I Was a Teenage (well, 22 yr old) Model for a Lamp

In which I jump over a trash can. We did a lot of reference footage, back in the day. Here, specifically, in the mid 1980s, we wanted some reference for Luxo, Jr. So, out to the parking lot… Read More

Hayao Miyazaki gave me this Cat Bus. No you can’t have it.

Hayao Miyazaki Cat Bus from those movies of his

Back in the late 80s, Hayao Miyazaki came to visit Pixar. He brought gifts. He had something for everyone, he gave the animation group a Seiko Talking Pyramid Clock. Craig Good and I spent the afternoon trying to… Read More

David Bowie Wants Ideas

I grew up just down river from Ann Magnuson, one half of Bongwater. They informed the world of David’s needs in this wonderful song. In between leaving Pixar and starting back to grad school, I connected with then-former… Read More

Stolen Valor

a medal from Bausch and Lomb, circa 1982

I owe Bausch & Lomb an explanation. In high school, I convinced my Chemistry teacher that my time for that class was better spent at the local community college (Go Flood Wall Tech … Steamers?) learning Calculus, since… Read More

Pixar Retirement Keyboard

An example of the clash between Caps Lock and 40+ years of emacs motor control. When I ‘retired’ from Pixar in 1992 to go back to grad school, my friends got me a (digital) gold watch. Neftali “El… Read More

Turdpaint

In my computer graphics youth, everyone wrote two programs – a 2D paint program and a 3D renderer. Such was the curriculum of the time. Ed Tripp taught CIS 781-2-3, a three quarter sequence that took you from… Read More

Oh the things you’ll find…

I’m cleaning up a bunch of archived files. While I was in grad school, after Pixar, I did a little bit of consulting to make ends meet. One of the more fun things that I did was write… Read More

MacRenderMan

Pixar MacRenderMan floppy disk

Some historical floppy disk fun from old Pixar days. When Pixar decided to sell RenderMan to the public we had to come up with a good name (It was REYES, Renders Everything You’ve Ever Saw / Seen). You… Read More

On Talks and Slides

Some history of style. Once upon a time, Ed Tufte called me a “sanctimonious assohole”. I suggested that he up the dosage of his medications and stopped recommending his books to my students and colleagues. But — The… Read More

The PICS 2000

The Philips PICS 2000 imaging workstation. Developed at Pixar in 1987.

A medical imaging workstation – the beginning of volume imaging When I got my interview at Pixar, I was at Ohio State working on volumetric rendering of CT and MR images. There are a few callbacks to that… Read More