[Caelus9]

Early flight simulators were a real leap forward in technology, even though the frame rate and graphics processing were very primitive at the time, and 2 frames per second was only part of the "brilliance". But just like the first flight simulation game I played as a child, although the graphics were simple, the sense of immersion and freedom is still exciting when I think back now. I think the work of people like Foley and Van Dam is really underestimated. Their technology paved the way for today's 3D game graphics. They are really heroes ignored by the times!

[jplusequalt]

There's a whole host of researchers who helped paved the way for modern graphics that no-one outside the graphics community knows about. Ever heard of Eric Veach? His work on path tracing is extremely important, and I've never heard a single person who wasn't already in the weeds of writing their own path tracer mention him or his ground-breaking thesis.

https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/veach_thesis/thesis.pdf