Defunct American computer animation and visual effects production company
PDI/DreamWorks
Final logo, used from 2000 to 2015.
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.
Founded in 1980 by Carl Rosendahl, PDI was one of the pioneers of computer animation,[3] it produced more than 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's first animated film, Antz. PDI's final animated film before its closure on January 22, 2015, was Penguins of Madagascar, released on November 26, 2014.[4][5][6]
History
PDI's founder Carl Rosendahl in 2009
1980–1987: early years
PDI was founded in 1980 by Carl Rosendahl with a $25,000 loan from his father. He was joined in 1981 by Richard Chuang,[7] 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 1981's end, and 3D production started in fall 1982. The initial goal of the company was "Entertainment using 3D computer animation".
The first computer at PDI was a DECPDP 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 disc. Attached was a $65,000 framebuffer that had a resolution of 512×512 and was 32 bits deep.
The first 3D image rendered at PDI was done March 12, 1982.[8] 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 two minutes to render.
The PDP-11 was soon replaced by a DEC VAX-11/780, and PDI shifted to another superminicomputer called the Ridge 32 from Ridge Computers. This machine was 2-to-4 times faster than the VAX-11/780, at a fraction of the cost.[9]
The original in-house software evolved to a large suite of tools that included a polygon scan-line renderer (called p2r), an interactive animation program (called e-motion), an animation scripting and 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 (equivalent to $924,000in 2023).[8] Its original offices were in Sunnyvale, California, working from a garage owned by Carl's father. PDI moved to its first real offices in 1985, to its second offices in 1995, and to its last location in Redwood City at the Pacific Shores Center in 2002.[10][8] 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 research and development. PDI was debt-free when acquired by DreamWorks in 2000.
Pacific Data Images's first client was Rede Globo, Brazil's largest TV network, owned by Grupo Globo through its current Globo division.[8] This gave PDI the major client it 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 until 1989.
Most of the 1980s were spent creating broadcast graphics for many television networks around the world. PDI was working concurrently for ABC, A&ECBS, NBC, HBO, Cinemax, MTV, PBS, VH1, TNT, WOR-TV, Nine Network Australia, Sky One, Showtime and USA Network.[8] 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 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).
As one of the first mass producers of computer animation, Pacific Data Images controlled a large percentage of this market during this time. 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.[11]
Pacific Data Images 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.[12]
Pacific Data Images proposed a feature-length CG animation film in 1985, but they were unable to raise the funding needed to produce it.
Pacific Data Images 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
Pacific Data Images's early focus was on network TV productions, for they captured more than 50% of that market in 1985.[11] 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 named Waldo C. Graphic for The Jim Henson Hour (1989).[13]
During these years of transition, Pacific Data Images moved away from the motion graphics market, and focused its attention on commercials and 3D visual effects for feature films. Noted for its commercials for the first Pillsbury Doughboy created with computer graphics.[11] Pillsbury was the first company to move an established icon to CGI.[7] Previously, animated commercials with stop-motion 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 more natural and expressive morph. The technique is called "feature-based morphing".[14] Pacific Data Images 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 by 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 SGIIRIX software called "Elastic Reality". PDI also did the opening sequence for the 1990s revival of the classic game show, Let's Make a Deal.
Pacific Data Images broke into the feature film visual effects business with contributions to Terminator 2,Toys, Angels in the Outfield, Batman Forever and The Arrival. 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, Pacific Data Images transitioned from the Ridge32 computer to SGI workstations, running IRIX.[citation needed] They were not alone in this transition, for most of the industry followed suit.
1990–1995: character animation
In early 1990, Tim Johnson and Rex Grignon officially formed Pacific Data Images'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 computer-generated 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 (1994), Brick-a-Brac (1995), Gabola the Great (1997), Fishing (1999) and Fat Cat on a Diet (1999).
This character group set the company 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 for software and pipeline procedures and flow.
Pacific Data Images 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 Opéra Industriel (1986), Chromosaurus, Cosmic Zoom (1985), Burning Love (1988) and Locomotion (1989).[11]
The result of 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, joining DreamWorks Interactive as CEO. When Electronic Arts purchased DreamWorks Interactive, he moved to their Vancouver office to set up its next-generation games research group. He is a founding board member of Los Angeles's Digital Coast Roundtable, and is chairman of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.
1995–2015: feature films and closure
Pacific Data Images's first feature film, Antz, was released by DreamWorks Pictures October 2, 1998. This was followed by Shrek May 18, 2001.
