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I've been spending a lot of time on photography (though mostly w/ film cameras) during recent years, and only recently realized this is actually photographed. (
by esjeon 2y ago
I've been spending a lot of time on photography (though mostly w/ film cameras) during recent years, and only recently realized this is actually photographed. (It took long because I'm a long-time Linux user, so I barely seen the image.)
Many people say this would've been easier with VFX, but I disagree. The image has highly convincing details that would take a long time even for highly talented VFX artists to nail. Instead, with a camera, you can let the world do the work for you. The studio setup is also very simple (cardboard + acrylic panel + projector + fog) and easy to experiment with. I'm pretty sure photography was the right tool for the project.
- actionfromafar 2y agoAlso pretty sure it was the fun tool for the project.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kqr 2y agoWhich details are you thinking of? I was under the impression that with ray tracing, physically based materials, and fluid dynamics our computers wouldn't be hard-pressed to realistically render a static scene with light (of varying coherence and other properties) going through a piece of plastic and hitting swirling fog. The parameters of the scene need to be set up, yes, but then it would be just as easy to generate a few thousand frames from it. Also it's easier to version control for experimentation.
- kthartic 2y agoIn 2015 (almost 10 years ago now) the tech probably wasn't as convincing as it is today. But I agree you could probably get like 90% there
- xattt 2y agoThe Stranger Things intro scene is CGI. Artists were consulted who originally created similar titles in the 80s with practical effects to see how they could do it too. The old-school artists said to just do it in CGI because that’s what they would have done.
- bombcar 2y agoPeople don’t hate CGI - they hate bad CGI. It’s hard to explain, but you know it when you see it. Bad practical effects do exist, but even when bad they don’t look “unnatural”.
- jcl 2y agoI recall Amazon’s Lord of the Rings title sequence [1] received some criticism for looking fake, even though they filmed it practically [2]. I’d guess it was due to folks assuming title sequences are CGI, combined with the fact that few people really know what poured liquid metal is supposed to look like. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV-dDyYgwkc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV-dDyYgwkc [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZEpWvQFXqQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZEpWvQFXqQ
- bombcar 2y agoThere's a similar problem with gunshots and explosions - we want what movies have given us which is not what they actually act/sound like - so much so that live recordings of actual gunfire/explosions is often deemed "fake".
- magicalhippo 2y agoSpecular reflections and diffuse media (fog) makes for massive render times though, in my experience. I did something similarish with water a long time ago, using a spectral renderer, finding spectral data for ocean water absorption and reflection, realistic spectral sun/sky model, and a physically-based ocean wave simulator to create the surface. The underwater "caustic god rays" looked very nice and realistic, and setting it all up was easy once I had found the data. But it took ages to get rid of the noise.
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- ecjhdnc2025 2y agoYes. But why would you do all these computer-ish things to provide a backdrop for a computer? Where is the creativity in that? Where is the attitude, the whimsy, the irony, the juxtaposition? Considering how much of current technology stems from geeks just proving that their crazy idea could work and looking for money for it afterwards, the disrespect here for another geek's craft and intuitions is wild.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- noname120 2y agoNah that's post hoc rationalization. The amount of busy-work that went into it is ridiculous. Just because a colossal amount of effort was poured in this wallpaper doesn't mean that they used the right tool for the job or that the output was better because of it.
- sph 2y agoYou're thinking like an engineer, and speak as if there is a right amount of time to spend on artistic endeavours; if you cross this threshold for you it is a "ridiculous and colossal amount of effort". Budget aside, art isn't constrained or criticized by how much effort the artist put in. All that matters is the result. A wallpaper or any other artistic creation isn't less beautiful or evocative because the artist spent thousands of hours on it.
- surgicalcolor 2y agoNo, he's just being realistic. Even without getting into semantics about "what is art", the reality is that this is promotional material for advertising. This wasn't commissioned by a rich patron to put up on exhibition for MoMA. This isn't to take away from the artists skill, effort, creativity etc. but the context of this is inherently a business and economic decision. There's no artistic impetus, no political/social/cultural message. It's a computer wallpaper that monopolistic megacorp funded to show off how wealthy it is. It's a very typical "look at how much money we spent" exercise to showcase success or whatever.
- dspillett 2y ago> Even without getting into semantics about "what is art" They say, before making comments about what they think is art :-) > There's no artistic impetus, no political/social/cultural message. There is, as you state in your next couple of sentences: > … monopolistic megacorp funded to show off … typical "look at how much money we spent" exercise to showcase You can, probably rightly, call it a crappy impetus. But that was impetus for the exercise and could be called the artistic impetus. Even if you disagree strongly on that particular point, it is definitely a message. To be slightly more fair, that wallpaper is a major part of the initial impression people have of the OS version, much like XP's Telly Tubby Hill did. The XP image was trying to convey “friendly, welcoming”, the Win10 one tries to convey something more like “dynamic, technically competent, flashy”. While it may not be an expression of someone's inner feelings or a societal property or anything like that, some art is more about directing your impression of something than it is about expressing someone else's and that is what this image was for and what it does.
- NayamAmarshe 2y agoHere's someone recreating the same wallpaper on Blender in 13 minutes: https://youtu.be/EIfrP365iTQ https://youtu.be/EIfrP365iTQ
- rad_gruchalski 2y agoThe time lapse is 13 minutes long.
- nar001 2y agoCopying is a lot easier than creating though, the Windows team had to start from scratch
- skrebbel 2y agoYour comment made me laugh because out of context, it suggests “the Windows team” is averse to copying things.
- dspillett 2y agoNot that I'm saying the video doesn't show some skill, but creating a fresh image from scratch is quite a different task from recreating an existing one directly from a reference.
