The Mind's Eye (1990) Odyssey productions

The Mind's Eye: A Computer Animation Odyssey released in 1990 by Odyssey Productions and Miramar Productions on VHS (this is a medievalish plastic film type of recording medium somewhat akin to parchment and recorded by nerds (a modern sect of monks)) and laserdisc which is the T-Rex ancestor to modern cds and dvds.  Seriously, they were the size of a small house and ancient.  I actually watched this movie on a friend's laserdisc player (it came with the player) because he wanted to show off the "intense resolution of his laserdisc player" and actual laserdisc version of movies were insanely expensive.

I remember being not overly impressed, and thinking to myself that computer generated graphics were so inferior to other types that there would be no way this would ever catch on.  In my defense technology greatly improved and the creators greatly improved their skill sets as time went on. I would imagine most people watching this today would be similarly unimpressed but keep in mind this was created a quarter of a century ago. So, let's compare this with movies that were released in 1990, Tremors (the FIRST one), Total Recall (the first one with Arnold Swarzenegger), Edward Scissorhands and Dances with Wolves.  Now that should put things into perspective. Maya would be released for another 8 years, 3DS Max was released THAT year, 1990. So most of the graphics if not all were created with out using the two most used software platforms utilized by the industry to create and render 3D graphics.

Now taking into account what we can produce currently with modern software, what they did create WITHOUT it is fairly impressive. Their efforts in creating this demo reels and segments that would then be arranged by Odyssey into this movie most likely had an impact into the need and creation of the software we rely on today.


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