現代三維動畫竟起源於皮克斯的左手

These days we take CGI for granted, with almost every modern movie and video game full of spectacular effects and animation.

現如今，我們認爲電腦三維動畫理所當然，幾乎所有的現代電影和視頻遊戲都蘊含着奇妙的效果和豐富的動畫。

Archive film showing possibly the first example of digital rendering, made by Pixar co-founders Ed Catmull and Fred Parke in 1972, was stumbled upon by the son of Robert Ingebretsen, who also set up the world-famous U.S. studio.

電影資料顯示第一次數字渲染可能出現於1972年，由皮克斯公司的共同創始人艾德?凱特摩和弗雷德?帕克製作。是羅伯特?英格佈雷森的兒子，也就是舉世聞名的美國電影製片廠的建立者偶然發現的。

It has been at the very forefront of 3D animation technology, having produced spectacular films such as Toy Story, The Incredibles and Up, which portray animals and humans in amazing detail.

這一三維動畫技術走在世界前沿，造就了很多讓人眼前一亮的電影，如：《玩具總動員》和《超人特工隊》，這些電影都在細節上很好的刻畫了動物和人物。

Pixar’s first foray into computer graphics was, however, a simple hand. Little did Catmull and Parke realise that their technology would become the foundation for all special effects in huge Hollywood movies and countless video games.

皮克斯公司由一隻簡單的手開始首次涉足電腦繪圖。凱特摩和帕克幾乎沒有意識到這一技術將會奠定衆多好萊塢大片和視頻遊戲特技效果的根基。

Star Wars, Superman and Tron were among the first films to use the technique they invented, while the hand animation itself got a cameo role in 1976’s Futureworld, alongside a computer generated face.

《星球大戰》、《超人》和《電子世界爭霸戰》是第一批運用這一技術的動畫片，然而其實一隻動畫繪製成的手在1976年的《未來世界》就得到一個“配角”角色——出現在由計算機生成的臉旁邊。

Ingebretsen’s son, Robby, found the movie in the form of an 8mm reel of tape while rummaging around in his family’s archives. He then digitised it and spliced it together into a short documentary. First it shows the finished hand rotating in 3D space, then explains how the computer built the image using polygon points placed on Catmull's left hand. He said: “It's really neat.”

英格佈雷森之子羅比在家族檔案中亂翻時發現了這個8毫米長的磁帶軸。接着，他將其數碼化，拼接成一個短小的紀錄片。首先，他顯示了三維空間裏手旋轉的完成，隨後解釋瞭如何用電腦對凱特摩的左手進行多邊形點定位，從而製作圖像。他說：“這真是太棒了！”

Today animators and programmers produce photo-realistic images, but they’re given a helping hand by slightly more powerful computers than were available in 1972. Even super-computers back then only had around 800MB of storage capacity, which even today’s mobile phones surpass.

現在動畫師和圖像程序員可製作相當逼真的圖像，但是他們藉助的是比1972年能使用的功能更加強大的電腦。當時的超級電腦運算速度才只能達到800M，現在的智能手機都比它要強。