After the success of Antz, Sega contacted the company to create a series of commercials for a marketing campaign for the launch of the Sega Dreamcast.[15] 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.[16] 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.[17][3] In May 2001, the sale essentially united the two studios, PDI and DreamWorks, into a single entity that went public a few years later as DreamWorks Animation (DWA). PDI stopped making commercials and visual effects for live-action films in 2002. Animators at PDI worked on projects based at the PDI studio, but they also assisted in DWA projects based in the Glendale DWA studio.
By the time Pacific Data Images reached its 25th anniversary in 2005, it had completed more than 1,000 projects, and grown to more than 400 employees.
In 2008, Richard Chuang, the last of the founding three, left the company to pursue his own ventures.[7]
In July 2012, PDI/DreamWorks moved to a larger office building with about 200,000 square feet (19,000m2) of interior space in the same office complex at Pacific Shores Center.[18] It was about one-third larger than the previous building and featured "an on-site clinic for a doctor’s office and nutritionist, a larger cafe and more outdoor space with gas heaters" to allow for "hanging outside year-round".[18]
On January 22, 2015, PDI/DreamWorks was shuttered as part of its parent company's restructuring plans following the box-office underperformance of 2014's Mr. Peabody & Sherman and Penguins of Madagascar, cutting off 500 jobs.[5]
PDI/DreamWorks has won nine Scientific and Technical Academy Awards. The first was awarded in 1994 to Les Dittert, with others, 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 an award for PDI's global illumination rendering system first used on Shrek 2. It was the first use of global illumination in an animated feature film, a technique that is commonplace today.[22][23]
In 2013, Lawrence Kesteloot, Drew Olbrich and Daniel Wexler were given an award for PDI's lighting tool, called "light". The tool was developed in 1996 for PDI's first feature film, Antz, and was used until 2015 at PDI and DreamWorks Animation, 25 films later.[24]
In 2015, Scott Peterson, Jeff Budsberg and Jonathan Gibbs were awarded for the studio's foliage (trees and vegetation) system. The system was first used on Shrek. At the ceremony, Karl Rasche was awarded with engineers from HP for his part in the creation of the "DreamColor" monitor.[25]
Richard Chuang, Rahul Thakkar, Mark Kirk and Stewart Birnam, with DreamWorks engineer Andrew Pilgrim, won a 2016 SciTech technical achievement award for their work on digital movie review systems.[26]
Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images, while computer animation only refers to moving images. Modern computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics.
Antz is a 1998 American animated adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, and Pacific Data Images, and distributed by the former via DreamWorks Distribution. It was directed by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson from a screenplay written by Todd Alcott and the writing team of Chris and Paul Weitz. The film stars the voices of Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Jennifer Lopez, Sylvester Stallone, Christopher Walken, Dan Aykroyd, Anne Bancroft, Danny Glover and Gene Hackman. Some of the main characters share facial similarities with the actors who voice them. The film involves an anxious worker ant, Z (Allen), who falls in love with Princess Bala (Stone). When the arrogant General Mandible (Hackman) attempts to seize control of the ant colony, Z must combine his desire for purpose with his inner strength to save everyone.
Conrad Vernon is an American voice actor, director, producer, writer, and storyboard artist best known for his work on the DreamWorks animated film series Shrek as well as other films such as Monsters vs. Aliens, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, and Penguins of Madagascar. He also co-directed non-DreamWorks animated films such as Sony Pictures' Sausage Party and MGM’s The Addams Family.
DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA) (also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios or simply DreamWorks) is an American animation studio owned by Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The studio has released a total of 49 feature films, including several of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, with Shrek 2 (2004) having been the highest at the time of its release. Its first film, Antz, was released on October 2, 1998, and its latest film, The Wild Robot, was released on September 27, 2024. They have an upcoming theatrical slate of films, which includes Dog Man on January 31, 2025, How to Train Your Dragon on June 13, 2025, The Bad Guys 2 on August 1, 2025, Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie on September 26, 2025, and Shrek 5 on July 1, 2026.
The Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) was a proprietary collection of software, scanning camera systems, servers, networked computer workstations, and custom desks developed by The Walt Disney Company and Pixar in the late 1980s. Although outmoded by the mid-2000s, it succeeded in reducing labor costs for ink and paint and post-production processes of traditionally animated feature films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS). It also provided an entirely new palette of digital tools to the animation filmmakers.
Computer facial animation is primarily an area of computer graphics that encapsulates methods and techniques for generating and animating images or models of a character face. The character can be a human, a humanoid, an animal, a legendary creature or character, etc. Due to its subject and output type, it is also related to many other scientific and artistic fields from psychology to traditional animation. The importance of human faces in verbal and non-verbal communication and advances in computer graphics hardware and software have caused considerable scientific, technological, and artistic interests in computer facial animation.
