CGI Landmarks: Luxo Jr (1986)

In the same year as Labyrinth along came Luxo Jr, which has now become the general logo for the company Pixar. Luxo Jr is a small table or desk lamp that has been fully animation into 3D and is a fabulous animation short to watch. It combines whitty humour and has been beautifully rendered to show the moment of both of the lamps and also the ball which Luxo Jr plays with. Throughout the animation as well there are definitely examples of the principles used here, again like most 3D animations the squash principle has been used on the ball, especially when Luxo Jr is balancing and jumping on it, but the true reason as to why this animation short isn't down to how wonderful and funny it is; its down to the shadows. Luxo Jr was the very first CG animation to include and successfully use shadows in there animation. There are clear examples of this running through the animation the clearest being when anything is in the larger lamp's light as this casts a very heavy and also very obvious shadow onto any other objects that past through it.