I sat down and watched TRON this evening, and I felt compelled to make a Tron-based image. Later, while making today’s image, I watched the following documentary on the making of the film.
I found the stories in that video simultaneously stupefying, humbling, and motivating. I’m amazed by the way they handled the tedious manual “tweening” that was described in the video, and all of the hand-programmed data points that they had to calculate and enter. I was humbled by the intellectual giants that these guys were at the time. At the same time, I was motivated to get out there and hustle. If these guys could pull that film together with all of their ridiculous constraints, I have absolutely no excuse for complacency.
I always enjoy watching videos like this. The best description that I can provide for the feeling it creates is “nostalgia for things I’ve never seen.” I understand the need to be aware of the 6 numbers that describe a 3D model’s position: X axis, Y axis, Z axis, Z rotation (roll), X rotation (pitch), and Y rotation (yaw). Though I’ve never had to deal with them outside of a graphical environment, I can appreciate the amount of work these guys had to do to make it happen.
This is TRON’s legacy. The work that those animators put into that film was the groundwork for the 3D animation tools we have today.