Eric Darnell working in the Computer Animation Lab with the Cubicomp PictureMaker circa 1988

The Computer Animation Lab (CAL) was founded in 1983 by the Dean of the School of Film/Video, the late Ed Emshwiller. The original lab was located in the CalArts Library and consisted of a single Cubicomp IBM PC based 3D graphics system. Vibeke Sorensen was hired later that year to teach a 3D Animation Class and served as Lab Director until 1995. Michael Scroggins served as Interim Lab Director until the summer of 1996 when he was formally appointed Director of the Computer Animation Lab.

CalArts received a grant from the Jones Foundation in 1984 enabling the purchase of a state of the art 3D computer animation system comprised of an SGI IRIS 3130 graphics computer and Wavefront Technologies 3D animation software. The arrival of the SGI/Wavefront package prompted the relocation of the CAL to a larger space with constant air conditioning and 7 day a week 24 hour a day access. The CAL grew over the years with the purchase of additional Cubicomp systems and generous donations of hardware and software from SGI, ILM, Rhythm & Hues, and Wavefront Technologies. A substantial software grant was obtained from SOFTIMAGE in 1994 and SOFTIMAGE|3D continued to be our primary animation package until the Fall of 2000 when a grant from Alias|Wavefront allowed us to migrate to Maya Unlimited. A major grant from SGI was obtained in early 1997 and the SGI 4D series machines were replaced with fifteen SGI Indigo² IMPACT series workstations, an ONYX RE² /CHALLENGE Vault XL system configured as a file server, and an ONYX InfiniteReality intended to do double duty as a high-end compositing and VR system. The Fall '97 semester began with the installation of five Intergraph TD-225 Windows NT workstations acquired as a portion of a larger grant from Intel. The Intergraph systems were setup for image processing, sound processing, and multimedia authoring software, supplementing the seven Apple Macintosh computers primarily used for these purposes.

The SGI Indigo2 Impacts were retired in the Summer of 2001 and replaced with Windows 2000 Pro workstations supplied by Bell Computer. Our most recent generation of Bell workstations run Windows XP Pro and feature 2.66 GHz Intel Xeon Dual Core CPU's, 2GB of RAM, and Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS graphics cards. We also now have multiple terabytes of storage on a fiberchannel file server and an old but very useful 40 CPU PIII based renderfarm.

Over the years the number and structure of courses taught in the lab have grown to match the needs of students and faculty working in the constantly changing field of 3D computer graphic animation.