State of computer graphics when Amiga was born...

[eXeler0]

Its fun to look back at these things..
Below is a link to a "Computer Chronicles" episode from 1984 about "Computer Graphics".
Now, 1984 was the year the first Amiga prtotypes were shown at CES and so on.. This is the world they were entering..

Youtube link:

[ Show youtube player ]

[Foebane]

There was this early CGI short, which will probably induce nightmares, even though the subject matter is so ordinary:

[ Show youtube player ]

And if I remember, the Quantel Paintbox was the industry version of DPaint.

[Pyromania]

Thanx for the links guys. Fun to watch, it just goes to show how far ahead and affordable the Amiga was when it came out.

[Leffmann]

VintageCG on YouTube has lots of early 80's CGI:
https://www.youtube.com/user/VintageCG/videos

Does anyone remember that 3D cartoon short with the robotic spider that had an M68000 chip on his back? I kept thinking they must have been using Amigas for their work.

[roondar]

I didn't know it back in the 1980's and 1990's, but there actually were surprising number of graphics solutions which offered high numbers of colours on screen or (pseudo) high/true colour. There were even PC ISA cards to do so back in 1984 (such as the Number Nine Revolution 512x8 and 512x32 as seen here http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/...echnology-corp).

Now these were not aimed at the consumer market and certainly wouldn't have been useful for games, so it's understandable no one remembers them, but they did exist.

Was a surprise to me when I found out, I used to think that higher colour options only became available for PC a lot later.

I guess it's fair to say then that the Amiga made these things affordable and offered a consumer friendly version of graphics abilities that used to be limited to the professional market. Not to mention it was most likely better at animation & moving graphics about than systems based on these cards.

[idrougge]

Yes, you could say that high-colour graphics cards for the PC in those days were like Amiga graphics cards before the arrival of CyberGraphX.

[Marcuz]

I wonder whether keynotes and new hardware presentations from 2018 (focusing on graphic new and cool features) will look this clunky, ancient and naive, yet beautifully innocent in 34 years.

[eXeler0]

There was definitely some advanced stuff available from a purely technological perspective, but the main difference was that this was usually custom hardware carrying an astronomical price tag.
For example, the Quantel Paint Box was really advanced and way, way, waaay beyond anything available for consumers in 1984, but the price (adjusted for inflation) was in the $300,000 ballpark.

What the Amiga did was to raise the consumer level tech to a new standard.

[eXeler0]

Btw,
here's another goodie..
Computer Chronicles take a look at the Amiga 1000 and Atari 520

Link:
[ Show youtube player ]

[TurboCrash]

The first 3D animated graphics I remember seeing was on Dire straits' Money for Nothing videoclip


and a couple of evil robots in Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Universe



Not counting Max headroom because it's a mockup of 3D, not actual CGI. Like Carpenter's "Escape from NY" intro that looks 3D but it's a miniature model of the city with glowing tape on the edges

[roondar]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

There was definitely some advanced stuff available from a purely technological perspective, but the main difference was that this was usually custom hardware carrying an astronomical price tag.
For example, the Quantel Paint Box was really advanced and way, way, waaay beyond anything available for consumers in 1984, but the price (adjusted for inflation) was in the $300,000 ballpark.

This is true, but the ISA cards I referred to didn't cost anywhere near that. The Number Nine Revolution series was a bunch of PC ISA cards that came out between 1983 and 1984, costing between $1995 and $2995 and they had high colour capabilities.

For instance, the Revolution 512x32 could display a 512x480 resolution with 245760 colours on screen out of 16 million. This was in 1984.

Obviously out of the price range of consumers and AFAIK these cards couldn't do animation at all well, but they were available and cheaper than I thought they were.

What the Amiga did was to raise the consumer level tech to a new standard.

For sure, I would never say anything different. It was also much more capable in the animation department than specialized ISA cards were.

[Zak]

Kraftwerk Musique Non Stop 1986

that was impressive to me back then

[ Show youtube player ]

[eXeler0]

This is 1987 and the Mac II was expensive as hell, but it did come with "AGA" level capability in terms of still Graphics.. Meaning it could display 256 colors from a 24-bit palette at High Res (and high refresh rate)
Heres a clip (again from Computer Chronicles, where they look at an fully upgraded Mac II):

[ Show youtube player ]

If "start time" doesnt work properly in YouTube, the Mac II section starts at 10min 30 sec

The fully upgraded model retailed for about $6500 in 1987 which translates to about $14,500 in 2018.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by TurboCrash

Not counting Max headroom because it's a mockup of 3D, not actual CGI.

I actually thought that Max Headroom was real CGI, until I saw the UK pilot for the show involving Edison Carter (the reporter who, through some advanced electronic copying to a custom simulation machine, became Max Headroom) was played by a real person, Matt Frewer. I suggest checking it out, it's on YouTube and it's called Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by TurboCrash

and a couple of evil robots in Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Universe

Man, I adore this series as a kid.
They even had a certain character development at that Eagle robot (and none for the other robot)
Those graphics were amazing for me at the time.

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

that Eagle robot (and none for the other robot)

Soaron and Blastarr.

The series is "available" online.

Ofc, you need to look for the title as quoted by TurboCrash but replace Universe by Future. (Or maybe try to look for He-man and the masters of the future).

Very good show. Quite dark for a kid show, but I enjoyed that. It probably shaped my taste in terms of sci-fi when I grew up.

[d4rk3lf]

Yeah Soaron (I wonder if name is inspired by Sauron from LOTR).
That eagle robot was very funny and charismatic.

I suppose you're right about this show being quite a dark for a kids show, but that made it more awesome. I guess it shaped my taste as well, because I could never watch those Power Ranger stuff. Looked so cheesy compared to this.

Btw, I just did a little bit of research, and it seems they announced reboot for Captain Power (it's "new" name is: Phoenix Rising) at 2016. It even have a teaser trailer.
But nothing else, I could find.

[saimon69]

Among CGI video clips this one was around too at the time:
[ Show youtube player ]

[Mark Wright]

I posted this a while ago as the narrative reminded me of Amiga megademos - description of forthcoming effect followed by showing off the effect and then moving on.

Except it was made in 1985 on horrendously expensive 1983 technology. This was the broadcast standard at the time.

Hope you find it as fascinating as I do :-)

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[Mark Wright]

There are lots of TV presentation CGI animations of the mid 1980s from Europe that most likely gave inspiration to demo coders.

Classic from TF1 France at closedown/fermeture... hardly anyone watching, must have cost a fortune (1986)

[ Show youtube player ]