- dessimus 2y agoThe video is 13 minutes, but its a time lapse so it could have been hours or days of work.
- hu3 2y agoLooks good but rather too foggy and not as crisp as the original which is much more detailed. Video artifacts notwithstanding. blender: https://i.imgur.com/0BjMWi3.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/0BjMWi3.jpeg original: https://i.imgur.com/GGwVibG.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/GGwVibG.jpeg
- josefresco 2y agoIMHO it's not even close.
- linsomniac 2y ago>you can let the world do the work for you. Reminds me of the Spaghetti Sorting algorithm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_sort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_sort
- bravetraveler 2y agoThat's how some 'trick' card decks work, for anyone unfamiliar
- marhee 2y agoInteresting but I am not sure I understand this: >> contact-and-removal operation takes constant time, the worst-case time complexity of the algorithm is O(n). How is the contact-and-removal operation constant time? How can that assumption ever be true? If you use a parallel processor like human vision or human feel (ie. which pressure nerve activates on the hand) it may appear constant, but if you use a computer it would be n right (as you would need to check n slots). Wouldn't either defy O(n)?
- thfuran 2y agoYou're talking about some other kind of sort.
- dahart 2y agoThe analog algorithm described is not described for digital computer. It’s an amusing theoretical thought experiment and not a recipe for actual fast sorting. It’s O(n) when you use your hand for contact and removal. I don’t know if it’s possible to implement spaghetti sort on a computer, maybe not, but I guess if it were possible, it would probably at least require n processors to sort n elements. Maybe the nearest analogy on digital computers is radix sort.
- Izkata 2y agoRadix sort is probably the closest usable one, but a more direct translation would probably be sleep sort.
- starstripe 2y agoI would have used VFX for this as I'm pretty sure it would have been more cost effective to achieve a similar result. Most people, like me, probably just assumed this was VFX anyway. But I'm glad Microsoft didn't though, as this is a fascinating story and case study.
- mateus1 2y agoMicrosoft surely wasn’t too worried about the cost.
- dr-detroit 2y agothe ironic thing is they have all those photos of real life places they use for wallpaper those are all photshopped to an insane degree to remove the ugly trees and clouds and other natural formations and make the colors extremely different
- theeandthy 2y agoHonestly it’s way more satisfying to work analog. Experiencing the colors in “real life” spatially. Also, collaborating with others and being able to share the process in a studio rather than on a screen is an amazing experience. Another thing is the fog rising up to create diffusion on the light. Even the best VFX in the world will only ever be an approximation to the real thing.
- amelius 2y ago> with a camera, you can let the world do the work for you How do you let the "world" remove your greasy fingerprints from the glass?
- brontosaurusrex 2y agoAbsolutely, there is no happy accidents in VFX.
- snowwrestler 2y agoI think if you handed this image to a VFX artist and said “make this,” they could do it. They probably could have done it back in 2015, too. But the team making this image didn’t have it in advance. They just had some ideas they wanted to try out. The story of how it was made is not just the story of the techniques they used, but also how they applied and adjusted those techniques to try things and see how it looked. This image was “made” in that people built the stuff that was photographed, but it was also kind of “discovered” in that they tried a bunch of things until they discovered what they liked. That’s possible in VFX too, but the process is different and too many iterations can quickly erase any cost advantage. This is one reason animated movies are disciplined about locking the script early in production. You can’t cost-effectively improv your way through an animated movie the way a director and actors can with a camera and a set.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y agoI agree with all of this -- particularly the exploration and discovery aspects. But a side note on this: > You can’t cost-effectively improv your way through an animated movie the way a director and actors can with a camera and a set. The Jim Henson Company is working on exactly the technology that supports this, actually -- the business of live puppetry capture as distinct from, say, motion capture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzbBdRHqGcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzbBdRHqGcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDIlylZwLJE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDIlylZwLJE This kit is expensive/bespoke but I don't know that it's _that_ expensive, set against how much money goes into making movies with large-scale bluescreen work these days. And it's wholly amenable to improv.
- egypturnash 2y agoThey've been experimenting with this since at least 1989. https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Waldo_C._Graphic https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Waldo_C._Graphic People have done simpler realtime rigs with off-the-shelf hardware and software in the past decade: see "The Dog Of Wisdom", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-UmfqFjpl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-UmfqFjpl0 which was made with Blender and a Leap Motion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a_M9VsZ6Lk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a_M9VsZ6Lk And now we are completely drowning in VTubers, who use software like Live2d that analyzes a webcam image and uses it to control the motions of a pre-made 2D character. I've only ever seen it done to spice up the video of people streaming video games but I'm sure there's someone doing no-budget cartoons with it. There's also Adobe Character Animator, which has been used for various TV stuff like a live performance of Homer Simpson or a few low-budget shows. And then there's VRChat; a few thousand dollars of head-mounted display/facial capture/body trackers and you can get realtime full-body tracking. There's probably someone fucking around with making movies this way too. At this point I'm pretty sure that you could get most of the functionality of that hand-tooled puppetry gizmo by just taking a sock and gluing a couple of ping-pong balls onto it and tweaking some tracking software.
- pavon 2y agoI always assumed it was CG because there are aspects that look unrealistic to me, in particular the bloom along the edges is too bright compared to the illumination of the rest of the panes and the light beams coming from the on the corners looked artificial. Turns out it looks this way because they projected brighter light on the edges and corners. Neat. When I saw this headline I mixed up windows versions and thought it was going to be about the Windows 11 Bloom backgrounds, which I always assumed were made with physical materials, but it seems like I am wrong about that one too, hah!