Smith was a founding member, with Ed Catmull, of the Lucasfilm Computer Division, which developed computer graphics software including early renderer technology.[8] As director of the Computer Graphics Project, Smith created and directed the "Genesis Demo" in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and conceived and directed the short animated film The Adventures of André & Wally B., animated by John Lasseter.[9] At some point in the 1980s, a designer suggested naming a new digital compositing computer the "Picture Maker". Smith thought that the laser-based device needed a catchier name and came up with "Pixer", which after a meeting was changed to "Pixar".[10]
Smith and Catmull co-founded Pixar in 1986 with financing from Steve Jobs.[11] After the spinout from Lucasfilm of Pixar, he served on the board of directors and was executive vice president. According to Jeffrey Young and William Simon's Jobs biography, iCon, Alvy Ray quit Pixar in 1991 after a heated argument with Jobs over the use of a whiteboard.[12] Feeling bullied by Jobs, Smith decided to publicly break the unwritten rule that no one else could use Jobs's whiteboard; they ended up screaming at each-other.[13] Despite Smith's role as co-founder of Pixar, Young and Simon claim that the company has largely written him out of its corporate history: for example, there is no mention of Smith on the Pixar website.[14][15] Pixar released Toy Story in 1995 and then went public, and Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997.
After leaving Pixar in 1991, Smith cofounded Altamira Software with Eric Lyons and Nicholas Clay. Altamira was acquired by Microsoft in 1994, and Smith became the first Graphics Fellow at Microsoft.[16]
Smith retired from Microsoft in 1999 to spend his time giving talks, making digital photographs, doing scholarly genealogy, and researching technical history. He lives in Seattle, Washington. In 2010, Smith married Alison Gopnik, author and Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.[17]
Awards
With his collaborators, Smith has twice been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his scientific and engineering contributions to digital image compositing (1996 award) and digital paint systems (1998 award).[18]
In 1990, Smith and Richard Shoup received the ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award for their development of paint programs.[19] Smith presented the Forsythe Lecture in 1997 at Stanford University, where he received his PhD in 1970.[citation needed] His undergraduate alma mater New Mexico State University awarded him an honorary doctorate in December 1999.[20][21][22] He was inducted into the CRN Industry Hall of Fame at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA in 2004.[citation needed] In 2006, Smith was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.[20] In 2010, Smith was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists and presented the Washington Award in Chicago for advancing "the welfare of humankind". In 2011, Smith was awarded the Special Award at Mundos Digitales in La Coruna, Spain, for lifetime achievement in computer graphics.[citation needed] In 2012, Smith was awarded the Digital Media Symposium Lifetime Achievement Award in Boulder, Colorado, and was awarded a plaque in the Circle of Honor at New Mexico State University.[citation needed] In 2013, Smith was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[citation needed] Smith has been the recipient of several grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts during his career.[citation needed] In May 2022, Smith received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from New York Institute of Technology (where he co-founded the Computer Graphics Laboratory) for his pioneering work in computer animation. [23]
^"Pixar Founding Documents". alvyray.com. Archived from the original on 2005-04-27. Retrieved 2012-07-25. Listed here are the 38 founding employees who came with the two cofounders to Pixar.