Pacific Data Images

Pacific Data Images (PDI) was an American computer animation production company that was bought by DreamWorks SKG in 2000. It was renamed PDI/DreamWorks and was owned by DreamWorks Animation.

Pacific Data Images
IndustryCGI animation
Motion pictures
FateShut down
FoundedJanuary 1, 1980 (1980-01-01)
FounderCarl Rosendahl
DefunctJanuary 22, 2015 (2015-01-22)
Headquarters
Redwood City, California
,
United States
OwnerDreamWorks Animation
Number of employees
450 (January 2015)[1]

Founded in 1980 by Carl Rosendahl, PDI was one of the pioneers of computer animation.[2] It produced over 700 commercials, contributed visual effects to more than 70 feature films, and produced and contributed to many of DreamWorks Animation's films, beginning with Dreamworks' first animated film Antz (1998). PDI's final animated film before its closure was Penguins of Madagascar (2014).[3][4][5]

History
PDI's founder Carl Rosendahl in 2009

PDI was founded in 1980 by Carl Rosendahl with a loan of $25,000 from his father. He was joined in 1981 by Richard Chuang[6] and in 1982 by Glenn Entis. Richard and Glenn wrote the foundation of the in-house computer animation software that was to be used for the next two decades. They started work on 3D software at the end of 1981, and 3D production started in the fall of 1982. The initial goal of the company was "Entertainment using 3D computer animation". By the time PDI reached its 25th anniversary in 2005, it had completed over 1000 projects and grown to over 400 employees. On January 22, 2015, DreamWorks announced they were shutting down the studio.

1980–1987: Early years

The first computer at PDI was a DEC PDP 11/44 with 128 kilobytes of memory. This was a lot of memory given that the computer had only 64 kilobytes (16-bits) of address space. It had a 20 megabyte disk. Attached to this was a $65,000 framebuffer which had a resolution of 512×512 and was 32 bits deep.

The first 3D image rendered at PDI was done on March 12, 1982.[7] The image was simply a 4 by 4 by 4 grid of spheres of varying colors. The spheres were not polygonal, they were implicitly rendered and were fully anti-aliased. The resulting image was 512 by 480 by 24 (8 bits for red, green and blue channels) which took 2 minutes to render.

The PDP-11 was soon replaced by a DEC VAX-11/780 and later PDI shifted to another superminicomputer called the Ridge32. This machine was 2–4 times faster than the VAX-11/780 at a fraction of the cost.

The original in-house software evolved into a large suite of tools which included a polygon scan-line renderer (called p2r), an interactive animation program (called e_motion), an animation scripting / scene-description language (called script) and a lighting tool (called led). All of these tools were written in C and deployed on a variety of machines running various flavors of Unix.

The initial investment to start the company was $250,000,[7] about $600,000 in 2005 dollars. Its original offices were in Sunnyvale, California working out of a garage owned by Carl's father. PDI moved to its first real offices in 1985 (Sunnyvale), to its second offices in 1995 (Palo Alto) and to its last location in Redwood City in 2002.[7] The growth of the company was financed solely through profit. The company was run as an open book; monthly financial reviews were shared with the entire company, and a detailed monthly financial report was released. Money was never taken out of the company which maintained a 7% investment in R&D. PDI was debt-free when acquired by DreamWorks in 2000.

PDI's first client was Rede Globo, Brazil's largest TV network.[7] This gave PDI the major client they needed to fund the creation of most of its early software. This also sent PDI into the business of TV motion graphics and logo animation. PDI designed some early show openings and other special projects for Rede Globo. The software written was also given to Rede Globo and is the only time the in-house software was given to another company. The contract ended in the mid-1980s, but Rede Globo continued to use the software for many years.

Most of the 1980s were spent creating broadcast graphics for most television networks around the world. PDI was working concurrently for ABC, CBS, NBC, HBO, Cinemax, MTV, VH1, TNT , Nine Network Australia, Sky One and Showtime.[7] PDI focused on direct to video production as opposed to film output being done at other early studios. PDI modified the interface to a Sony BVH-2000 using parts put together from a trip to a toy store in order to do single-frame recording. All the rendering was done on fields at 60 or 50 frames per second (depending on the video broadcasting standard used locally).

PDI controlled a large percentage of this market during this time and they were the first mass producer of computer animation. One year producing two major networks' graphics packages meant specifically rendered images for over 400 local television stations. Some of the early production contracts included Globo, Entertainment Tonight (produced for Harry Marks), ABC Sports 84 Olympic promos, and NBC News.[8]

PDI worked with Atari, also in Sunnyvale, in the early 1980s on a couple of projects. In 1982, Rosendahl was hired to set up and calibrate Atari's computer animation film recorder system that would be used for video game footage in Superman III.[9]

PDI planned and proposed a feature-length CG animation film in 1985, but they were unable to raise the funding needed to produce it.

