In anticipation of Tribul's inaugural The Faces of Csuri auction on November 30, Brian Boucher sat down with Steve May, the current CTO of Pixar and a former student of Charles Csuri, the "father of digital art and computer animation."
Brian Boucher: Could you tell us about your interactions with Csuri at Ohio State University, what you learned from him, and how you worked together to develop some of his unique tools?
Steve May: I was a student of Charles “Chuck” Csuri at Ohio State for my entire graduate school. He was a remarkable mentor, advisor, and one of my best friends even though we had about a 45-year difference. He was a huge inspiration for me.
As a teenager, I was interested in art, computer technology, and video games but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I thought I might go into architecture — and then I learned about Chuck and the program he helped build at Ohio State by reading a magazine that my parents happened to subscribe to. It was really serendipitous. I grew up about an hour and a half north of Columbus, Ohio and I didn't know that almost literally in our backyard was one of the birthplaces of computer graphics. I wasn't even aware of the field.
It was around 1984 that I saw this magazine article. I really had no idea that computer graphics was emerging in the way that it was — I thought of it as video games. The article discussed Chuck Csuri at Ohio State, highlighting the program he developed and the state-of-the-art research conducted there. It seemed like fate… it seemed like fate that this is what I should do: "I should go study at Ohio State and hopefully, I can get from there to Chuck someday.” While in high school, I visited the graduate program because it was the only one the university had for computer graphics. They didn't have computer graphics for undergraduates but I knew that's what I wanted to do so I visited the graduate program.
I remember seeing Chuck in another room. I don't think I even talked to him on that visit. I saw him in the room and I felt this sense of awe that he was there. From then on, he was an inspiration for me.
I'll add ironically that in that same magazine, it talked about one of the other places where computer graphics was happening, which was the precursor to what became Pixar. At that time, it was a division of Lucasfilm which George Lucas eventually sold to Steve Jobs before becoming Pixar. I remember reading the magazine saying, “Well, I’m going to go study at Ohio State, hopefully get to work with Chuck Csuri, and then I want to go work at this computer division of Lucasfilm.” Who knows what would have happened if I hadn't actually read that magazine?
BB: What magazine was it?
SM: I still have the copy of the magazine. It was Science 84.
BB: Amazing. That is a fantastic story. That is really tremendous.
SM: On the cover of this magazine, there is an image of a hand and a cue hitting some billiard balls and it says, “This picture is a fake.” But it looked as real as can be. I remember 1984 computer graphics did not look anything close to real, but this image did. It blew my mind to see that cover. It turned out that the person who created the image would become my first boss at Pixar and until he retired earlier this year, our offices were next door to each other.
BB: Incredible.
Science 84 | Jul/Aug 1984
SM: I talked to the grad students at Ohio State about what I should do and where I should go for my undergrad. They said, “Well you should just come to Ohio State. Why would you go anywhere else?” So, I did.
I didn't meet Chuck until I became a grad student. Chuck founded the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD). ACCAD is a really neat place at Ohio State, where art students immerse themselves in computer animation and computer arts and collaborate with computer science students to create an intersection of disciplines. I was a computer science student as an undergrad and a grad student.
You had this melting pot of artists, mostly graduate students, and computer science students. And so you've got this incredible combination of art and technology, which inspires me to this day. It’s exactly what Pixar is. Pixar is exactly this combination of artists and technologists. And Chuck created that place.
It’s where I got to know him and where he eventually became an advisor for my PhD
ACCAD'S Motion Lab
BB: You actually worked with him on developing some of his unique tools. What can you tell me about that?
SM: I got a job at ACCAD as a research assistant, which was great for paying my grad school bills. My office happened to be right next door to Chuck’s. Because of that proximity, I got to know him. I like football, and so we discussed this common ground, considering his well-known reputation as a famous football player at Ohio State. We would also talk about computer graphics and animation. As we got to talk more and more, I realized that I could probably help him by creating new tools that he could use. So, I wrote the animation system that he used to make most of the artwork he created probably after the early 1990s until the end of his career.
We also used RenderMan with that same software, which is a software that Pixar wrote that creates 3D renderings. I wrote what are called “shaders,” which is code that can modulate a surface’s appearance in terms of its color or the way that it reflects light. This way, it could simulate materials like metal, wood, plastic, or marble with different colorations. We would talk about other new tools that we could create.
Chuck was retired at the time that I met him. He was a professor emeritus. I would go in on Saturdays to get extra work done and he would still be there on weekends. He worked every day and he and I would be the only people in the library. It’s where we got in a lot of good quality time and where we would dream up new kinds of ideas about things we could make with the software. Now, the software was not like the software we have today. Centered around programming language, the environment featured interactive tools, similar to contemporary interfaces, allowing users to view and manipulate 3D scenes. But the primary emphasis was on writing code.
Chuck was not a programmer. He did know stuff about computers, but he was not a programmer. I would write examples or frameworks of code and then he would go in and modify, embellish, change, and add to it based on the examples that I would give him. I was always really impressed with that because it was a significant technological obstacle for him to make artwork since he had to write and modify this code to do it. He did it through pure perseverance. It was very crude compared to what you see as far as 3D artist tools today.
He would just keep plugging away at it. I would help if he had problems with it and we'd add new capabilities to it. He was not afraid of the fact that he had to modify text and numbers in order to generate his artwork. That’s another thing I learned from him: perseverance.
BB: You've started to answer the next question that I was going to ask. What aspects of his vision of art and computers have continued to resonate with you over the course of your career?
SM: Well, Chuck had a huge influence on the entire visual effects and animation film industry. As one of the founders of computer graphics and a founder of one of the very first visual effects studios, his influence is pervasive across the industry. So many of his former students and staff would become employees, artists, directors, and producers at all kinds of different studios in our industry. His combination of art and technology is still used at Pixar.
