7 ms·

This is one of those projects that seems complex and expensive for the sake of being so. I doubt the final image is any better than what could have been created

This is one of those projects that seems complex and expensive for the sake of being so. I doubt the final image is any better than what could have been created purely digitally. This would have been cool to see in the 1950s or 60s before CGI was a thing, but now it just seems over the top.

snagglegaggle 7y ago
These projects are undertaken more for inspiration than synthesis of a design. It is unlikely something similar would have been drempt up, realty is more strange.
Aloha 7y ago
I had always assumed it was digitally created.
EsssM7QVMehFPAs 7y ago
Industrial Light and Magic would like to disagree, where Star Wars spaceships are still built in miniature model glory. CGI is still not the same. Yet.
- Thorentis 7y ago
  Well no, it's not the same. I love when films use scale models to create effects, and I agree that sometimes they are better. But in this case they used a piece of glass with a projector behind it to recreate one of the simplest company logos, which could've been done in photoshop and after effects for half the time (and probably a 10th of the budget). But yes, I love the Star Wars and LOTR (Wetaworks) stuff.
- whywhywhywhy 7y ago
  It’s not a case of which is better it’s a case of aesthetic. Models don’t necessarily look more real they just have their own look which adds to the film. CG can certainly look excellent when the effort is put in (a lot is done on the cheap these days) but there is a time and a place for models if you want that feel. Would be interested in seeing someone try to recreate the feel of models in CG though by literally modelling a model set/scale in CG.
spectramax 7y ago
I agree - It would be ridiculously easy to do this today with CG. Not just easy, but a few-magnitude-orders easy/fast. It kind of leaves a bad taste about the whole thing because most people don't know how easy it is to do in CG. I could probably do this in an hour or two, including the fog (which really makes the image) - probably sounds condescending, but I cannot emphasize enough about the triviality of generating this wallpaper in CG. Most people don't realize what today's CG software can do, just look at the new features in Houdini: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIcUW9QFMLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIcUW9QFMLE
- Retric 7y ago
  Cool tech, yet every single one of those images look extremely unnatural. I think people get used to seeing CGI so much they simply get used to it. Take the faces in frozen, they are intentionally stylized but in a way that looks utterly freakish. It’s not even that the animators messed up. Somehow rather than people seeing something deep in the uncanny valley most people simply don’t have a problem with this kind of distortion.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    You’re making an argument that CGI doesn’t match reality - that’s true and hardly surprising.
    - Retric 7y ago
      Not quite, I am saying CGI looks similar to other CGI. Thus, if you’re going for something memorable and artistic that’s a problem.
- sbr464 7y ago
  Sorry, I have to (insert lol emoji) a little. While I totally understand your point, GMunk is an insane artist, especially his artwork over the last 1.5 decades. Things move exponentially faster each year. I think large enterprise budgets (and approval processes) affect the creative output, especially when hiring someone like GMunk for a spot (esp in the corporate product space). He already favors a darker style than I can see a Windows campaign favoring. It’s definitely interesting when details of a process like this come out.
pcurve 7y ago
I agree. Over the top and probably result of over allocating budget due to its prominence. I wouldn't be surprised if the budget was $2 million. The animated version is pretty neat to look at only because you know it's not VFX. The effect itself is nothing to write home about. LG did something similar too, but to be honest, it appears they basically re-drew it digitally anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsbtxBA55oQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsbtxBA55oQ
- whywhywhywhy 7y ago
  > over allocating budget due to its prominence. I wouldn't be surprised if the budget was $2 million. What should the budget be for something like this?
raindropm 7y ago
That's what creative agency do. Create storytelling and meaning of what and why they do something the hard way. It's why there is still some company (e.g. Colossal Media) that hand-paint advertising on the building wall and not just easily print it on vinyl. It gives meaning to their creation - also differentiate them from the others. In practical sense, yes, you can do it really fast, easy and cheap with any 3D software nowadays in just 2 days(but where's the fun in that?:) IMO, easily created things are also easily forgettable. Another example is Apple and some of their recent desktop/iPhone wallpaper. It seems like CG, but those are real piece of art, made by hand, and photographed. Google's Material design concept, with real light and shadow, comes to mind too. Seems overkill?, yes, but it did has story behind it and not cheaply made in 2 hours with Adobe illustrator. The nonsense, abstract and intangibility part of it is what differentiate the brand. You will never see utilitarian brand like Amazon do something like this.
- Thorentis 7y ago
