Editing Pixar (section)

=== Early history ===
[[File:Pixar Computer - computer history museum 2013-04-11 23-46.jpg|thumb|A Pixar computer at the [[Computer History Museum]] in [[Mountain View, California|Mountain View]] with the 1986–95 logo on it]]
Pixar got its start in 1974, when [[New York Institute of Technology]]'s (NYIT) founder, [[Alexander Schure]], who was also the owner of a traditional animation studio, established the [[New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab|Computer Graphics Lab]] (CGL) and recruited [[computer scientists]] who shared his ambitions about creating the world's first computer-animated film.{{source needed|date=July 2024}} [[Edwin Catmull]] and Malcolm Blanchard were the first to be hired and were soon joined by [[Alvy Ray Smith]] and [[David DiFrancesco]] some months later, who were the four original members of the Computer Graphics Lab, located in a converted two-story garage acquired from the former [[Vanderbilt family|Vanderbilt]]-[[Whitney family|Whitney]] estate.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ph/nyit/masson/nyit.html|title=Brief History of the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab|publisher=[[Carnegie Mellon University]]|access-date=January 1, 2016|archive-date=March 3, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303172409/http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ph/nyit/masson/nyit.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://reader.epubee.com/books/mobile/94/946de10224fd23c2bba70bfd0d61afd7/text00001.html |title=Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries |access-date=October 27, 2020 |archive-date=October 31, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201031020650/http://reader.epubee.com/books/mobile/94/946de10224fd23c2bba70bfd0d61afd7/text00001.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Schure invested significant funds into the computer graphics lab, approximately $15 million, providing the resources the group needed but contributing to NYIT's financial difficulties.<ref name="The Story Behind Pixar">{{cite web|url=http://mixergy.com/interviews/the-story-behind-pixar-with-alvy-ray-smith/|title=The Story Behind Pixar – with Alvy Ray Smith|publisher=mixergy.com|access-date=December 25, 2015|archive-date=December 26, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151226014247/http://mixergy.com/interviews/the-story-behind-pixar-with-alvy-ray-smith/|url-status=live}}</ref> Eventually, the group realized they needed to work in a real [[film studio]] to reach their goal. [[Francis Ford Coppola]] then invited Smith to his house for a three-day media conference, where Coppola and [[George Lucas]] shared their visions for the future of digital moviemaking.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WOwyRnZ1oxoC&pg=PA137 |page=137 |title=Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation |isbn=978-0-262-01909-5 |last1=Sito |first1=Tom |year=2013 |publisher=MIT Press |access-date=October 3, 2020 |archive-date=March 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210324060148/https://books.google.com/books?id=WOwyRnZ1oxoC&pg=PA137 |url-status=live }}</ref>

When Lucas approached the group and offered them a job at his studio, six employees moved to [[Lucasfilm]]. During the following months, they gradually resigned from CGL, found temporary jobs for about a year to avoid making Schure suspicious, and joined the Graphics Group at Lucasfilm.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lowendmac.com/2014/cgi-story-the-development-of-computer-generated-imaging/|title=CGI Story: The Development of Computer Generated Imaging|date=June 8, 2014|publisher=lowendmac.com|access-date=October 23, 2015|archive-date=November 25, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151125043804/http://lowendmac.com/2014/cgi-story-the-development-of-computer-generated-imaging/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/PDFs/NYITMagazineOutofthisWorld|title=ID 797 – History of Computer Graphics and Animation|publisher=[[Ohio State University]]|access-date=October 23, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160110013620/http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/PDFs/NYITMagazineOutofthisWorld|archive-date=January 10, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> The Graphics Group, which was one-third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm, was launched in 1979 with the hiring of Catmull from NYIT,<ref name="Pixar story">{{cite web| author =Hormby, Thomas| publisher =Low End Mac| title =The Pixar Story: Fallon Forbes, Dick Shoup, Alex Schure, George Lucas and Disney| date =January 22, 2007| url =http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/pixar-story-Lucas-Disney.html| access-date =March 1, 2007| archive-date =August 14, 2013| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20130814014138/http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/pixar-story-lucas-disney.html| url-status =live}}</ref> where he was in charge of the Computer Graphics Lab. He was then reunited with Smith, who also made the journey from NYIT to Lucasfilm, and was made the director of the Graphics Group. At NYIT, the researchers pioneered many of the CG foundation techniques — in particular, the invention of the [[alpha channel]] by Catmull and Smith.<ref>{{cite web|last=Smith|first=Alvy Ray|author-link=Alvy Ray Smith|title=Alpha and the History of Digital Compositing|url=http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spring12/cos426/papers/Smith95c.pdf|publisher=Princeton University—Department of Computer Science|access-date=December 22, 2013|date=August 15, 1995|archive-date=August 10, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170810024634/http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spring12/cos426/papers/Smith95c.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Over the next several years, the CGL would produce a few frames of an experimental film called ''[[The Works (film)|The Works]]''. After moving to Lucasfilm, the team worked on creating the precursor to [[RenderMan Interface Specification|RenderMan]], called REYES (for "renders everything you ever saw"), and developed several critical technologies for CG — including [[particle effects]] and various animation tools.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Everything You Ever Saw {{!}} Computer Graphics World|url=https://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2009/Volume-32-Issue-2-Feb-2009-/Everything-You-Ever-Saw.aspx|date=February 2009|access-date=2022-02-13|volume=32|website=www.cgw.com|archive-date=September 23, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230923142535/https://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2009/Volume-32-Issue-2-Feb-2009-/Everything-You-Ever-Saw.aspx|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[John Lasseter]] was hired to the Lucasfilm team for a week in late 1983 with the title "interface designer"; he animated the short film ''[[The Adventures of André & Wally B.]]''