Douglas Trumbull, the three-time Best Visual Effects Oscar-nominated artist behind the look and feel of such groundbreaking science-fiction classics as “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” has died. His daughter, Amy, shared the news on Facebook that Trumbull had cancer, a brain tumor, and a stroke. He was 79.

“He was an absolute genius and a wizard and his contributions to the film and special effects industry will live on for decades and beyond,” she wrote. Trumbull created the visual effects for Kubrick’s groundbreaking “2001,” Spielberg’s aliens-among-us classic “Close Encounters,” the seedy futuristic Los Angeles of Ridley Scott’s original “Blade Runner,” and for “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.” The latter three films earned him Best Visual Effects Academy Award nominations.

He directed the films “Silent Running” and “Brainstorm,” on which he also oversaw the visual effects.

Trumbull won a Scientific and Engineering Award Oscar award (shared with Robert Auguste) for the concept behind the CP-65 Showscan Camera System for 65mm motion-picture photography in 1993 — the first modern 65mm camera developed in 25 years. He also won a Gordon E. Sawyer Award in 2012, a special Oscar honor presented to “an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry.”

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