Page 58 - Star Wars Insider #175

GRAPHIC DISPLAYS

Long before the Special Editions, A New Hope to look digital, many talents included creating

and Return of the Jedi boasted cutting-edge but in reality computer-animated films in the
computer graphics to show the 3D plans of the hand drawn and Chemistry Department’s Circle
Graphics Habitat.
painted. But for
Death Star and other key schematics. These were the key scene
augmented throughout the original trilogy by more in the Yavin 4 GONE TO GRASS
traditional animations that blended seamlessly briefi ng room— Cuba signed a contract to
where General
supply the Death Star graphics
with the high-tech setting as on-screen displays and Dodonna briefs in February 1976 and, on the
readouts. Insider salutes the artists responsible. the rebel pilots understanding that the fi nished
on the fatal fl aw animation would be ready
in the Death Star for May, enlisted the aid of
W ORDS B Y JON D. WITMER
design—George University of Illinois students
Lucas was including programmers T.J.
or a story determined that the graphics O’Donnell and Tom Chomica
set a long seen on Dodonna’s big screen in order to meet the deadline.
F time ago, the should be suitably state-of- sequence was GRASS—the
The key to realizing the
original Star
the-art.
Wars trilogy It fell to Star Wars sound Graphics Symbiosis System
demanded an designer Ben Burtt and optical programming language
awful lot of futuristic thinking. photographer Robert Blalack developed by Thomas A.

Much has been written to find someone suitably DeFanti in 1974. A relatively
about Industrial Light & Magic’s versed in the then-obscure straightforward tool for
wizardry with miniature world of computer graphics animating 2D objects using
photography and compositing, to create the animated Death scaling, rotation, and color
which pushed visual effects Star sequence, and they changing, GRASS was
to heights not matched until eventually fell upon Larry Cuba. augmented by Cuba to depict
the digital revolution of the A research associate in the Art 3D objects.
late 1990s. But for all Department at the University “I visualized [the animation]
its cutting-edge analog of Illinois in Chicago, Cuba’s as being one continuous shot,”
credentials, Star Wars also
stepped into the digital world
from the very beginning—using “CUBA SET ABOUT BUILDING
advanced computer graphics
as early as 1976. HIS TRENCH ANIMATION BY
For most of A New Hope,
the visuals displayed on tactical ‘TRACING’ THE PHOTOGRAPHS
readouts and the like were
traditional effects, designed GIVEN TO HIM BY BEN BURTT...”

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