Animation, Art, and Other Shiny Things
This video, Transformers, is a good example of how far computer animation had advanced in the two short years between The Mind’s Eye videos (1990) and this compilation.
Brave New World is the fourth installment of Beyond the Mind’s Eye and, besides showing off some good video processing power with the geometric transformations, gives us a bit of a virtual tour through a computer. This is 1992, remember, and the Pentium CPU wasn’t released until the following year, so it’s likely patterned on a 486 mainboard – and well patterned I might say, the board is quite recognizable to an old hardware geek like me.
Whatever your thinking on Michael Jackson, he was a major talent. When this video debuted in 1990 I was blown away. Detailed and complex backgrounds, mixed animation styles, catchy tune. Directed by Jim Blashfield it won the Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video in 1990.
In 2001 Animusic, founded by Wayne Lytle, released it’s first compilation DVD. This was a refinement of the work we saw in More Bells and Whistles. What Mr Lytle had done was flip animation on it’s head by creating computer models then using music input (MIDI) to control them. Basically, he made the instruments and the music played them.
More Bells and Whistles from the early computer animation video Imaginaria. Created in 1990, the animation was one of Wayne Lytle‘s first CG music videos. Look familiar?
Part two, Panspermia, is based on a 5th century BC Greek idea that life exists throughout the universe and is spread by meteors, comets, asteroids, and the like. (not to be confused with exogenesis which says life on earth was transferred from somewhere else and could care less whether there’s life elsewhere. geocentric snobbery.)
Beyond the Mind’s Eye is the 1992 follow up to The Mind’s Eye and, true to Moore’s Law, the animation has improved in step with the increase in computing power. The music is done by Jan Hammer (yes, he did miami vice too, but don’t hold it against him) and tracks better than parts of the first series.
So, let’s start at the beginning with Virtual Reality…
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The Ruffled Crow 