PDI outlived all the other computer graphics studios that existed in the early 1980s. One of the reasons for this is that PDI never went into significant debt by purchasing expensive hardware. While other studios purchased or leased supercomputers, PDI bought cheaper hardware, treating it as a commodity which would soon be replaced, enabling lower operating costs.

1987–1990: transition
Former PDI/DreamWorks headquarters at Redwood City's Pacific Shores Center before the company moved in 2012 to larger facilities in another building in the same office complex.[10]

PDI's early focus was on network TV productions since they captured over 50% of that market in 1985.[8] However, in 1990, PDI introduced the digital film scanning process. This process was used to popularize automated rig removal and image touch-up. PDI was also instrumental in introducing performance animation for theme parks, ads and movies. This started with a joint project in 1988 with Jim Henson's Creature Shop on a real-time performance character called Waldo C. Graphic for The Jim Henson Hour.[11]

During these years of transition, PDI moved away from the motion graphics market and focused their attention on commercials and 3D visual effects for feature films. Notable among the commercials was the first Pillsbury Doughboy created in CG.[8] Pillsbury was the first company to move an established icon to CG.[6] Before this, all previous animated commercials were done with stop-motion. Other notable commercials include the "Bud Bowl" and "Scrubbing Bubbles" spots.

Early in the 1990s, Thaddeus Beier and Shawn Neely developed a method for morphing that resulted in a much more natural and expressive morph. This technique is called "feature-based morphing".[12] PDI used this technology to create various well-known sequences, including the Exxon car-into-tiger morph and the extended morph at the end of the "Black or White" music video from Michael Jackson. These morphing jobs were easy to do with PDI's software and the effect was in high demand. The algorithms invented by Beier and Neely were published at the annual SIGGRAPH conference and are now the basis of most image morphing tools. For many people, their first exposure to these algorithms was the SGI IRIX software called "Elastic Reality". PDI also did the opening sequence for the 1990s revival of the classic game show, Let's Make A Deal.

PDI broke into the feature film visual effects business with contributions to Terminator 2 (1991), Toys (1992), Angels in the Outfield (1994), Batman Forever (1995), and The Arrival (1996). At the time, the strengths of PDI included character animation, lip synch, rendering effects, the aforementioned rig removal and cleanup, and performance animation.

During this era PDI transitioned from the Ridge32 computer to SGI workstations running IRIX. They were not alone in this transition as most of the industry followed suit.

1990–1995: character animation

Early in 1990, Tim Johnson and Rex Grignon officially formed PDI's Character Animation Group with the mandate to develop a group of artists with the creative and technical skills needed to produce a feature-length CG-animated film. The group originally consisted of Johnson, Grignon, Raman Hui, Glenn McQueen, Beth Hofer, Dick Walsh, Karen Schneider and Eric Darnell. Under this group, PDI's commercial character animation skills grew and numerous notable short films were produced. Among these are Gas Planet (1992), Sleepy Guy, Brick-a-Brac (1995), Gabola the Great (1997), Fishing (1999) and Fat Cat on a Diet.

This character group set the company off in a new direction that set the basis for development goals during this period. The short films were a way to develop animation techniques as well as being a test bed for software and pipeline procedures and flow.

PDI allowed animators to pursue individual products and shorts. This produced several award-winning short films in this category. Some of the more notable productions are Opera Industrial (1986), Chromosaurus, Cosmic Zoom, Burning Love (1988), and Locomotion (1989).[8]

By 1992, PDI was looking for a partner to produce feature-length animated films. PDI worked on the 1991 TV special "The Last Halloween" which won them an Emmy Award for the CG characters in the otherwise live-action special with Hanna-Barbera. This turned into PDI's first 3D Character Animation pipeline. Using this pipeline they created a 3D stereo Daffy Duck for Warner Brothers and a CG Homer and Bart Simpson for the "Homer3" segment of the 1995 The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror VI".

The result of all these projects was a movie deal with DreamWorks SKG in 1995 to make the movie Antz. At this time DreamWorks purchased a 40% share of PDI.

Glen Entis left PDI for the game industry in 1995, first joining DreamWorks Interactive as CEO. When Electronic Arts purchased DreamWorks Interactive, he moved to their Vancouver office to set up their next-generation games research group. He is a founding board member of Los Angeles' Digital Coast Roundtable, and is chairman of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.

1995–2015: feature films and closure

PDI's first feature film Antz was released by DreamWorks Pictures in 1998. This was followed by Shrek in 2001.