Aron J. Warner is an American film producer, screenwriter, and voice actor, best known for producing the Shrek films. He was known as the first person to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Eric Darnell is an American animator, storyboard artist, director, screenwriter, songwriter and occasional voice actor best known for co-directing Antz with Tim Johnson, as well as co-directing and co-writing Madagascar, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted with Tom McGrath, as well as the spin off Penguins of Madagascar (2014) with Simon J. Smith.
Bradford Clark Lewis is an American film producer, animation director, and politician. He produced Antz, the Oscar-winning Ratatouille, Storks, and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. He also co-directed Cars 2. He is a former mayor of the city of San Carlos, California.
Tim Johnson is an American animator, film director, film producer, and television director. Johnson is best known for directing the DreamWorks Animation films Antz, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Over the Hedge, and Home.
Raman Hui Shing-Ngai is a Hong Kong animator, film director, and film producer. He is best known for directing the films Monster Hunt and Monster Hunt 2.
Teresa Cheng is an animation producer specifically skilled in computer graphics and most famously known for her work on Shrek Forever After, Madagascar, Batman & Robin, and True Lies. She has worked with major agencies such as Warner Brothers Studios, DreamWorks, assumed the role of general manager for Lucasfilm Animation, and most recently has become chair of the John C. Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Lee Lanier is an American 3D computer animator and the author of nine books for the 3D modeling software package Maya and the digital compositing software packages After Effects, Fusion, and Nuke. He served as an instructor for animation for the Academy of Art University and Gnomon School of Visual Effects. He has recorded visual effects video tutorials for lynda.com and The Foundry.
Shrek is a 2001 American animated fantasy comedy film loosely based on the 1990 children's picture book by William Steig. Directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson and written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, and Roger S. H. Schulman, it is the first installment in the Shrek film series. The film stars Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. In the film, an embittered ogre named Shrek (Myers) finds his home in the swamp overrun by fairy tale creatures banished by the obsessive ruler Lord Farquaad (Lithgow). With the help of Donkey (Murphy), Shrek makes a pact with Farquaad to rescue Princess Fiona (Diaz) in exchange for regaining control of his swamp.
Simon James Smith is a British animator, film director, and voice actor. He is best known for his work at DreamWorks Animation. Smith came to PDI/DreamWorks in 1997 as head of layout for the company's feature film division. A CG animation veteran with nearly 35 years of experience, Smith supervised the layout department on PDI/DreamWorks' first animated feature Antz, serving as the Head of Layout in Shrek. He then directed the Universal Studios Theatre experience Shrek 4-D, followed by the short Far Far Away Idol. His first feature film as a director was in 2007, with Bee Movie. He then directed another DVD short, Megamind: The Button of Doom, before co-directing, with Eric Darnell, the comedy/spy action spin-off from the Madagascar series, Penguins of Madagascar, the mini series "Baymax Dreams" for Disney, and is executive producer "Batwheels" for Warner Bros.
The history of computer animation began as early as the 1940s and 1950s, when people began to experiment with computer graphics – most notably by John Whitney. It was only by the early 1960s when digital computers had become widely established, that new avenues for innovative computer graphics blossomed. Initially, uses were mainly for scientific, engineering and other research purposes, but artistic experimentation began to make its appearance by the mid-1960s – most notably by Dr. Thomas Calvert. By the mid-1970s, many such efforts were beginning to enter into public media. Much computer graphics at this time involved 2-D imagery, though increasingly as computer power improved, efforts to achieve 3-D realism became the emphasis. By the late 1980s, photo-realistic 3-D was beginning to appear in film movies, and by mid-1990s had developed to the point where 3-D animation could be used for entire feature film production.
Jane Hartwell is an American film producer, as well as a variety of other filmography positions. She is known for her work in animation, most notably for The Croods. She received two award nominations for The Croods: the Producers Guild of America Award and the Visual Effects Society award.
Rahul Chandrakant Thakkar is an Indian-American software inventor who was one of the 33 recipients of Academy Award for scientific and technical achievement in 2016. Thakkar won the Academy Award for creating the "groundbreaking design" of DreamWorks Animation Media Review System, a scalable digital film review platform.
Rex Grignon is a Canadian-American animation director and entrepreneur. Grignon received his animation training at Sheridan College where he graduated in 1984. He then earned his bachelor's degree in 1985 from New York Institute of Technology. He worked in Europe for two years as a staff animator and Art Director in Frankfurt and Paris, mostly working on early 3D commercials and broadcast graphics. Grignon moved to the U.S. in 1988 where he worked for Pacific Data Images as a Senior Animator and co-founded PDI's Character Animation Group with Tim Johnson.
↑ 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.
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