes between them, trying to play to the individual strengths of each company's rendering system. If you pay close attention to the film you can tell which scenes were done by which company. The backgrounds shown during the live action scenes (with actors) were mostly hand drawn. Much more info here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm4i6D3XXBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm4i6D3XXBQ
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Thanks for that link. I went back and watched a few clips. My goodness how that's different from my memories of 1982! Weird thing is I can't remember that I saw that 15 minutes of embryonic CGI as being "computer graphics", long before I'd played Wolfenstein and having only seen vector graphics in arcade consoles at the pier. How our perceptions have changed.

wodenokoto 4y ago

I think grand parent wished there was a third movie and parent was complaining about the cgi in the sequel.

ekianjo 4y ago

> There wasn't any. From TFA: You probably missed the fact I was talking about the second movie, full of CGI.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
Sorry. I can well imagine that the sequel was shite. Also in comparison to the first movie real CGI failed to live up to the "fake" standard set by the first.

lordfrito 4y ago

There was a full 15 minutes of true CGI in the first film, an incredible accomplishment back in 1982. It was in fact too much CGI for any one company to produce, they had to hire 4 different companies to handle the workload (MAGI, Triple-I, Robert Abel and Associates, and Digital Effects). They broke up the VFX scenes between them, trying to play to the individual strengths of each company's rendering system. If you pay close attention to the film you can tell which scenes were done by which company. The backgrounds shown during the live action scenes (with actors) were mostly hand drawn. Much more info here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm4i6D3XXBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm4i6D3XXBQ

nonrandomstring 4y ago
Thanks for that link. I went back and watched a few clips. My goodness how that's different from my memories of 1982! Weird thing is I can't remember that I saw that 15 minutes of embryonic CGI as being "computer graphics", long before I'd played Wolfenstein and having only seen vector graphics in arcade consoles at the pier. How our perceptions have changed.