ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (02/23/88)
In article <162@laic.UUCP> darin@laic.UUCP (Darin Johnson) writes: >An interesting side note on "Red's Dream" - > >At the latest SIGGRAPH (sorry Uncle Leo, if I get the exact facts wrong) >"Red's Dream" was shown. That night, Leo Schwab, Amiga Hacker, started >using his new copy of VideoScape 3D on his Amiga and "re-created" part >of Red's Dream (albeit, lower resolution, un-raytraced, but NTSC compatible) >overnight. The next day, it was shown at an Amiga booth. Some people >from Pixar (presumably, those who had spent much more than one night >of work) were quite distraught... Leo didn't purposely want to be-little >Pixar or Red's Dream, just to show off the Amiga. Anyway, letter's exchanged >between Pixar and Leo. The concept of a Red Unicycle juggling balls >was "copywritable", so Leo was prohibited from showing his demo. >However, the president of Pixar did agree that a "parody" could not >fall under Copywrite laws. Leo proceeded to create just a parody.. >The parody had a "boing" ball (very unofficial Amiga logo) juggling >three unicycles!! > Well, *he* brought it up, so I may as well tell the whole story and fill in all the holes and misconceptions. The Thursday before SIGGRAPH opened (Tuesday of the next week), I was invited by a Pixar employee and friend of mine (yes, he still works there) to see a pre-screening of their submission to SIGGRAPH, _Red's Dream_. This film asked the burning question, "What do unicycles dream about on rainy nights?" So I saw it, and it was great, and I enjoyed it. After arriving home, the wheels in my head started turning. I knew I was going to SIGGRAPH next week, and I knew Commodore was going to be there, too, showing off the Amiga. I had also been given a copy of VideoScape 3D, a 3D animation package for the Amiga, the day before. [Interesting side-note: I gave Videoscape a bad review in comp.sys.amiga before I started on this project.] The Amiga is the Rodney Dangerfield of computers (it don't get no respect). My thoughts were running along the lines of, "How can I lend instant credibility to this machine, and make people stop and take a good long look at it?" After some more thought, an arc lamp switched on above my head, and I decided to do an animation of a unicycle juggling three balls. So, over the next three and a half days (about 18 hours each), I went to work creating the unicycle, balls, floor, and motion paths. At 2:35 AM Tuesday morning, the day SIGGRAPH began, it was finished. A 96 frame loop of a red unicycle juggling three balls in a yellow circus ring with a red star in the middle, with the camera flying in a 360-degree circle around it. I stared at it for about twenty minutes and flopped into bed. 5:00 the same morning, I woke up, grabbed the disk, and drove to Anaheim with a friend of mine. We got there late Tuesday -- about ten minutes before closing -- so not many people saw it. (Which is probably just as well, since that would have completely scooped Pixar, and pissed even more people off.) The next two days, it was showing in Aegis's corner of the Commodore booth (Aegis Development: the publishers of VideoScape). It had the anticipated effect: people were stopping and looking. This included people from Pixar. It was about this time that I started noticing looks of extreme dismay on the Pixarians' faces. Only now did it occur to me that I had probably hurt an awful lot of feelings, which was never my intention. After arriving home, I sent email to Craig Good (in charge of post- production on _Red's Dream_), explaining my thought processes, the fact that I wasn't out to hurt anyone, and apologizing for any feelings that I may have, in fact, hurt. His response was along the lines of, "That's okay. We were somewhat amused, but we're not angry. No hard feelings." Great, thought I, and relaxed. If you're at all familiar with stuff I've done on the Amiga, you know that virtually everything I do goes into the public domain. I was in the middle of wrapping up some disks of the animation to people who had asked for it at SIGGRAPH, when I got a letter in my mailbox from Craig again, saying, "I just heard a rumor today that your animation may become part of the public domain, via BBS's and such. I certainly hope this isn't the case, as this would be a clear copyright infringement, and could easily put someone in legal jeopardy." Knowing that Pixar is backed by the full faith and credit of Steve Jobs, I started scrambling around for all the copies I'd handed out, asking them not to distribute it. I also posted a notice to comp.sys.amiga, asking anyone who came in contact with the animation to not redistribute it until I could sort this mess out. There ensued a massive "discussion" where well-meaning people started dispensing dimestore legal advice ("Why not make the unicycle green?" and so forth). In the meantime, I gave a videotape of the animation to Ralph Guggenheim (director of animation) at Pixar. He had the power to say Yes or No to this. After reviewing it, he said it was very good. He also said that it infringed. They viewed "Red", their juggling unicycle, as a character, much as Disney views Mickey Mouse. As such, it is covered by their copyright. "Okay," I said, "will you license it?" He said no, because he was afraid that it would cause confusion in the industry, and people would start thinking that _Red's Dream_ was rendered on Amigas or something. The Great Quote I have from him on this matter is this: "Although there are technical differences between the quality of images rendered on the Amiga and on our system, we feel that viewers could be misled to believe otherwise, even with your disclaimers to the contrary." Fair enough, I thought. It's theirs, and they can do whatever they want, and I have no desire to piss them off further [although this posting may be doing precisely that]. So I asked, "Can I have one final public performance before I retire it permanently?" Mr. Guggenheim agreed, and the date was set for the September 1 FAUG (First Amiga Users' Group) meeting. I wanted to have another animation ready for that meeting, and set to work on it. This one took only a day and a half, since I already had the unicycle object. On Sept. 1, as the last frame was computed and written to disk, I closed up the file, ejected the disk, and headed out the door to the meeting, since I was late (I tend to put things off 'til the last minute, you see). I arrived at the FAUG meeting (in cape and hat, of course), booted up the animation, and proceeded to tell them the above tale. I answered a whole bunch of questions about it, how I did it, how much trouble it was, how many polygons there were, frame rendering time, etc. Things seemed to be winding down, when someone asked the most perfectly timed question I could ever hope for. He asked, "Do you have any animations that you *can* release to the public?" I casually reached into my breast pocket and pulled out the disk with the new animation on it, and loaded it. I explained that even I hadn't seen this yet. I knew what it was supposed to look like, but didn't know what it actually looked like. Soon, the animation began: The red-and-white-checkered boing ball juggling three unicycles. The room exploded with applause. I was busy looking at the monitor in front of me, and I noticed a glitch. I was busy trying to figure out what it was for a few moments, and I looked up, and saw that everyone was on their feet. That felt good. The animation has been out there about six months now, and I'd hazard a guess that about half the Amiga owners out there have a copy of it. I seriously doubt I'll ever be invited to a Pixar pre-screening again. Allen Hastings has also done something with my unicycle object, but I'll let him tell you about that one on his own, if he wants to. _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ \_ -_ Recumbent Bikes: dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac O----^o The Only Way To Fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack") "Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctor