4 ms·

Pixar Online Library

177 points by shocks 11y ago

Falcon9 11y ago
Somehow really fascinating despite being ridiculously far over my head. The pictures help :-)
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
I'm loving Ed Catmull's book Creativity Inc at the moment, but I do tend to forget he is PhD in Computer Science who invented texture mapping. The articles are really over my head too. It is worth noting that Catmull attributes their original publish everything attitude (against an industry standard for trade secrets) as formative in acquiring the talent and industry came early on.
- Keyframe 11y ago
  Indeed, however Pixar's track record on wage fixing[1] and patent trolling[2] isn't all that great. [1] http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/ed-catmull-on-wage-fixing-i-dont-apologize-for-this-105855.html http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/ed-catmull-on-wage-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Rendering_Tools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Rendering_Tools
  - reagency 11y ago
    And his legal defense case is "the wage fixing was discovered 5 year ago, this case is essentially the same as a different case we lost against other plaintiffs, so we shouldn't be liable to the other victims also"
  - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
    Is wage fixing a thing outside the U.S.? It's a bit like bribery laws - you seem ahead of the curve.
- senderista 11y ago
  One of the few plausible rationales for patents is that they encourage public disclosure of trade secrets.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
andrehacker 11y ago
Interesting, I don't see anything of John Lasseter in there, not even this gem: http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~decarlo/671/readings/lasseter87.pdf http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~decarlo/671/readings/lasseter87.p...
jcr 11y ago
In addition to the subdiv papers listed, Pixar also has an open source "OpenSubdiv" project: http://graphics.pixar.com/opensubdiv/docs/intro.html http://graphics.pixar.com/opensubdiv/docs/intro.html
far33d 11y ago
This list is missing my favorite pre-Pixar paper. http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/CS284/PAPERS/CatmullClark_SDSurf.pdf http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/CS284/PAPERS/CatmullClark...
- martinpw 11y ago
  And one of the interesting things about that is the paper was written in 1978 but the technology was not really used until 20 years later (Geri's Game, 1997) when hardware was finally fast enough to evaluate the algorithm in a reasonable amount of time.
  - eidorianu 11y ago
    Geri's Game short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWV3XVhaQsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWV3XVhaQsc

177 points by shocks 11y ago

Somehow really fascinating despite being ridiculously far over my head. The pictures help :-)

I'm loving Ed Catmull's book Creativity Inc at the moment, but I do tend to forget he is PhD in Computer Science who invented texture mapping. The articles are really over my head too. It is worth noting that Catmull attributes their original publish everything attitude (against an industry standard for trade secrets) as formative in acquiring the talent and industry came early on.

Keyframe 11y ago
Indeed, however Pixar's track record on wage fixing[1] and patent trolling[2] isn't all that great. [1] http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/ed-catmull-on-wage-fixing-i-dont-apologize-for-this-105855.html http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/ed-catmull-on-wage-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Rendering_Tools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Rendering_Tools
- reagency 11y ago
  And his legal defense case is "the wage fixing was discovered 5 year ago, this case is essentially the same as a different case we lost against other plaintiffs, so we shouldn't be liable to the other victims also"
- lifeisstillgood 11y ago
  Is wage fixing a thing outside the U.S.? It's a bit like bribery laws - you seem ahead of the curve.
senderista 11y ago
One of the few plausible rationales for patents is that they encourage public disclosure of trade secrets.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

andrehacker 11y ago

Interesting, I don't see anything of John Lasseter in there, not even this gem: http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~decarlo/671/readings/lasseter87.pdf http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~decarlo/671/readings/lasseter87.p...

jcr 11y ago

In addition to the subdiv papers listed, Pixar also has an open source "OpenSubdiv" project: http://graphics.pixar.com/opensubdiv/docs/intro.html http://graphics.pixar.com/opensubdiv/docs/intro.html

far33d 11y ago

This list is missing my favorite pre-Pixar paper. http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/CS284/PAPERS/CatmullClark_SDSurf.pdf http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/CS284/PAPERS/CatmullClark...

martinpw 11y ago
And one of the interesting things about that is the paper was written in 1978 but the technology was not really used until 20 years later (Geri's Game, 1997) when hardware was finally fast enough to evaluate the algorithm in a reasonable amount of time.
- eidorianu 11y ago
  Geri's Game short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWV3XVhaQsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWV3XVhaQsc