The Ruffled Crow

The Temple is the last track of The Mind’s Eye, a series of short 3D, computer animated films released in 1990 on VHS videotape. (yeah, almost 30 years ago) It loosely told the tale of Earth, from creation onward. I was completely enthralled with this video and wore out this section of tape a few times.

This track, the whole tape really, marks when I truly came to believe that 3D computer animation had finally matured past a nerdy diversion and into a mainstream entertainment medium. The animation was bleeding-edge for 1990, and the soundtrack was synced well and pretty good all on it’s own.

Sure you still needed top-of-the-line hardware, and probably had to write half your own software, and motion was still rather stiff, and hair?, never mind about hair. But it was getting easier, and cheaper, and more artists were flocking to the medium. The boundaries of worlds were being pushed rather than simply trying to replicate reality. To me, this was the official opening of a new frontier.

There were 3 more collections in The Mind’s Eye series, one released every two years until 1996; Beyond the Mind’s Eye, The Gate to the Mind’s Eye, and Odyssey Into the Mind’s Eye

(You may recognize the surroundings and birds from the second installment, Civilization Rising, (or 03 per the video itself) as the animation between about the 50 second mark to about 1’20” looks to be from just before this video.)