Wavefront Technologies
Encyclopedia
Wavefront Technologies was a computer graphics
company that developed and sold animation
software used in Hollywood
motion pictures
and other industries. It was founded in 1984, in Santa Barbara, California
, by Bill Kovacs
, Larry Barels, Mark Sylvester. They started the company to produce computer graphics for movies and television commercials, and to market their own software, as there were no off-the-shelf computer animation tools available at the time. In 1995, Wavefront Technologies was purchased by Silicon Graphics
and merged with Alias Research
to form Alias|Wavefront.
, for the television program Knight Rider. Further early customers included NBC
, Electronic Arts
, and NASA
.
Some of Wavefront's early animation software was created by Bill Kovacs
, Jim Keating, and John Grower
, after they left Robert Abel and Associates
. Roy A. Hall, and others after him, developed the company's flagship product, the Wavefront Advanced Visualizer
.
In 1988, Wavefront released the Personal Visualizer, a desktop workstation
interface to their high-end rendering software. As with Wavefront's other software, it was developed for Silicon Graphics
computers, but it was later ported to Sun
, IBM
, Hewlett-Packard
, Tektronix
, DEC
and Sony
systems. Wavefront purchased Silicon Graphics
first production workstation after their offer to buy the prototype they were given a demo of was knocked back.
In 1989, the company released the Data Visualizer, an early commercial tool for scientific visualization
.
In 1991, Wavefront introduced Composer, an image manipulation product. Composer became a standard for 2D and 3D compositing
and special effects for feature films and television.
In 1992, they released two new animation tools that worked with the Advanced Visualizer. Kinemation
was a character animation system that used inverse kinematics
for natural motion. Dynamation
was a tool for interactively creating and modifying particle system
s for realistic, natural motion. Dream Quest Images
used Dynamation and Composer to create over 90 visual effects sequences for the film Crimson Tide
.
In 1994, the same year that rival Alias made a deal with Nintendo
, Wavefront partnered with Atari
to develop the GameWare game development software. GameWare was the exclusive graphics and animation development system for the Atari Jaguar
.
Wavefront software was used in numerous major films, including Outbreak
, Aladdin, True Lies
and Stargate
. Electronic Arts' Richard Taylor, said that Wavefront's software was "so beautifully designed that even a non-technical person could learn it. Wavefront was a major reason that CG took a leap forward."
, where founder Bill Kovacs had previously worked. The acquisition was partially financed by the Belgian
government, following Wavefront's establishment of an office in Ghent
in association with Barco Graphics of Kortrijk
. Acquiring Abel Image Research increased Wavefront's presence in Japan
. The Japanese conglomerate CSK became a part owner of Wavefront Japan in 1990, helping to expand the company further in Asia.
Wavefront acquired rival computer graphics company Thomson Digital Images of France in 1993. TDI's software featured innovations in NURBS modeling and interactive rendering. The company also had extensive distribution channels in Europe and Asia.
On February 7, 1995, Silicon Graphics
announced that it would purchase Wavefront Technologies and Alias Research
, in a deal totaling approximately $500 million. SGI merged the two companies to create Alias|Wavefront, with the goal of creating more advanced digital tools by combining the companies' strengths and reducing duplication. At the time of the merger, Wavefront had a market value of $119 million, and 1994 revenues of $28 million.
What partially motivated this merger was Microsoft
's purchase of Alias and Wavefront's competitor Softimage
. SGI saw Microsoft's entrance into the market as a threat and merged Alias and Wavefront to compete with Microsoft. Alias is now owned by Autodesk
, as is Softimage as of October 2008.
in 1998, for their work on the Advanced Visualizer.
Jim Hourihan received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement for the creation of Dynamation.
In 2003, Alias|Wavefront was awarded an Academy Award (i.e. an "Oscar") for scientific and technical achievement for their Maya
software, which had been created from a combination of the earlier software of Wavefront, Alias, and TDI.
Computer graphics
Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....
company that developed and sold animation
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
software used in Hollywood
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
motion pictures
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and other industries. It was founded in 1984, in Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, by Bill Kovacs
Bill Kovacs
Bill Kovacs was a pioneer of commercial computer animation technology.-Early career:Kovacs received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Carnegie Mellon University in 1971. He worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill while getting a Masters of Environmental Design from Yale University...
