Alvy Ray Smith: RGGBA, the birth of compositing& the founding Of Pixar

Mike Seymour writing for fxguide

Dr Alvy Ray Smith helped or personally invented Paint as we know it, and the Alpha channel (the very idea of RGBA – and he picked the name Alpha). He directed the Genesis sequence in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan while at Lucasfilm, his first directing gig ever, and then followed it up with directed the first short The Adventures of André and Wally B. That film would become the prototype for the short film tradition that would follow until today in a company called Pixar, which Smith co-founded with Ed Catmull. Ed is a friend, who Alvy pushed to hire a young animator called John Lasseter. Smith sold technology to Disney, helped Steve Jobs invest half his fortune in Pixar ($50M), and then helped make him billions, finally coming to blows with Jobs over a white board. However, Jobs still invested in Smith’s next company which Smith would sell to Microsoft, making Jobs even more money. Along the way he worked at Xerox PARC at its height, inspired Photoshop, defended Adobe and lost to Quantel. It is a remarkable story.

I even sent this article to my dad. Thanks Mike for the access.