The History Of 3D Cartoon Animations - When Did It Become Popular?

Mankind has always thrived on innovation and it is this innovative instinct which inspired our prehistoric cave-dwelling ancestors to make new discoveries. Since then there have been irreversible changes which have totally transformed the face of our planet from those early days but the streak of innovation still remains the same and continues to drive men towards new frontiers.

It is courtesy of this innovative thought process that 3D cartoon animation, which was considered as being nearly impossible prior to the advent of computers, was suddenly found to be within reach with the promise of opening a whole galaxy of possibilities.

Although there is no one single person who can be credited and honored for having discovered this technological advancement, the burgeoning idea of 3D cartoon animation was given shape for the first time in 1961 by Ivan Sutherland who created an interactive sketchpad software package which allowed users to draw images on the computer and replicate them. This acted as an inspiration for a number of professionals dedicated to this field and the final breakthrough came during the 1980s' when the first image editing program in form of the Adobe Photoshop was created and subsequently released. The immense global popularity of the concept could be gauged by the fact that most of the media carriers like movies, advertisements and even magazines incorporated its application in their field of business.

The credit of popularizing the effective usage of 3D cartoon animation all over the world lies undisputedly with Disney since it is in this organization that animation was utilized to its optimum potential and released to reveal its true caliber by individuals who were truly in search of exceptional results. Therefore, while movies like 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Aladdin' were perfection personified in the field of 2D animation, it was 'Toy Story' in 1995 which held the honor of being the first extremely successful 3D cartoon animation film produced by Disney to be followed by many more in its wake.

Apart from movies, 3D cartoon animation has been successfully used in the fields of education and advertising as well as it not only focuses on people, animals and moving figures but on background illustrations as well. While 3D cartoon animation in the field of education has been primarily used to create game design programs, its utility in the world of advertising was proved by an organization named Pixar who relied on short and sweet 3D cartoon animation films to sell their products.