, Larry Barels, Mark Sylvester. They started the company to produce computer graphics for movies and television commercials, and to market their own software, as there were no off-the-shelf computer animation tools available at the time. In 1995, Wavefront Technologies was purchased by Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
and merged with Alias Research
Alias Systems Corporation
Alias Systems Corporation , headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was a software company that produced high-end 3D graphics software. The company was formed in 1995 when Silicon Graphics bought Alias Research, which was founded in 1983, and Wavefront Technologies, founded in 1984, then merged...
to form Alias|Wavefront.
Products
Wavefront developed their first product, Preview, during the first year of business. The company's production department helped tune the software by using it on commercial projects, creating opening graphics for television programs. One of the first customers to purchase Preview was Universal StudiosUniversal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, for the television program Knight Rider. Further early customers included NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
, and NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
.
Some of Wavefront's early animation software was created by Bill Kovacs
Bill Kovacs
Bill Kovacs was a pioneer of commercial computer animation technology.-Early career:Kovacs received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Carnegie Mellon University in 1971. He worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill while getting a Masters of Environmental Design from Yale University...
, Jim Keating, and John Grower
John Grower
John Grower is a special effects pioneer who was the Post-Production Art Director on Tron for Walt Disney Pictures. Later, he was Supervisor of Special Effects at Robert Abel and Associates, and Director of Production at Wavefront Technologies .He then formed his own special effects studio, Santa...
, after they left Robert Abel and Associates
Robert Abel and Associates
Robert Abel and Associates was a pioneering production company specializing in TV commercials made with computer graphics. Robert Abel's company, RA&A was especially known for their art direction and won many Clio Awards....
. Roy A. Hall, and others after him, developed the company's flagship product, the Wavefront Advanced Visualizer
The Advanced Visualizer
The Advanced Visualizer , a 3D graphics software package, was the flagship product of Wavefront Technologies from the 1980s until the 1990s.-History:...
.
In 1988, Wavefront released the Personal Visualizer, a desktop workstation
Workstation
A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...
interface to their high-end rendering software. As with Wavefront's other software, it was developed for Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
computers, but it was later ported to Sun
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, Tektronix
Tektronix
Tektronix, Inc. is an American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. In November 2007, Tektronix became a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation....
, DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
and Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
systems. Wavefront purchased Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
first production workstation after their offer to buy the prototype they were given a demo of was knocked back.
In 1989, the company released the Data Visualizer, an early commercial tool for scientific visualization
Scientific visualization
Scientific visualization is an interdisciplinary branch of science according to Friendly "primarily concerned with the visualization of three-dimensional phenomena , where the emphasis is on realistic renderings of volumes, surfaces, illumination sources, and so forth, perhaps...
.
In 1991, Wavefront introduced Composer, an image manipulation product. Composer became a standard for 2D and 3D compositing
Compositing
Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today,...
and special effects for feature films and television.
In 1992, they released two new animation tools that worked with the Advanced Visualizer. Kinemation
Kinemation
Kinemation was one of the first inverse kinematics packages for 3D computer animation, created for Wavefront Technologies' package The Advanced Visualizer . In 1995, Wired described Kinemation as "a huge breakthrough in motion animation". It was used in the mid-1990s by companies such as...
was a character animation system that used inverse kinematics
Inverse kinematics
Inverse kinematics is a subdomain of kinematics, which is of particular interest in robotics and computer animation. In contrast to forward kinematics, which calculates the position of a body after a series of motions, inverse kinematics calculates the motions necessary to achieve a desired...
for natural motion. Dynamation
Dynamation (software)
Dynamation was a 3D computer graphics particle generator program sold by Wavefront to run on SGI's IRIX operating system. The core software was originally developed by Jim Hourihan while at Santa Barbara Studios, a visual effects company owned by effects pioneer John Grower...
was a tool for interactively creating and modifying particle system
Particle system
The term particle system refers to a computer graphics technique to simulate certain fuzzy phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques...
s for realistic, natural motion. Dream Quest Images
Crimson Tide (film)
The film has uncredited additional writing by Quentin Tarantino, much of it being the pop-culture reference-laden dialogue.The U.S. Navy objected to many of the elements in the script — particularly the aspect of mutiny on board a U.S. naval vessel — and as such, the film was produced...
used Dynamation and Composer to create over 90 visual effects sequences for the film Crimson Tide
Crimson Tide
Crimson Tide may refer to:* Crimson tide, a type of algae also known as Karenia brevis* Alabama Crimson Tide, the sports teams of the University of Alabama* Crimson Tide , a 1995 American thriller...
