I was always fascinated by this cigarette ad:Benson & Hedges / The Wave Commercials (1987) - YouTube
First: it says nothing about the actual product (cigarettes)
Second: the animation quality is very high (for 1987)-was something like this very technically difficult at the time?
The commentary mentions that the human figure was indeed an actor-but he doesn’t look human to me.
Anyway-B&H seems not to have amde anymore ads with the same theme-I found it fascinating.
This was only one year later than Luxo Jr.. Based on the stories about how long and hard John Lasseter had to work on that, I’d say yes, it was very challenging to do this commercial.
They picked the right materials to use in the CGI space, like metal. That was easier than flesh or leaves and other organic stuff.
The human character looks more like a puppet than a guy in a costume. If nothing else, the hands are definitely not real hands.
Typical low quality production from Robert Abel. This was 8 years after Tron was started, and recycled a bunch of old Abel work. Not challenging at all for the time.
A dream of gold … and a scratch of the head as to WTF the images in these commercials had to do with cigarettes. 
:smack: The big cat self-immolating in the second ad is IMHO the closest we get to a cigarette.
Great advertisements for hallucinogens if they were sold legally without a prescription. :eek:
These seem like parodies – or examples – of the “ad made only to win an advertising award” meme.
Was the intro to AMAZING STORIES early CGI?
Some it was . The people definitely aren’t in something that old. But the stone pillars, the knight, flying books, and the playing cards are more Robert Abel work.
“Low quality”? Seriously? I was involved in CG very heavily at the time, attending SIGGRAPH, and was knocked out by these commercials. Robert Abel demanded perfection, there were stories that at least one animator had been driven to suicide. I’m pretty sure this was done in Omnibus’s version of Wavefront, which was a bitch to work in. (I was a TDI Explore demo person).
It pre-dated Wavefront. I worked for Magi. That should explain my opinion of quality to you.
I thought Wavefront was created from the code base bought when Omnibus went bankrupt, which was based on Movie.BYU
OK, I just checked and founda 1984 Magi demo reel. If your work is there, yes, you can call the Abel stuff crap.
No definitive story on whether Wavefront is the Abel code or not.
The credits at the end of that demo reel are a who’s who of the pioneers of computer animation.
Larry Elin - Probably the most prolific CG director/animator of that time
Chris Wedge- Director of the Ice Age films and Academy Award winner for animated short - Bunny
Ken Perlin - Mathematician - Academy Award Winner for Technical Achievement
Herb Steinberg - Physicist - Inventor of Computer Aided Tomagraphy
Eugene Troubetetzkoy - Mathematician - Inventor of Plane Firing in Solids Modeling
Carl Ludwig - Engineer - Academy Winner for Technical Achievement
Phil Mittelman- Physicist - Founder of Mathematical Applications Group Inc. - Inventor of Solids Modeling Animation
BTW: Kevin Flynn was based on me (sort of, I’m better looking than Jeff Bridges)
Wow, that sure is a lot of computer resources spent promoting a toxic product…
I believe it was around 1986 this opening for Amazing Stories was made. It definitely had an impact on me and my interest to persue CGI, even when I was 13 (38 now).
ETA: Seeing post #5 now… 
The figure of the magician in clip one-was this a puppet done with stop-motion video?
The transformation of the carousel animals into gold was neat-the reflections were perfect.
Could the whole clip have been done via stop motion?
Now I want to play a first person shooter Zaxxon.
I used to go tom animation film festivals in the 1980s. There was plenty of stuff like this around. That’s not saying it’s easy, but it was certainly state of the art.
Heck, **The Adventures of Andre and Wally B predates this by three years:
I used to have a videotape with all these cigarette ads and other computer animation on it, but it hasn’t stood up well over time.