CANADA COURIER: The father of computer animation technology (09/22/96)

CANADA COURIER

by Christopher Guly

The father of computer animation technology

When Nestor Burtnyk graduated with an electrical engineering degree from the University of Manitoba in 1950, he had no idea he would one day be remembered as the "father of computer animation technology in Canada."

The Ukrainian Canadian researcher and his longtime associate, physicist Dr. Marceli Wein, were hailed on February 9 as pioneers in computer animation at the Festival of Computer Animation at the Ontario Science Center.

Both retired from the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada - the pair laid much of the groundwork for Canadian computer technology - long before they got involved in computer animation.

Mr. Burtnyk, whose father and maternal grandparents hailed from western Ukraine, grew up in Ethelbert, Manitoba.

Mr. Burtnyk and Dr. Wein built the first computer mouse in Canada of wood, and with wheels instead of roller balls. In 1967, they acquired their first computer, an SEL 840, which occupied one quarter of the room in which it was kept.

"No one was really into computers back then," said Mr. Burtnyk, 67, who left the NRC last July after serving a total of 45 years. "No one really had a head start on the technology either."

Rather than approach the computer as the definitive voice for communication in the future, the two men viewed it as a tool. Specifically, Mr. Burtnyk saw it as a vehicle for artists working in the animation industry.

"In 1969, I attended a conference in California in which folks from Disney were describing standards of animation," explained Mr. Burtnyk. "They said there were principal animators and so-called in-betweeners who handled the fill-in, secondary animation. Well, I never had an artistic inclination, but I came back to Ottawa thinking the computer could serve as an in-betweener and help animators fill in the holes to their work."

With Dr. Wien, Mr. Burtnyk developed a system known as key frame animation, in which the computer would imitate conventional cel animation, where mini-images (such as segments of a figure) are drawn on film and layered together to form a complete image. The computer animation system would end up, as Dr. Wein described it, simulating the artist's drawing table.

The Burtnyk-Wein computer animation process caught fire in Canada, and produced a partnership between the innovative scientists and the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada. The first collaboration resulted in the experimental film "Metadata," in which a computer mouse was used to draw the principal images in the film. In 1974, the partnership generated global attention with the release of the film "Hunger," which told the story of overpopulation and the disparity between the rich and the poor.

"Hunger" became the first computer-animated film to receive an Academy Award nomination. Though it failed to win the Oscar for Best Short, the 10-minute film claimed a jury prize at the Cannes Film Fes-tival that year. Certainly, it paved the way to subsequent computer-animated films.

Not the least of which is the recent feature-length box office success story of 1995, "Toy Story." But, "Toy Story's" reliance on the computer takes it a step beyond serving as merely a tool. "It uses 3D animation, where models of figures are plotted into computers," said Mr. Burtnyk. "Our approach was 2D animation using key-cel drawings."

Mr. Burtnyk and Dr. Wein ended their fling with computer animation two decades ago when the universality of the PC was long into the future. Today's electronic information highway has largely changed that. But, Mr. Burtnyk hasn't.

"I'm not hooked up to the Internet at home, because I still see a computer as something you use to play games on," he said. "Besides, I think e-mail and all that is still so new that you have what I consider to be a lot of junk mail on it."