.
In 1994, the same year that rival Alias made a deal with Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
, Wavefront partnered with Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
to develop the GameWare game development software. GameWare was the exclusive graphics and animation development system for the Atari Jaguar
Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar is a video game console that was released by Atari Corporation in 1993. It was the last to be marketed under the Atari brand until the release of the Atari Flashback in 2004. It was designed to surpass the Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Panasonic...
.
Wavefront software was used in numerous major films, including Outbreak
Outbreak (film)
Outbreak is a 1995 American disaster film starring Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacey. The film was directed by Wolfgang Petersen. In addition, Outbreak features Cuba Gooding, Jr., Donald Sutherland, and Patrick Dempsey....
, Aladdin, True Lies
True Lies
True Lies is a 1994 American action-comedy film directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Tia Carrere, Charlton Heston, and Art Malik. Eliza Dushku also appears in the film in one of her first major film roles...
and Stargate
Stargate (film)
Stargate is a 1994 American adventure-military science fiction film released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Carolco Pictures. Created by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, the film is the first release in the Stargate franchise...
. Electronic Arts' Richard Taylor, said that Wavefront's software was "so beautifully designed that even a non-technical person could learn it. Wavefront was a major reason that CG took a leap forward."
Acquisitions and mergers
Wavefront was involved in several mergers of major computer graphics software companies through the 1980s and 1990s. In 1988, Wavefront acquired Abel Image Research, a division of Robert Abel and AssociatesRobert Abel and Associates
Robert Abel and Associates was a pioneering production company specializing in TV commercials made with computer graphics. Robert Abel's company, RA&A was especially known for their art direction and won many Clio Awards....
, where founder Bill Kovacs had previously worked. The acquisition was partially financed by the Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
government, following Wavefront's establishment of an office in Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
in association with Barco Graphics of Kortrijk
Kortrijk
Kortrijk ; , ; ) is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province West Flanders...
. Acquiring Abel Image Research increased Wavefront's presence in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. The Japanese conglomerate CSK became a part owner of Wavefront Japan in 1990, helping to expand the company further in Asia.
Wavefront acquired rival computer graphics company Thomson Digital Images of France in 1993. TDI's software featured innovations in NURBS modeling and interactive rendering. The company also had extensive distribution channels in Europe and Asia.
On February 7, 1995, Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
announced that it would purchase Wavefront Technologies and Alias Research
Alias Systems Corporation
Alias Systems Corporation , headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was a software company that produced high-end 3D graphics software. The company was formed in 1995 when Silicon Graphics bought Alias Research, which was founded in 1983, and Wavefront Technologies, founded in 1984, then merged...
, in a deal totaling approximately $500 million. SGI merged the two companies to create Alias|Wavefront, with the goal of creating more advanced digital tools by combining the companies' strengths and reducing duplication. At the time of the merger, Wavefront had a market value of $119 million, and 1994 revenues of $28 million.
What partially motivated this merger was Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's purchase of Alias and Wavefront's competitor Softimage
Softimage
Softimage, Co. was a company located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that produced 3D animation software. Their flagship products, Softimage 3D and Softimage XSI, are used in the creation of computer animation for films, television advertisement, and video games...
. SGI saw Microsoft's entrance into the market as a threat and merged Alias and Wavefront to compete with Microsoft. Alias is now owned by Autodesk
Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that focuses on 3D design software for use in the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media and entertainment industries. The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a coauthor of the first versions of the company's...
, as is Softimage as of October 2008.
Academy Awards ("Oscars")
Bill Kovacs and Roy Hall received a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award (i.e. an "Oscar") from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
in 1998, for their work on the Advanced Visualizer.
Jim Hourihan received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement for the creation of Dynamation.
In 2003, Alias|Wavefront was awarded an Academy Award (i.e. an "Oscar") for scientific and technical achievement for their Maya
Maya (software)
Autodesk Maya , commonly shortened to Maya, is 3D computer graphics software that runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux, originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation and currently owned and developed by Autodesk, Inc. It is used to create interactive 3D applications, including video...
software, which had been created from a combination of the earlier software of Wavefront, Alias, and TDI.