  I would agree if something is noticeably handmade. For instance paintings on the sides of buildings, or street art, or hand animated logos etc. But I think 99% of people assume from looking at the desktop image that is was created digitally. There is no point in "creating the story" if you have to stumble across an obscure behind the scenes video to find out about it.
  - afiori 7y ago
    One of the advantage of doing things the hard way as a process is also a commitment to commitment. By deciding that the windows logo should be a studio photo they also made a statement about taking all pieces of the project seriously. Moreover like for Google's material design, constraints are often the source of creativity.
DocG 7y ago
It's more so for the creative process. In my experience result is always better, more detailed when it has to go through progess and is built up. Rarely artist has "final image" in his mind when they start. Sure, you could recreate this in GCI but it would be way harder to come up with the design in the first place. I would also consider, any GCI artist could recreate this in 3D, but few could create it from scratch. If we consider that there was an good artist hired to do this piece, then it will be up to artist to choose his/her medium and you are critizing choice of artist or saying artist how to do his creative process and it is not about real vs GCI anymore. Creating stuff from scratch is really really hard, it is always better to combine and build on things. The final product will look more original, detailed and overall better. Art is messy, not optimized process.
- soup10 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure the concept was "light shining through windows" and then the marketing department started getting creative with ways to justify its existence.
  - el_benhameen 7y ago
    I dunno, man. Microsoft has a bajillion dollars. I’d rather they waste it on inspired people doing technically interesting work with a ho-hum outcome than the other things that corporations waste money on (Microsoft included), like regulatory capture or figuring out ways to shirk responsibility for giving people cancer.
    - sandoooo 7y ago
      well, ideally they'd take the extra money and pay the people responsible for fixing bugs just a little bit more.
fortran77 7y ago
Microsoft Windows, and the people (like me) who use it, care deeply about beauty, craft, and design. I would expect no less from Microsoft, and this beauty can be seen throughout the design, operation, and usability of Microsoft software. Sure, the effort is wasted on some, but the most important users love it.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The same Microsoft that puts Candy Crush and other ads in start menus and goes from windows 10 to windows vista or XP in control panel with 1 click?
  - juststeve 7y ago
    The start menu in Server 2012 R2 is the same as in Windows 8. Who's logging into a server with a tablet device and doing work with WinRT style apps?
  - fortran77 7y ago
    Clearly this operating system isn't for you. That's great! We have choice in this world. Enjoy your Arch Linux -- I'm glad it works for you.
yzmtf2008 7y ago
Ah, HN, where the top comment to a post about an artistic process is it costs too much money.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  It costs too much money for the quality of the result. I've been lucky enough to know professional creative people who are very good at their jobs, and the one quality they share is the ability to produce work that is somehow reassuringly effective. It's like they can give an audience the gift of just believing in what they do. There's no need for cynicism or questions - the work just works, and you can relax into it. I don't think this is on that level. There's something awkward and self-conscious about it, so it doesn't quite gel or pop like it should. It's both too controlled and too messily out of control (lasers? acrylic? light projection? kitchen sink?) at the same time. It's only about the money in the sense that there seems to have been a lot of it, and it's not obvious why.
h0l0cube 7y ago
It's the same argument you here from the armchair critic of modern art, 'My child could do this.' And while it's right that a child could probably commit to the brush strokes, it's certain that if you gave the same tools to the child, they wouldn't produce anything like it. And here, it's easy to say that you could easily produce this in CG using Blender and the like, if the artist knew what the final image would look like. But the final image is the product of the experimental process, which invited different possibilities to playing around with digital tools. An art teacher once told me, 'There's no right and wrong in art, just good and shit.' And 'good works of art', by my definition, tend to have a development process behind them, and not just whims of fraudulent genius, as some might believe.
xattt 7y ago
This process reminds me of the way that titles were made for Stranger Things. The creators wanted to go full out and have stop motion practical effects. They consulted with a guru of that era who said that CGI was the way to go. (1) (1) https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/stranger-things-almost-had-some-very-different-title-sequences https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/stranger-things-almost-had-som...

snagglegaggle 7y ago

These projects are undertaken more for inspiration than synthesis of a design. It is unlikely something similar would have been drempt up, realty is more strange.