After the success of Antz, in 2000 Carl Rosendahl sold his remaining interest in PDI to DreamWorks. PDI was renamed PDI/DreamWorks and continued to operate as a stand-alone business unit.[13] Rosendahl left PDI in February 2000 to become managing director for Mobius Venture Capital, where he focused on investments in the technology and media companies.[14][2] In May 2001, this sale essentially united the two studios, PDI and DreamWorks, into a single entity which went public a few years later as DreamWorks Animation (DWA). PDI stopped making commercials in 2002. Animators at PDI worked on projects based at the PDI studio, but also assisted in DWA projects based in the Glendale DWA studio.

In 2008, Richard Chuang, the last of the initial three, left the company to pursue his own ventures.[6]

On January 22, 2015, PDI/DreamWorks was shut down as part of its parent company's larger restructuring efforts.[4]

Animated films

PDI/DreamWorks has produced Antz (1998), Shrek (2001), Shrek 2 (2004), Madagascar (2005), Over the Hedge (2006), Shrek the Third (2007), Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), Megamind (2010), Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012), Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) and Penguins of Madagascar (2014). With US$441.2 million in domestic box-office ticket sales, Shrek 2 is currently the ninth highest grossing animated film of all time in the United States.[15]

PDI won their only Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film for Shrek in 2002, which was the first time it was awarded.[16]

Technical awards

PDI/DreamWorks has won nine Scientific and Technical Academy Awards. The first was awarded to Les Dittert, along with others, in 1994 for work in the area of film scanning. The second was awarded to Carl Rosendahl, Richard Chuang and Glenn Entis in 1997 for the concept and architecture of the PDI animation system. This award in particular recognized their pioneering work in computer animation dating back to the founding of PDI 17 years earlier. Nick Foster was given an award in 1998 for PDI's fluid animation system (flu), and in 2002 Dick Walsh was given one for the development of PDI's Facial Animation System.

In 2010, Eric Tabellion and Arnauld Lamorlette were given one for PDI's global illumination rendering system first used on Shrek 2. This was the first use of global illumination in an animated feature film, a technique which is commonplace today.[17][18]

In 2013, Lawrence Kesteloot, Drew Olbrich and Daniel Wexler were given an award for PDI's lighting tool, called "light." This tool was developed in 1996 for PDI's first feature film, Antz, and was used until 2015 at PDI and DreamWorks Animation some 25 films later.[19]

In 2015, Scott Peterson, Jeff Budsberg and Jonathan Gibbs were awarded for the studio's foliage (trees and vegetation) system. This system was first used on Shrek and continues to be used today. At the same ceremony, Karl Rasche was awarded along with engineers from HP for his part in the creation of the "DreamColor" monitor.[20]

Richard Chuang, Rahul Thakkar, Mark Kirk and Stewart Birnam, along with DreamWorks engineer Andrew Pilgrim, won a 2016 SciTech technical achievement award for their work on digital movie review systems.[21]

Filmography

Films
# Title Release date Budget Gross Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic CinemaScore
1AntzOctober 2, 1998[22]$42–105 million$171 million93% (91 reviews)[23]72 (26 reviews)[24]B+[25]
2ShrekMay 18, 2001[26]$60 million$484 million88%84A[25]
3Shrek 2May 19, 2004[27]$150 million$920 million[28]89%75A+[25]
4MadagascarMay 27, 2005[29]$75 million$533 million55%57A−[25]
5Shrek the ThirdMay 18, 2007[30]$160 million$799 million41%58B+[25]
6Madagascar: Escape 2 AfricaNovember 7, 2008[31]$150 million$604 million64%61A−[25]
7MegamindNovember 5, 2010[32]$130 million[32]$322 million[32]72%63A−[25]
8Madagascar 3: Europe's Most WantedJune 8, 2012[33]$145 million$747 million79%60A[25]
9Mr. Peabody & ShermanMarch 7, 2014[34]$275 million80%59A[25]
10Penguins of MadagascarNovember 26, 2014[35]$132 million$373 million72% (109 reviews)[36]53 (31 reviews)[37]A−[25]

Film effects

PDI contributed visual effects, animation and other services to the following films:[38][39]

Shorts
  • Teddy Bear Maelstrom (1983, Glen Entis)
  • Elephant Bubbles (1984, Don Venhaus)
  • Max Trax (1985, Adam Chin)
  • Cosmic Zoom (AKA Comic Zoom) (1985, PDI Staff)
  • Chromosaurus (1985, Don Venhaus)
  • Max's Place (1985, Adam Chin)
  • Opéra Industriel (1986, Adam Chin, Rich Cohen)
  • Burning Love (1987, PDI Staff)
  • Locomotion (1989, Steve Goldberg)
  • The Wave (1989, Scott Miller)
  • Slide Show (1991, Glenn McQueen)
  • Frankie & Johnny (1991, PDI Staff)
  • Happy Dog (1992, PDI Character Animation Group)
  • Gas Planet (1992, Eric Darnell)
  • Big Smoke (1993, Eric Darnell)
  • Sleepy Guy (1994, Raman Hui)
  • Brick-a-Brac (1995, Cassidy Curtis)
  • Gabola The Great (1997, Tim Cheung)
  • Basic Insect (1998, Marty Sixkiller)
  • Millennium Bug (1998, Lee Lainer)
  • Fat Cat On a Diet (1999, Raman Hui)
  • Fishing (1999, David Gainey)
  • Metropopular (2000, Jonah Hall)
  • Sprout (2002, Scott B. Peterson)-Final independent work.

