"A computer animated hand" - 1972 

I can only imagine how cool it was seeing CGI for the first time in history.

1972: Wow they rendered the title sequence entirely by computer! 25 years later: Haha look I can make my name go round and round when the screensaver comes on!

I bet that was mind blowing in 1972, I'm fascinated with 3d things.

I don't usually say cliches like "ahead of their time" but Dear Lord!

This was 23 years before the Playstation 1. O_o

The first chapter of "Creativity, Inc." (by Ed Catmull) brought me here.

I would love to see reactions of people from that time

Totally tubular, man! Can't wait to see the full thing in theaters!

Actually, it is the first "computer generated 3D animation" For 3D animations, all frames must be rendered after modeling is complete. Metatada, (which is brilliant) is still a 2D vector animation, with rendering using the key frame illustration process.

I worked with Fred Parke at Texas A&M. Glad to see this piece of computer graphics history preserved.

Incredibly good for the time, considering video game graphics like this weren't implemented until the 1990's.

I'm here after catching this reference in "Toy Story 4." It was another easter egg that caught my eye (stack of old Pixar shorts) that caught my eye. "Ed's Hand" was the only title I didn't recognize.

Amazing. Never knew it went that far back.

Thank you for posting. It's amazing that this was created in 1972. A worthy addition to the National Film Registry.

Thank you, Ed Catmull, for all of your amazing contributions to math, science, computer animation and FILM!! You've left an incredible legacy and brought joy to many lives and superior creative tools to many storytellers! I hope you have a really happy and enjoyable retirement!!

I dig the University of Utah logo at the beginning. Haha. Incredible for 1972.

Oh come on You couldn’t make it flip the bird I’m disappointed

Thanks, Simon Whistler.

Welcome to the Uncanny Valley.

1972: The legend was born, then it moves forward to 1995 to 2001.

Came here to research for a project on the history of CGI. Pretty cool to see how far we've come.

I can recreate this in an hour of work in Blender, but this was bloody 1972, with computers that had the performance of a pocket calculator today! It must have been groundbraking back then.

I would recommend checking out the pixartimes website to see this film in it's entirety. The rest of the film shows an artificial heart valve, as well as some human face renderings that eventually made their way into the 1976 film Futureworld.

Wow, this was 10 years before Wrath of Khan's 'Genesis Effect ' CGI sequence. Fascinating!

Crazy that an animated video made in 1972 has better graphics than the Metaverse.

incredible. And pretty high poly for 1972. And to all the people saying "games nowdays don't look so good" 1. Think! 2. AAA Titels do (except CoD, if you wanna call that AAA) 3. This is a rendered Scene... not Realtime...

Looks pretty clean, I bet this took forever to program

I have begun to binge every CGI movie ever made, when does Shrek show up?

We’re standing on the shoulders of giants

these are computer animations from the 70s 🤯

New rockstars anyone?

Amazing that Pixar's roots stretch back this far.

Still better than cyberpunk

And from there, a new world of animation and visual effects opened their doors to us.

40 years ago. amazing!

Who else came from Creativity Inc?

Better hands than GTA San Andreas

that is absolutely crazy.

Can you just imagine how wild this must've been for the time, what did people think of it when they first saw it?

I bet it would take 1 minute to render this at 640x480 in today’s standards

I really really like this video

BaCk iN My dAy, aLl We HaD wAs A hAnD

Honestly really weird to see cgi captured on film Stranger that digital capturing still wasn’t a widely adopted thing unles the 2000’s

Hey, the newest invention in A/V technology. You know how we should share this radical creation? A silent movie.

People From 1972: Wow! With this turn of the century technology, humanity will create many memorable things! The entertainment industry will be changed forever! Literally All of Sandwichingaround's Videos on RU-vid: *Hee Hee! Laggle go BRRRRRR!*

Amazing!

It's funny how videogames could get to have propper animated hands just by the 2000s and now we have photorealism

the master hand from SSBB

Holy shit that looks just like a hand oh my god!!!!!!!!!!!