Aloha 7y ago

I had always assumed it was digitally created.

EsssM7QVMehFPAs 7y ago

Industrial Light and Magic would like to disagree, where Star Wars spaceships are still built in miniature model glory. CGI is still not the same. Yet.

Thorentis 7y ago
Well no, it's not the same. I love when films use scale models to create effects, and I agree that sometimes they are better. But in this case they used a piece of glass with a projector behind it to recreate one of the simplest company logos, which could've been done in photoshop and after effects for half the time (and probably a 10th of the budget). But yes, I love the Star Wars and LOTR (Wetaworks) stuff.
whywhywhywhy 7y ago
It’s not a case of which is better it’s a case of aesthetic. Models don’t necessarily look more real they just have their own look which adds to the film. CG can certainly look excellent when the effort is put in (a lot is done on the cheap these days) but there is a time and a place for models if you want that feel. Would be interested in seeing someone try to recreate the feel of models in CG though by literally modelling a model set/scale in CG.

spectramax 7y ago

I agree - It would be ridiculously easy to do this today with CG. Not just easy, but a few-magnitude-orders easy/fast. It kind of leaves a bad taste about the whole thing because most people don't know how easy it is to do in CG. I could probably do this in an hour or two, including the fog (which really makes the image) - probably sounds condescending, but I cannot emphasize enough about the triviality of generating this wallpaper in CG. Most people don't realize what today's CG software can do, just look at the new features in Houdini: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIcUW9QFMLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIcUW9QFMLE

Retric 7y ago
Cool tech, yet every single one of those images look extremely unnatural. I think people get used to seeing CGI so much they simply get used to it. Take the faces in frozen, they are intentionally stylized but in a way that looks utterly freakish. It’s not even that the animators messed up. Somehow rather than people seeing something deep in the uncanny valley most people simply don’t have a problem with this kind of distortion.
- spectramax 7y ago
  You’re making an argument that CGI doesn’t match reality - that’s true and hardly surprising.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Not quite, I am saying CGI looks similar to other CGI. Thus, if you’re going for something memorable and artistic that’s a problem.
sbr464 7y ago
Sorry, I have to (insert lol emoji) a little. While I totally understand your point, GMunk is an insane artist, especially his artwork over the last 1.5 decades. Things move exponentially faster each year. I think large enterprise budgets (and approval processes) affect the creative output, especially when hiring someone like GMunk for a spot (esp in the corporate product space). He already favors a darker style than I can see a Windows campaign favoring. It’s definitely interesting when details of a process like this come out.

pcurve 7y ago

I agree. Over the top and probably result of over allocating budget due to its prominence. I wouldn't be surprised if the budget was $2 million. The animated version is pretty neat to look at only because you know it's not VFX. The effect itself is nothing to write home about. LG did something similar too, but to be honest, it appears they basically re-drew it digitally anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsbtxBA55oQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsbtxBA55oQ

whywhywhywhy 7y ago
> over allocating budget due to its prominence. I wouldn't be surprised if the budget was $2 million. What should the budget be for something like this?

raindropm 7y ago

That's what creative agency do. Create storytelling and meaning of what and why they do something the hard way. It's why there is still some company (e.g. Colossal Media) that hand-paint advertising on the building wall and not just easily print it on vinyl. It gives meaning to their creation - also differentiate them from the others. In practical sense, yes, you can do it really fast, easy and cheap with any 3D software nowadays in just 2 days(but where's the fun in that?:) IMO, easily created things are also easily forgettable. Another example is Apple and some of their recent desktop/iPhone wallpaper. It seems like CG, but those are real piece of art, made by hand, and photographed. Google's Material design concept, with real light and shadow, comes to mind too. Seems overkill?, yes, but it did has story behind it and not cheaply made in 2 hours with Adobe illustrator. The nonsense, abstract and intangibility part of it is what differentiate the brand. You will never see utilitarian brand like Amazon do something like this.