Even Steve Jobs talked about this when he was CEO of Pixar — the intersection of liberal arts and technology makes magical things happen. That's what happens here. That's what happened at ACCAD at Ohio State. Chuck has had an enormous influence on the philosophy that I take with how we do things at Pixar and the formation of our entire industry, which is now pretty much any film you go see anywhere.
And beyond that, the work that was done for film became the basis for so many other things today. Gaming, for example, employs a lot of three-dimensional computer graphics today. Of course, augmented reality and virtual reality is leveraging computer graphics. Even machine learning and artificial intelligence heavily leverage computer graphics. For example, when you're programming self-driving cars, instead of actually driving cars on thousands of miles of streets around San Francisco, what the companies do to actually do that work is they build a 3D computer graphics version of San Francisco. They then drive virtual cars through that simulation because they can do that a thousand more times than they could real cars. They use that training data, which is very realistic and looks just like the city with its different weather conditions, to train machine learning systems that are built into the autonomously driven cars. Computer graphics is the foundation for so many things that we do today.
That early work formed the basis for all that we have today.
BB: The more you talk, the smaller my questions seem. My questions are way too narrow, I now realize. This is really mind-blowing. I was wondering, in terms of computer animation, where do you see his legacy most clearly in the work being done today? Again, it's, as you said, really the foundation. It's not a matter of whether one artist's style is indebted to Csuri. The work he did was the foundation of so much of it.
SM: With the things he did at Ohio State and even those early artworks from the 1960s, it was controversial then to talk about making fine art with computer technology because computer technology was pretty far out back then. Chuck’s audacity and bravery in doing that set the wheels in motion for everything, including the idea of treating computers as a medium for fine arts. It set the wheels turning for everything that we do in film today. This just wouldn't have been there without those initial steps.
At Pixar, we use technology to do computer animation but in the end, it's an art form.
We're communicating and trying to connect with audiences in the same way that Chuck did with traditional fine art and computers as a medium.
I know it was very frustrating for him in those early years because people didn't take it seriously. Now they do. And it's because he had bravery. He just stuck to it. He would not give up on it.
BB: I wonder if any of the artworks in the current auction are especially meaningful to you or are particularly illustrative of his philosophy or his artmaking.
SM: There is one image called Wired Two that reminded me of the things that we worked on together. In fact, I think he used some software that I wrote then that would take a geometric object and string what we called “ribbons” through it to make very fine lines. Wired Two reminds me of our times working together because that's what we would do. We would say, “What if we made an algorithm that could string lines through a three-dimensional shape to make an interesting object” and “What if we could also control this aspect of it.” I would go back and add to what I was working on and then he would incorporate it into an image like you see in that piece. Technologically, I think that one 's interesting and indicative of the kind of artwork he did. There's a computery-ness to it that is also leveraging the medium in a way you could not with any other media. You could only make that with computer arts because of the complexity of all those lines and ribbons moving through three-dimensional space. But it also still has this humanity to it because it's a face with this beautiful color palette.
I think that's a nice encapsulation of what Chuck was really about: leaning into this technology as a medium for art but in the end, it was all about the humanity of connecting and communicating with his audience.
Wired Two | 2005 | The Faces of Csuri Lot 7
BB: Yes. In fact, the auction is called The Faces of Csuri because of exactly that theme. The work was made with technology but really it had such a human dimension.
SM: He had kind of a tough guy persona. He was a person who intimidated a lot of people with his personality, which was very determined about what he wanted to achieve. And of course, he was a football player and an “All-American” at Ohio State. I remember coming in on one of those Saturdays and I think he was probably in his mid-seventies at that point and he kept shrugging his shoulders. I was like, “Chuck, what's going on? Are you okay?” He goes, “Yeah, I was just lifting weights down at the gym so you know, I'm a little sore from doing that.”
But he had a very romantic soft side to him that I feel went unnoticed by many. I got to see that because I worked with him so closely. He was a little bit intimidating and a tough guy but he was actually one of those people who are really just a softy on the inside. He really loved his family and his wife, and you see that romantic element in a lot of his artwork too.
Steve May (@StephenFMay) is currently Chief Technology Officer at Pixar Animation Studios, where his tenure spans more than 20 years. In this role, May oversees all technology at the studio including software R&D, information systems, RenderMan, and the development of visual effects tools and processes for each film.
May began his tenure at Pixar Animation Studios in 1998 as a shading and modeling technical director on Toy Story 2. For Pixar's next film Monsters, Inc. May worked as the simulation and effects sequence supervisor and helped to pioneer the fur technology and overall look for the character Sullivan. He then went on to work on the Academy Award®-winning feature Finding Nemo as the CG supervisor for the shark characters and Sydney Harbor environment.
May served as the effects supervisor on Golden Globe®-winner Cars overseeing all of the film's visual effects. His next role was as the supervising technical director for Academy Award®-winning feature film Up. During his tenure as CTO, May also served as supervising technical director for the final shot production of the Academy Award®-winning film Brave.
Born in Sarasota, Florida, May spent his childhood in Mansfield, Ohio. Fueled by a love of art and science, a 1984 magazine cover, and the mentorship of generative artist Charles Csuri, May decided to pursue a career in computer animation. Under Csuri's supervision, May received a Ph.D. in computer science from The Ohio State University.
Brian Boucher (@briankboucher) is a freelance writer who has contributed to The New York Times, Playboy, New York Magazine, and other publications. He was previously a staff writer at Artnet News and staff writer and editor at Art in America. Boucher has written a Critics’ Pick for the New York Times on artist Shaun Leonardo, served as copy chief for the book “Forward: 20 Years of TimesTalks”, and reported on a push to get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified for Playboy magazine. He lives in New York.