What graphics system was used to create GV & Elma in Galaxy Rangers (1986)?

Question

GV & Elma were the two 3D-rendered starship AI embodiments displayed on the screens of Ranger-1 and Goose's Ranger-2, respectively.

I'm wondering whether they were done using SGI systems Iris GL, the forerunner to OpenGL. Or whether it was a forerunner to IRIS (which I understand commenced development in '89) or some other solution altogether. The graphics was very much ahead of their time and I wondered then as I wonder now what hardware and software was used to produce it, and what the render times were like.

Answer 1

I did all the 3D graphics on the show EXCEPT for GV and Elma....but they were done with the same hardware/software as all the material that I created. And it most certainly was not an Atari. Maybe Bob was talking about something done for a very early test or something....but the work that was done for the series was done in Cubicomp Picturemaker on an IBM PC.

Cubicomp was an early (now defunct) 3d modeling package with very limited animation capabilities. The graphics were rendered frame by frame and recorded on a 16mm film recorder (I think it was made by Matrix). The film was transferred to video tape and then further manipulated in the edit room.

I was not credited under "computer graphics" in the Galaxy Rangers end credits. No one was. I'm lumped in as "Storyboard Artist". I was also one of the pre-production illustrators on the show.

Transcom/Galaxy Rangers was my first job after I finished art school in Manhattan. I went on to work in broadcast and commercials in NY, and since 2001 have been working in Feature Films on the West Coast as a CG Technical Director and Lighting Supervisor. I am currently a Computer Graphics Supervisor at Tippett Studio in Berkeley California. Not sure what else I can say to convince anyone I'm really me.

-Brad Fox

Answer 2

Series creator Robert Mandell noted that the graphics were generated using an Atari computer. No mention is made of the software used:

Q. Whose idea was it to combine the CGI graphics with the hand-drawn animation? Because that was quite unique, for its time.

A. We had done that on a show previous to GALAXY RANGERS. Prior to RANGERS, I did a show called THUNDERBIRDS 2086 which was more of an import. It was designed to be a co-production with a Japanese company—Fuji Television. It ended up being produced for the Japanese market and I ended up taking it and Americanizing it here. But in the process of Americanizing it, we threw in a whole bunch of computer graphics we had done on the Atari computer. We were fooling around with it, we decided that would be fun to do that. It looked pretty cool. We took some of the computer frames from the animation and we just matted in the graphics, and it was relatively simple and very cost-effective, and when RANGERS came about we upgraded the computer somewhat, but the intent was still the same. When [the characters] look at computer screen or see something created by a computer. Then it was taken a step further, where we figured 'Hey, if there are actually computer generated characters on the screen, why don't we just generate computer generated characters?' So it seemed to fit, story-wise.