"3D computer animation is the most revolutionary development in feature films since the introduction of color."

This is a bold statement made by Peter Weishar, author of The Art of Computer Animation.
In a book put out by Blue Sky Studios, he explains the process of creating scenes in a computer animated film. The book features the films Ice Age and Bunny. This is the opening line of the book, and I was so captivated by it that I wanted to explore the beginings of digital animation. When live action films were finally realized in color, animation was still in its early stages, and now years later, a new significant development has occured in the film industry. It started in the 60s with the development of Sketchpad, progressed in the 70s with the first CGI convention, and developed even further in the 80s when George Lucas began recruiting CGI specialists in order to create a computer animation section within his company Lucasfilm. Eventually some members of that team left to create Pixar and released the first full length computer animated film Toy Story in 1995. Such rapid growth has occured in the last fifty years that it is virtually impossible to guess where this industry will be at in five years. It seems like it whould be such a difficult field to get into since the technology keeps expanding so rapidly. I am interested in learining more about some of these computer programs, especially Renderman which was developed by Pixar, and is apparently the most important and influention computer animation program to date. If it is not being used on a project, another program based off it will be.