Thorentis 7y ago
I would agree if something is noticeably handmade. For instance paintings on the sides of buildings, or street art, or hand animated logos etc. But I think 99% of people assume from looking at the desktop image that is was created digitally. There is no point in "creating the story" if you have to stumble across an obscure behind the scenes video to find out about it.
- afiori 7y ago
  One of the advantage of doing things the hard way as a process is also a commitment to commitment. By deciding that the windows logo should be a studio photo they also made a statement about taking all pieces of the project seriously. Moreover like for Google's material design, constraints are often the source of creativity.

DocG 7y ago

It's more so for the creative process. In my experience result is always better, more detailed when it has to go through progess and is built up. Rarely artist has "final image" in his mind when they start. Sure, you could recreate this in GCI but it would be way harder to come up with the design in the first place. I would also consider, any GCI artist could recreate this in 3D, but few could create it from scratch. If we consider that there was an good artist hired to do this piece, then it will be up to artist to choose his/her medium and you are critizing choice of artist or saying artist how to do his creative process and it is not about real vs GCI anymore. Creating stuff from scratch is really really hard, it is always better to combine and build on things. The final product will look more original, detailed and overall better. Art is messy, not optimized process.

soup10 7y ago
I'm pretty sure the concept was "light shining through windows" and then the marketing department started getting creative with ways to justify its existence.
- el_benhameen 7y ago
  I dunno, man. Microsoft has a bajillion dollars. I’d rather they waste it on inspired people doing technically interesting work with a ho-hum outcome than the other things that corporations waste money on (Microsoft included), like regulatory capture or figuring out ways to shirk responsibility for giving people cancer.
  - sandoooo 7y ago
    well, ideally they'd take the extra money and pay the people responsible for fixing bugs just a little bit more.

fortran77 7y ago

Microsoft Windows, and the people (like me) who use it, care deeply about beauty, craft, and design. I would expect no less from Microsoft, and this beauty can be seen throughout the design, operation, and usability of Microsoft software. Sure, the effort is wasted on some, but the most important users love it.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
The same Microsoft that puts Candy Crush and other ads in start menus and goes from windows 10 to windows vista or XP in control panel with 1 click?
- juststeve 7y ago
  The start menu in Server 2012 R2 is the same as in Windows 8. Who's logging into a server with a tablet device and doing work with WinRT style apps?
- fortran77 7y ago
  Clearly this operating system isn't for you. That's great! We have choice in this world. Enjoy your Arch Linux -- I'm glad it works for you.

yzmtf2008 7y ago

Ah, HN, where the top comment to a post about an artistic process is it costs too much money.

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
It costs too much money for the quality of the result. I've been lucky enough to know professional creative people who are very good at their jobs, and the one quality they share is the ability to produce work that is somehow reassuringly effective. It's like they can give an audience the gift of just believing in what they do. There's no need for cynicism or questions - the work just works, and you can relax into it. I don't think this is on that level. There's something awkward and self-conscious about it, so it doesn't quite gel or pop like it should. It's both too controlled and too messily out of control (lasers? acrylic? light projection? kitchen sink?) at the same time. It's only about the money in the sense that there seems to have been a lot of it, and it's not obvious why.

h0l0cube 7y ago

It's the same argument you here from the armchair critic of modern art, 'My child could do this.' And while it's right that a child could probably commit to the brush strokes, it's certain that if you gave the same tools to the child, they wouldn't produce anything like it. And here, it's easy to say that you could easily produce this in CG using Blender and the like, if the artist knew what the final image would look like. But the final image is the product of the experimental process, which invited different possibilities to playing around with digital tools. An art teacher once told me, 'There's no right and wrong in art, just good and shit.' And 'good works of art', by my definition, tend to have a development process behind them, and not just whims of fraudulent genius, as some might believe.

xattt 7y ago

This process reminds me of the way that titles were made for Stranger Things. The creators wanted to go full out and have stop motion practical effects. They consulted with a guru of that era who said that CGI was the way to go. (1) (1) https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/stranger-things-almost-had-some-very-different-title-sequences https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/stranger-things-almost-had-som...