"Red's Dream" is the latest computer-animated film produced by Pixar's Animation Production group. The film is directed by John Lasseter.

"Red's Dream" is the latest computer-animated film produced by Pixar's Animation Production group. The film reveals what philosophers and poets have long wondered: What do unicycles dream about on rainy nights? Red, relegated to the discount section of a big-city bicycle shop, dreams of running off to the circus where, while assisting Lumpy the clown, the unicycle saves the show.

The film is directed by John Lasseter, with technical direction by Eben Ostby, William Reeves, and H.B. Siegel. Pixar's last production, "Luxo jr.," received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for Best Animated Short Film, as well as awards at several U. S. and international film festivals. "Red's Dream", like its predecessor demonstrates computer animation's. The film premiered at the July, 1987 SIGGRAPH (ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics) convention in Anaheim, California.

"Red's Dream" includes several technical achievements in computer animation. Almost half of the film was rendered using the Pixar Image Computer, manufactured and marketed by Pixar. Using the ChapReyes image synthesis software, the Image Computer rendered frames of the film's dream sequence in 8 - 10 minutes. By comparison, rendering these frames on a typical minicomputer would consume roughly three hours of computation per frame, or almost nine months of computer time for the entire sequence.

Several scenes were rendered with procedural texturing techniques, self-shadowing, and motion blur and, in some cases, particle systems. They were computed on two Computer Consoles Power 6/32 processors. Animation for "Red's Dream" was created using a Power 6/32 computer and an Evans & Sutherland PS350 running Pixar's own key frame animation system supplemented by procedural animation software.

Examples from the film "Red's Dream", which represent some of Pixar's technology in generating realistic imagery.

The bicycle shop image involves over 10.000 modeling primitives, such as spokes and hubs, which are diced into 30 million surface elements. In addition, the scene includes shadows, self-shadowing, and a variety of special light sources. Modeling was done using constructive solid geometry and boundary representations, with certain objects, such as the wheels, procedurally defined. Surface characteristics, which are also procedurally defined, involved 15MB of texture data. The tire treads, for example, are modeled with procedural displacement maps.

The street scene at the beginning of the film involves perhaps half as much geometry, but twice as much texture information; and it includes rain and reflections off rippling puddles. The variety, complexity, and sheer volume of the elements contributing to these entirely computer generated images points up the requirements of photo realism, requirements that are not considered in the current graphics standards. Pixar's Animation Production group creates animation for feature-length films employing the same techniques used in "Red's Dream". Previous animation was included in "Young Sherlock Holmes" "Return of the Jedi" and "Star Trek II".

John Lasseter: director and animator
Eben Ostby, William Reeves, H.B. Siegel: Tech. Directors
Craig Good: Post-production supervisor

John Lasseter, born 1957 in Los Angeles, is a typical representative of the first generation of youngsters who were raised on TV. After a training in classical animation at the renowned California Institute of the Arts he started his carreer at the age of barely 20 at Walt Disney's as animation designer. There John Lasseter – who cooperated among others in the animated cartoons “The Fox and the Hound” and “Mickey's Christmas Carol” – was first introduced to Computer Animation, above all when working at “Wild Things Test” and “Tron”. “Wlld Things Test” was the first attempt to combine hand-animated character animation with computer-generated background. “Tron” on the other hand found its place in the history of film as the first digital fiction movie to have human actors play in a computer generated scenery. From Walt Disney Productions, John Lasseter moved to Lucasfilm's Computer Division in 1984, where he designed and animated among others the famous “glass man” – a computer generated stained glass figure for Spielberg's “Young Sherlock Holmes”. The Computer Division of Lucasfilm soon became the independent enterprise Pixar that in a very short time moved up to the worlds top elite with its graphics software developments.
For Pixar, John created in 1985 “The Adventures of André and Wally B.” and in 1986 “Luxo jr.” which was the first computer animation nominated for the Short Films Academy Award and for which he was awarded the Golden Nica of the first Prix Ars Electronica in 1987.In 1987, “Red's Dream” was created, and since its premiere at 1987's SIGGRAPH the animation won the following prizes and awards: The Cine Golden Eagle of the Council of International Non-Theatrical Events, Washington D.C., the English Press Award for Best Film, the Best State of the Art Film award at Computer Graphics 87, Wembley, England; the first prize in the Computer Generated Imagery category at San Francisco International Film Festival 88; the first prize in Theatrical Motion Picture Computer Graphics at National Computer Graphics Association Film & Video Competition and the first prize in the Realism Category at Imagina 88 in Monte Carlo. In 1988 John Lasseter – who is considered the world's best computer animator at present – is for the second time awarded the Golden Nica of Prix Ars Electronica, now for “Red's Dream” “Red's Dream” was produced by John Lasseter as director and animator in cooperation with the Pixar-technicians' teams William T. Reeves, Eben Ostby and H.B. Siegel.


Wllliam T. Reeves, mathematician and informatician, joined Lucasfilm's Computer Division in 1980, where he exclusively devoted himself to graphics from 1982 onward. From 1982 to 86 he invented a new image synthesis technique (particle System), enabling the computer generation of images and effects so complex and detailed as fire, fireworks, trees, grass and flowers. In 1986, Bill Reeves joined Pixar as head of their research and development department, where he recently codeveloped a new image synthesis technique that realistically models ocean waves.

Eben Ostby joined Lucasfilm in 1983 and moved to Pixar in 1986. He is working at the design and implementation of modelling, rendering and animation systems that are used in many of Pixar's productions. Eben Ostby directed and animated the computer animated short film “Beach Chair”.

H.B. Siegel oined the Lucasfllm computer graphics team, the latter Pixar, in 1984. He is working as a member of the graphics research and development group at various projects in systems design, rendering and image processing areas. His main interests are graphics, artificial intelligence, and animation, his preferred hobbies are flying airplanes and playing the piano.