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The Making of ENDGAME
endgame

A brief history of ENDGAME

In early September 1993, we began brainstorming on ideas for creating a short animation sequence that would demonstrate the potential for manipulation planning in the automatic animation of human motion. This was the motivation for the creation of a hypothetical game of Chess between a human and a robot in a futuristic world.

After many weeks of rendering fully ray-traced still images, the nearly 3,600 frames of animation were sequenced together and recorded to 3/4" U-Matic tape using an Abekas machine.

The film had its world premiere in Orlando, Florida in July 1994, when it was shown at the "Electronic Theater" at SIGGRAPH '94. It is included in the 1994 Video Conference Proceedings of SIGGRAPH '94 "Electronic Theater" edition.

Read more about the Automatic Animation of Human Motion if you would like to learn about some of the technical innovation involved in the creation of ENDGAME.

The makers of ENDGAME

  • James Kuffner, Jr. Director, Narrator, Modeling, Rendering, Video Production.
    • Yoshihito Koga. Manipulation planning software.
  • Koichi Kondo. Inverse Kinematics, Modeling, Rendering.
  • Jonathan Norton. Composer, Music and Sound.

 

Places where ENDGAME has traveled

  • Siggraph '94 Electronic Theater (Orlando, Florida). July 1994
  • Graphicon 1994. Computer Graphics Review. (Russia) September 1994.
  • Metropolis. Television Espanola [Spanish Public Network]. (Madrid, Spain) September 1994.
  • Art Futura 94. Film and Video Show. (Madrid, Spain) October 1994.
  • ASCII Magazine. Siggraph '94 Conference Review. (Tokyo, Japan) October 1994.
  • The Computer Museum. Computer Animation Video. (Boston, USA) January 1995.
  • Imagina 95. Institut National de l'Audiovisuel.(Monte Carlo, Monaco) February 1995.
  • Report on Imagina '95. Alphaville RAI [Italian public TV]. (Milan, Italy) February 1995.
  • PC MANIA Magazine. Cover-mount CD ROM. (Madrid, Spain) March 1995.
  • Yusei-sho P-SAT Special Live. Asahi Video Projects [Satellite TV].(Tokyo, Japan) March 1995.
  • Tecographics '95. Computer Graphics Theater. (Milan, Italy) March 1995
  • Computer Animation '95. 8th Computer Generated Film Festival. (Geneva, Switzerland) April 1995.
  • JAGDA Film & Video Show. Japan Graphics Design Association. (Tokyo, Japan) November 1995.
  • L'Oeil du Cyclone. Canal+ French TV. (Paris, France) December 1995.
  • CyberScience Institut National de l'Audiovisuel. (Paris, France) February 1996.


1997 - 2009 © James Kuffner, Jr.