Other work
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See also

References
  1. "PDI/DreamWorks Closing; Half Of Staff Laid Off". Deadline Hollywood. January 22, 2015.
  2. "Carl Rosendahl, Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center, Associate Professor". FMX. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
  3. Feuerstein, Adam (August 30, 1998). "`Antz' aims for top of the hill". San Francisco Business Times. Archived from the original on December 18, 2000. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
  4. Graser, Marc (January 22, 2015). "DreamWorks Animation Cutting 500 Jobs; Dawn Taubin and Mark Zoradi Exiting". Variety. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
  5. McCracken, Harry (January 23, 2015). "R.I.P. PDI, The Company That Helped Turn Computer Graphics Into Art". Fast Company. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  6. Cogswell College (February 26, 2016). "PDI Founder Richard Chuang Wins Second Academy Sci-Tech Award" (Press release). Animation World Network. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
  7. Chuang, Richard. "25 years of PDI - 1980 to 2005" (PDF). Stanford University. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 25, 2017. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
  8. Carlson, Wayne. "Pacific Data Images (PDI)". Ohio State University. Archived from the original on August 11, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
  9. Wright, Steve. "Steve Wright Digital FX | Steve's Atari Days". www.swdfx.com. Archived from the original on June 1, 2017. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
  10. Verrier, Richard (July 19, 2012). "DreamWorks Animation opens new facility in Redwood City". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 19, 2012.
  11. Failes, Ian (August 24, 2019). "Re-visiting Waldo". beforesandafters.com. Retrieved April 26, 2020.
  12. Beiber, Thaddeus; Neely, Shawn. "Feature-Based Image Metamorphosis". hammerhead.com. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
  13. "DreamWorks SKG Agrees to Buy Pacific Data Images". Los Angeles Times. February 15, 2000. Retrieved September 21, 2011.
  14. Graser, Marc (March 3, 2002). "Rosendahl sits in as iVast Chair". Variety. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
  15. "Shrek 2 (2004)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  16. "'Shrek' wins for animated feature". USA Today. Associated Press. March 25, 2002. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
  17. "2010 Scientific and Technical Awards". The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. February 9, 2013. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
  18. Desowitz, Bill (January 27, 2011). "Illuminating Global Illumination". Animation World Network. Retrieved April 27, 2013.
  19. "2012 Scientific and Technical Awards". The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. February 9, 2013. Retrieved April 27, 2013.
  20. "2015 Scientific and Technical Awards". The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
  21. "2016 Scientific and Technical Awards". The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
  22. BRENNAN, JUDITH I. (June 25, 1998). "'Antz' Project Speeds From a Crawl to a Scamper". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  23. "Antz". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  24. "Antz". Metacritic.
  25. "CinemaScore". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on December 20, 2018. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  26. Editors, History com. "Shrek released". HISTORY. Retrieved January 17, 2019.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  27. "Eddie Murphy Fast Facts". KXLF.com. January 9, 2019. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  28. "Get ready for a May box office showdown - Mar. 23, 2007". money.cnn.com. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  29. Sim, David; PM, Eve Watling On 5/31/18 at 12:20 (May 31, 2018). "The 50 highest-grossing animated films in U.S. box office history". Newsweek. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  30. Sim, David; PM, Eve Watling On 5/31/18 at 12:20 (May 31, 2018). "The 50 highest-grossing animated films in U.S. box office history". Newsweek. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  31. Sim, David; PM, Eve Watling On 5/31/18 at 12:20 (May 31, 2018). "The 50 highest-grossing animated films in U.S. box office history". Newsweek. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  32. "Megamind (2010) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  33. Sim, David; PM, Eve Watling On 5/31/18 at 12:20 (May 31, 2018). "The 50 highest-grossing animated films in U.S. box office history". Newsweek. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  34. The Deadline Tema (February 5, 2013). "'Mr. Peabody & Sherman' Release Date Moved To March 7, 2014". Deadline. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  35. Lang, Brent; Lang, Brent (May 20, 2014). "'Home,' 'Penguins of Madagascar' Swap Release Dates". Variety. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  36. "Penguins of Madagascar". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  37. "Penguins of Madagascar Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved July 11, 2015.
  38. "Pacific Data Images - Feature Film Credits". June 6, 1997. Archived from the original on June 6, 1997. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  39. "PDI". British Film Institute. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
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