Even leading up to the film, the media was intrigued by the first 100% computer-generated film. In a 1995 Wired article titled, The Toy Story Story, Burr Snider explored the early history of the company, the technology and profiled the then 38-year-old, John Lasseter as the film was rounding the home stretch. Below are a few highlights from that article, although the entire article is definitely worth a read to flash back in time and get a sense of the humble beginnings of Toy Story and the Pixar crew.
3 TOY STORY TECHNICAL FACTS
- It was a big deal for Toy Story to be the first 100% computer generated film, as even Jurassic Park (released in 1993) featured a cumulative 6 minutes of total computer generated imagery.
- The film required 800,000 machine-hours to produce a final cut.
- The Renderfarm at Pixar was comprised of 300 Sun processors — for contrast Monsters University utilized 2,000 computers with more than 24,000 processor cores.