Do you know Luxo? That’s the bigger version of the popular hopping lamp you see on Pixar movies and logos. The smaller version is Luxo Jr. – both were conceptualized in 1986. I suddenly remembered in 2001 hubby also did a 3D rendering of a lamp inspired by Pixar when he was starting to learn Studiomax.
So this is a short (short for short film ^_^) that features Luxo, a lamp on a desk along with Luxo Jr., a smaller version. Luxo Jr. was playing with a rubber ball, the one we often see in Pixar movies particularly Toy Story and Monster Inc. – the one with red stars in it. At first, the two were playing roll with the ball and Luxo Jr. is not seen on screen. When he appears it is to fetch the ball that has rolled by Luxo…he then brings it back and tries to balance only to deflate it later on. Luxo Jr. hops out of the screen again and Luxo appeared surprise when a bigger ball rolled by him.
The short was made to showcase what Pixar can do regarding animation. Luxo Jr. is technically the first Pixar short film as The adventures of Andre and Wally B. was released under Lucasfilm but both were created by John Lasseter.
Graphic-wise, the short shows the use of shadow mapping, clearly the objects appearing as the lamps light on it would appear in light. Anything behind would be in shadow or depending on how Luxo and Luxo Jr. moves, the shadows were placed accordingly. Since the two are moving, they were presumed to have limbs and the movements were done with ease. Notice also the power cords as they move when Luxo Jr. hops.
Interestingly, Luxo although spelled lukso in my mother language means jump or hop. I searched if it would mean the same in Spanish since the words are often close to my mother tongue but jump in Spanish is salto while luxo means luxury in Portuguese. Turns out that the lamps were inspired by John Lasseter’s own Luxo brand task light on his desk.
This is such a nice post. I’m a fan of Pixar’s animated movies, but I never really wondered where the lamp on their movie openers came from.. 🙂
Pixar never fails with their films. I so love their animations. Luxo Jr is so cute he even made me laugh. 🙂
I am not really a fan of animated films. I mean, I do watch, but I am not too eager to watch on the first showing. But thats a nice info you got there 😉
this one made me laugh.. thanks for sharing.. =)
this short clip is very cute. we actually search youtube for a pixar short movie, like the guy who plays the chess, that was hilarious 🙂
Wow that was an interesting trivia. I didn’t know that Luxo is its name. More interesting is Luxo really means hop, like lukso here in the Philippines.
I can say that Pixar is really great in animation. If I am not mistaken, there are Filipinos that work in Pixar.
Nice research sis you did a good job reviewing it, I thought it came from tagalog LUKSO parang lukso ng dugo heheheh. I love pixars doing some short film on their movies.
Not a fan of Pixar or animated films, but I enjoyed reading your entry. Learned something new 🙂
Pixar is the best when it comes to animation. Although other production companies have emerged in recent years, I still am a Pixar fan. Luxo is one example of their brilliance. #JustPassingBy