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://money.cnn.com/2006/05/15/magazines/fortune/pixar_futureof_fortune_052906/index.htm|title=What will Pixar's John Lasseter do at Disney – May. 17, 2006|website=archive.fortune.com|access-date=September 29, 2019|archive-date=September 29, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190929035659/https://archive.fortune.com/2006/05/15/magazines/fortune/pixar_futureof_fortune_052906/index.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> In the next few years, a designer suggested naming a new digital compositing computer the "Picture Maker". Smith suggested that the laser-based device have a catchier name, and came up with "Pixer", which after a meeting was changed to "Pixar".<ref>{{cite book |last=Jones |first=Brian Jay |title=George Lucas: A Life |date=2016 |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |location=New York City |isbn=978-0-316-25744-2 |pages=289–90}}</ref> According to [[Michael Rubin (author)|Michael Rubin]], the author of ''Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution'', Smith and three other employees came up with the name during a restaurant visit in 1981, but when interviewing them he got four different versions about the origin of the name.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://neomodern.medium.com/the-birth-of-pixar-4f125824b1c2 |title=The Birth of Pixar – M. H. Rubin – Medium |date=November 26, 2020 |access-date=September 9, 2023 |archive-date=September 23, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230923142536/https://neomodern.medium.com/the-birth-of-pixar-4f125824b1c2 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1982, the Pixar team began working on special-effects film sequences with [[Industrial Light & Magic]]. After years of research, and key milestones such as the Genesis Effect in ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan]]'' and the Stained Glass Knight in ''[[Young Sherlock Holmes]]'',<ref name="Pixar story" /> the group, which then numbered 40 individuals, was spun out as a corporation in February 1986 by Catmull and Smith. Among the 38 remaining employees were Malcolm Blanchard, David DiFrancesco, [[Ralph Guggenheim]], and Bill Reeves, who had been part of the team since the days of NYIT. [[Tom Duff]], also an NYIT member, would later join Pixar after its formation.<ref name="Pixar Founding Documents" /> With Lucas's 1983 divorce, which coincided with the sudden dropoff in revenues from ''[[Star Wars]]'' licenses following the release of ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'', they knew he would most likely sell the whole Graphics Group. Worried that the employees would be lost to them if that happened, which would prevent the creation of the first computer-animated movie, they concluded that the best way to keep the team together was to turn the group into an independent company. But [[Moore's Law]] also suggested that sufficient computing power for the first film was still some years away, and they needed to focus on a proper product until then. Eventually, they decided they should be a hardware company in the meantime, with their [[Pixar Image Computer]] as the core product, a system primarily sold to governmental, scientific, and medical markets.<ref name="Pixar Founding Documents" /><ref name="The Story Behind Pixar" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://alvyray.com/Pixar/PixarMyth3.htm|title=Alvy Pixar Myth 3|publisher=alvyray.com|access-date=December 25, 2015|archive-date=October 22, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151022164533/http://www.alvyray.com/Pixar/PixarMyth3.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> They also used [[Silicon Graphics|SGI]] computers.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2000-07-28|title=Pixar Selects Silicon Graphics Octane2 Workstations|url=https://www.hpcwire.com/2000/07/28/pixar-selects-silicon-graphics-octane2-workstations/|access-date=2021-11-11|website=HPCwire|language=en-US|archive-date=September 23, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230923142540/https://www.hpcwire.com/2000/07/28/pixar-selects-silicon-graphics-octane2-workstations/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1983, [[Nolan Bushnell]] founded a new computer-guided animation studio called Kadabrascope as a subsidiary of his [[Chuck E. Cheese's]] Pizza Time Theatres company (PTT), which was founded in 1977. Only one major project was made out of the new studio, an animated Christmas special for [[NBC]] starring Chuck E. Cheese and other PTT mascots; known as "Chuck E. Cheese: The Christmas That Almost Wasn't". The animation movement would be made using [[inbetweening|tweening]] instead of traditional cel animation. After the [[video game crash of 1983]], Bushnell started selling some subsidiaries of PTT to keep the business afloat. [[Sente Technologies]] (another division, was founded to have games distributed in PTT stores) was sold to [[Bally Technologies|Bally Games]] and Kadabrascope was sold to Lucasfilm. The Kadabrascope assets were combined with the Computer Division of Lucasfilm.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.inc.com/magazine/19841001/136.html|title=When The Magic Goes|magazine=Inc.|date=October 1, 1984|last=Coll|first=Steve|access-date=March 5, 2017|archive-date=June 30, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170630201439/https://www.inc.com/magazine/19841001/136.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Coincidentally, one of [[Steve Jobs]]'s first jobs was under Bushnell in 1973 as a technician at his other company [[Atari]], which Bushnell sold to [[Warner Communications]] in 1976 to focus on PTT.<ref name="intoday1">{{cite magazine|url=http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/india-visit-gave-a-vision-to-steve-jobs/1/154785.html |title=An exclusive interview with Daniel Kottke |magazine=India Today |date=September 13, 2011 |access-date=October 27, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120506051820/http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/india-visit-gave-a-vision-to-steve-jobs/1/154785.html |archive-date=May 6, 2012 |url-status=live  }}</ref> PTT would later go bankrupt in 1984 and be acquired by [[ShowBiz Pizza Place]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Oates|first=Sarah|date=1985-07-15|title=Chuck E. Cheese Gets New Lease on Life|language=en-US|newspaper=Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1985/07/15/chuck-e-cheese-gets-new-lease-on-life/e8d2c211-98fd-4ff8-b086-624a21a964cb/|access-date=2022-01-01|issn=0190-8286|archive-date=March 27, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210327025434/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1985/07/15/chuck-e-cheese-gets-new-lease-on-life/e8d2c211-98fd-4ff8-b086-624a21a964cb/|url-status=live}}</ref>