The Cal Arts faculty included abstract animator Jules Engel, Expanded Cinema critic Gene Youngblood, and special effects artist Pat O'Neill.
Subsequently, Cuba produced three more computer-animated films: 3/78 (Objects and Transformations), Two Space, and Calculated Movements.
[3][4] George Lucas wanted to use computer animation to show the Death Star blueprints during this scene.
Cuba won the contract after he showed Lucas footage from his 1974 short film First Fig and mentioned that he had recently worked with famed animator John Whitney Sr.[5] Cuba produced the sequences using the GRASS programming language at the University of Illinois, Chicago's Circle Graphics Habitat.
The final few seconds of the animation, showing the proton torpedo flying into the Death Star's reactor core, were drawn by hand to look similar to the computer footage and added six months later.
Working from an early matte painting, GRASS's internal system for creating arcs and circles was used to produce the drawing.
[5] The image was copied to film frame-by-frame using a Mitchell Camera whose motor was stepped by wiring it to one of the terminal's register-controlled indicator lamps.
The physical model used during filming was constructed by making many copies of six key shapes and then arranging them in different ways to produce a more random-looking trench.
Cuba had previously used the GRASS system to create a program that allowed freehand drawings to be digitized manually on the graphics tablet.
[5] Since the VG3D terminal was not able to calculate perspective internally, the portions of the animation showing the view along the trench had to be rendered on the host computer and then composited into the resulting frame.
Using a programming language called RAP[citation needed] at the Los Angeles firm Information International Inc. (III), Larry was able to systematically explore the classic 17 symmetry groups, a technique used by Islamic artists to create abstract temple decorations.