They should have invested in this WAAAAAAAAAAAY more back then, if people could have understood the potential of what they were seeing here, both CGI and computers would have been that much more advanced today

This is gold.

better graphics than the ps1

still more polygons than crash bandicoot

Incredible really.

Missed opportunity to not make it give the finger. Or the shocker. Or the horns

What about the russian animated Kitty from 1968? It was printed on paper, so that might disqualify it...

@irethamandil 1972-2012 is 30 Years? You're a Genius!

Ancient Comments... Wow.

Classic.

Ed Catmull in his book Creativity Inc. says that was in 1973 in a informatic science conference.

wow they really said go big or go home

PS1 FMV graphics.

People were still driving big blocks and the fuel crisis hasn't happened yet, dude..

i wonder if this was made on a atari

Does suit the video actually :)

shortly after this I'm sure they had a "computer animated middle finger"

@GibsonVienna What are you talking about? The 70's was only 30 years ago! **stuck in 2000**

your right, but minecraft is meant to remind us of a more pixeley time in video games, yet put us in a 3d atmosphere

If it was me, you *know* I couldn't resist having that hand flip off the entire world! Seriously though, this was truthfully groundbreaking, even 25 years later, like someone said on here, that's about the extent of PS2 graphics. Pretty cool of you ask me, especially considering the computers they had to work with back then.

This musta been freaky as shit aback then.

I wonder how long time it took to create one image. Anyone know?

Some one in 2022

Polygons. Polygons everywhere.

This score is more Altman than Chrichton..but that's the counterpoint of the time

Formidável.

Nasi przodkowie musieli być pod wrażeniem.

Wow 1972 mi mom was 2 years old

@GibsonVienna -facepalm- Does someone need to read everything that was typed? Yes, I think they do.

Nope it's: Hummingbird by Charles Csuri and James Shaffer. beats this by 5 years (1967)

Digital hand - tautology? :D

What kind of computer was this done on?

Whats the song

The porn music really sells the realism.

Actually, this is *not* the world's first computer animation. Metadata (1971) by Pierre Foldes beats this one by one year.

gaming

Song?

I realize this is from 1972, but why does it have the quality of a 1950's film? Why all the flicker and spots on the film, etc? Did someone add that for effect? This was probably rendered one frame at a time, taking many hours (or weeks). The picture quality should be better.

How the fuck did they do it? What program would they even use to render it how in the hell did they do this and shaded it what the hell

this needs a retopology.. -_-

WITCH CRAFT

Not bad for the time! But the rigging suck.

Mormons made this?

As much as I am impressed by thr 3D polygon model AD 1972 I don't understand why they picked music which sounds like 1932. Nothing against the music itself, just that it doesn't suit the video. How about some futuristic composition more in line what this represented? At this time the likes of Gershon Kingsley, Jean-Jacques Perrey, Walter Carlos, Tangerine Dream and even Kraftwerk were active. Always thought that "Synthavision" from Magi were the first computer animation live animation.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think this was BS. It seems *_way_* too hi-tech for the time period especially when you consider it's presented in black-and-white. You can do advanced 3D CGI but not color film???

Ha!, you people did have Computer Animation back in the 70s, Admit it! All this time all I've heard back in them days was we didn't have them Technology's back in the day, Lies! You did too have them and have held it against Movies that Deserved them, And yeah if you people didn't have Color back in the Day then why was The Wizard Of Oz filmed in Color through most of the Movie then huh? Now i know half of the Film was through some kind of Different Color Filter but it didn't look like Black & White but still the Movie came out in 1937 when most Movies were in Black & White, Well i won't be fooled or tricked any longer or to believe you people didn't have these Amazing Innovations back then cause here is 3-D Animation in 1972, Is it not? Don't you people Lie to me now! ):(

LOL! Pretty dim of the flat earth, science deniers to grab onto "computer animation" to PROVE that space is fake, the Apollo landings are fake. Nice..,

Fake