Pixar Research

History
Pixar animation studios or just 'Pixar' is one of the most renowned and successful animation companies in history. It was started in 1979 when George Lucas recruited Ed Catmull from the New York institute of technology to head Lucasfilm's Computer division who were in charge of producing top quality computer technology for the film industry. In 1983 John Lasseter joined the graphics group at Lucasfilm's computer division and starts to develop the short film 'The adventures of Andre and Wally B.' This was the first short to be created by the animation studio. It premiered at Siggraph and it featured innovative technology like hand painted textures, motion blur and complex flexible characters. Later that year Lasseter was to be appointed as the computer divisons interface designer.
In 1986 Steve Jobs purchases the computer division from George Lucas and sets up a new independent company called 'Pixar'. This is also when Luxo JR. the animated short of a Large Lamp and a smalled lamp that plays with a ball. This has become one of the most recognisable animations. It is featured at the beginning of all pixar films. It is the work of John Lasseter and it was the first  3D computer animated short to be nominated for the best short film oscar.
Pixar continues to bring out animated hits, including Red's Dream and Tin Toy. In 1988 Tin Toy received an academy award and was named best animated short film of 1988.
In 1991 Disney and Pixar arranged to release at least one computer generated animated film and in 1995 Toy Story, the world's first ever computer animated feature film is released. It became the highest grossing film of 1995 making around 192 million dollars domestically and 362 million world wide.

Types of product made
Before Toy Story was released Pixar were forced to make adverts. They were loosing money and Steve Jobs had hoped that he could gain some through animated TV commercials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aowm0j5Flx8
Then there are also the shorts which really put them on the map in terms of animation. They were using ground breaking technology to produce their feature films and their shorts. At the time they were faced with the idea that they really had no idea how to do what they wanted to do. So that's why it's so impressive how groundbreaking their technological ideas were. Some of their most successful being Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monster's Ink, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. And then there are the most recognisable shorts like Luxo Jr, Tin Toy and Red's Dream. They pretty much all fit the genre of Children's animation. However there are jokes put in there for the parents every now and then as they understand that adults will be taking their kids to see the films in cinema so they try and keep everyone entertained, sometimes by having classic actors to do the voice overs because the idea of Tom Hanks being a toy cowboy called woody would never get boring to the older generation.

Technologies and techniques used
At the time of the developments for their films they really had no idea how to achieve what they wanted. They had to come up with ideas on how to get the look and style they were looking for. Obviously they were inspired by their previous works and other animator's research but they still had to pretty much come up their ideas out of the blue. The company's technology has been intertwined with the development of the computer graphics industry. The earlier short films and feature films like Luxo Jr and Toy Story introduced the world to Render Man. Now the industries go to rendering software.
Finding Nemo pioneered new techniques in digital lighting which made the ocean like very realistic. With The Incredibles and Ratatouille brought with them amazingly believable human characteristics and advances in the simulation of crowds and fluids.
These were groundbreaking technological developments in the industry of animation.

With the animation processes of making any Pixar production, as you can see on the right, there are a few stages before the final piece. Everyone animation starts with a story board. And drawn out sketches of all of the shots. As you can see they then develop a rough idea of the animated version then they add in backgrounds, other things that are happening in the shot, then they finish the shot by adding the lighting they want, the color correction and the general final look of it.