A brief history of computer animation.

1. Computer Animation

2. Hummingbird 1967
A ten minute computer animated
film by Charles Csuri and James
Shaffer. Awarded a prize at the 4th
International Experimental Film
Competition, Brussels, Belgium,
1967 and in the collection of The
Museum of Modern Art, New York
City.
The subject was a line drawing of a
hummingbird for which a sequence
of movements appropriate to the
bird were programmed. Over
30,000 images comprising some 25
motion sequences were generated
by the computer

3. Kitty 1968
A group of Russian
mathematicians and
physicists headed by N.
Konstantinov created a
mathematical model of a
moving cat.
A program was made for the
computer BESM-4. The
computer then printed
hundreds of frames to be
later converted to film

4. Metadata 1971
An experimental 2D
animated short by Peter
Foldes drawn on a data
tablet, who used the
world's first key frame
animation software,
invented by Nestor
Burtnyk and Marceli
Wein.

5. A Computer Animated Hand 1972
Produced by Ed Catmull, the short demonstrates
a computer animated hand, as well as human
faces. The film was inducted into the National
Film Registry in 2011.

6. Westworld 1973
First use of 2D computer animation in a
significant entertainment feature film. The point
of view of Yul Brynner's gunslinger was achieved
with raster graphics.

7. Futureworld 1976
First use of 3D computer graphics for animated
hand and face. Used 2D digital compositing to
materialize characters over a background

8. Starwars 1977
Used an animated 3D wire-frame graphic for the
trench run briefing sequence.

9. Superman 1978
First film with a computer-generated title
sequence

10. Looker 1981
First CGI human character, Cindy. Also, first use
of 3D shaded CGI.

11. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 1982
"Genesis Effect", first use of fractal-generated
landscape in a film.

12. Tron 1983
First extensive use (15 min. fully computer
generated) of 3D CGI including the famous Light
Cycle sequence.[17] Also includes very early
facial animation.

13. The Last Starfighter 1984
Uses CGI for all spaceship shots, replacing
traditional models. First use of 'integrated CGI'
where the effects are supposed to represent real
world objects

14. Dire Straits - Money for Nothing 1985
The first computer-generated music video.

15. Willow 1988
First photorealistic use of morphing effect in a
feature film.

16. Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991
First realistic human movements on a CGI
character. The first partially computer-generated
main character and the first blockbuster movie
to feature multiple morphing effects. First use of
a personal computer to create major movie 3D
effects.

17. Toy Story 1995
First CGI feature-length animation.