Xref: utzoo rec.arts.startrek:14685 comp.graphics:3210
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!epicb!david
From: david@epicb.UUCP (David P. Cook)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek,comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Star Trek II graphics: "The Genesis Effect"
Keywords: star trek graphics genesis
Message-ID: <523@epicb.UUCP>
Date: 19 Sep 88 14:10:26 GMT
References: <277@pte.UUCP>
Reply-To: david@epicb.UUCP (David P. Cook)
Organization: Truevision Inc., Indianapolis, IN
Lines: 33

In article <277@pte.UUCP> car@pte.UUCP (Chris Rende) writes:
>The cover of the book "The Unix Operating System" by Kaare Christian features
>a scenic view of a lake and some mountains. The book describes picture as
>"a single frame of a one-minute sequence known as the _Genesis Effect_, which
>was created in 1982 for the motion picture _Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan_".
>The book goes on to explain that the computer group at Lucasfilm used computer
>graphics to create the one-minute 1620 frame sequence. No artwork or physical
>models were used.
>
>And of course what operating system was used? UNIX. It took up to 5 hours and
>50 programs to produce a single frame.

What's your point??? (Pro or Anti UNIX???)  The system used to generate the
Genesis Effect was a novel application of the original particle system
developed by ILM/PIXAR... it is well described in Siggraph liturature.
I doub't UNIX played any part of this footage except to shuttle stuff
back and forth, and generally, to make the process longer than needed...

Somehow, I think this was your point!!!   

The article describing the particle system is fantastic, and filled with
lots of 'goodies'.  Including the method they used by which they could
go generate any frame of the genesis explosion... even though it was 
filled with millions of 'random' particles... they could say... go to
frame 1:00:30 (in time) and the system would automatically generate the
frame exactly... even though the frame was not stored in memory, but
recalculated... incredible... and useful...

-- 
         | David P. Cook            Net:  uunet!epicb!david        |
         | Truevision Inc.  |   "Specialization is for insects"    |
         | Indianapolis, IN |                  -- Timothy Leary    |
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