I've come across this work occasionally while surfing the VFXTalk/CreativeCrash galleries and it always sticks out. I have no need to click on it time and again, but the fact I do says that it must be good.
It's by Thongchai Chanyathitikul and it's made with Realflow, Maya and Photoshop - in that order. Realflow to generate a splash, Maya to add colour and texture and Photoshop to.. well, whatever is left to do. Jiggery pokery I guess.
Obviously it owes a lot to Pollock, but what's cool is that this guy is using a piece of software that engineers physically accurate water and he's doing something experimental with it. The tension between the almost industrialised functions of the software (algorithms, computations, physics) and the playful, painterly result of the image is interesting.
In a way, this opposition between the sceintific/industrial and the painterly/expressive is an extension of the tensions observed by historians in Pollock's work. He was like the John Wayne of painting: stoic, abrupt, masculine, seemingly lacking in expression. His famous drip method was a feat of repetition and determination (albeit with ephemeral results). As such, he contradicted the image of the painter as the sensitive soul grappling with representation and reality, umm-ing and ahh-ing over this mark or that brushstroke. As a man he seemed too plain and inexpressive to be a painter. Well, in the tools of CG we have the industrial, the obtuse, the plain, the undecorated. CG was born from the aerospace industry after all - these programs were made for physical simulation. Yet from that toolset we get abstract images like the one above that seem to defy their industrial origins and seem far more free than the software that made them.
Of course, there are plenty of pieces of software out there that attempt to bridge the gap between artist and technician. More often than not, however, it's the technician that reaches the level of knowledge that facilitates experimentation. And that's why I find this image so admirable. Realflow is hard on the mind and hard on the processor, yet this guy has ploughed through and come out the other side with something quite unique and unexpected.
Kazuki Takamatsu and the Depth Matte The delicate, creepy, beautifully executed work of Tokyo artist Kazuki Takamatsu caught my attention recently. He uses the style of a depth-matte render (an image format native to 3D modelling programs, which displays depth information as a monochromatic scale: white is close, black is far away). I'm not sure whether these are straight-up depth matte images or, as suggested somewhere else on the web, gouache paintings. It doesn't really matter anyway - however they have wound their way to our eyes, I'm pretty certain that they started off, at least in inspiration, from depth matte images. There's no natural precedent for this style of image (we don't 'see' like this, ever), but I'd argue it is an established convention - it's stylistic identity is as strong as pointillism or stained glass or the polaroid. Yet it came about as a by-product of 3D programs. For those of you who don't know what a depth matte (or z-depth) layer is, it's normally used to help compositors very the focus in a shot. Rendering off a depth matte layer (as well as your full colour 'beauty' layer) brings 3D information into a 2D composition. The compositor can select the depth of field in a shot by selecting their preferred tonal range between black and white.
I've been wanting to render rippling cloth in depth matte for a while now because I knew it would have a ghostly quality. Takamatsu seems to have tapped into the ghostliness of this particular image format in inimitable Japanese style. I bet we see animations in this style popping up from now on. Maybe one of them will be mine.
So I've spent the past 6 months making my showreel. I faced a choice earlier this year to carry on in the vein of my Arts Council funded art project (more info here) or to really get stuck into some CG. I decided on the latter and I'm pretty pleased with the results. I have literally spent every available minute working on a series of short animations to string together into a reel and it's finally done! Now I'm looking for work and putting off the inevitable (re-cutting the reel to look better).
Just picked up on this via Pixelsumo. It's a short videogame designed by Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn which consists of an old lady walking through a graveyard. The aim of the game is to guide (escort?) her through the graveyard to a bench where she can sit. Then we listen to a song about death and graveyards. Then we walk back out with her. Without her dying (in the full version of the game she can die at any moment). I felt like the Grim Reaper, stalking.
There's an interesting post-mortem of the project here, explaining where the idea came from and how it progressed through production.
I finally realised why people get excited about the crossover between movies and gaming. The Graveyard is a rare example of an experience that's cinematic *and* interactive, and which does both credibly. It's an existential reflection on gaming and life that demands you slow down, take in the scenery, appreciate the time it takes to accomplish things.
Take a look at Tale of Tales, Harvey and Samyn's game company. Some really cool stuff there, all apparently drawing inspiration from folk tales.
Now there's a thought... folk tales and games... both ways of retelling stories. Hmm.
Drone #3317 from Alan Warburton on Vimeo. Here's what I've been working on for the last couple of weeks. It was an attempt to replicate a full CG workflow: I shot the HD source video and camera tracked it, then designed, modelled, textured, rigged and animated the robot. And of course, composited it together - badly I think!
Interview: Gero Gries Today I'm lucky enough to have an interview with Gero Gries - I'm a big fan of his work and he's a key figure when it comes to CGI and fine art. He's been at it since the early nineties and has exhibited through Europe and the US. His work escapes the cliches of CGI and creates a dialogue between the traditions of painting and the possibilities of 3D technology. Check out his latest work. The image above is from 2008 and is entitled 'Zone'. PP: Hi Gero. First off, how would you describe your work?
GG: My imagination is more or less photo realistic, this is a reason why I use this medium. Besides this, my interest is the continuation of painting with 3D tools, being part in the evolution of a new medium. The results looks more or less photo realistic, but photo realism is not the purpose, but a means to involve the viewer. My aim is to communicate a certain visual idea or emotion.
PP: What got you interested in CGI?
GG: In 1991/92 I spent a year as artist in residence in ArtCenter in Pasadena which is also a major education center for automobile designers. For this reason General Motors subsidized ACCD with a state of the art computer lab in the basement. I had been interested in CGI before, but the medium was still to expensive for my small budget in the eighties. I took an introduction course and felt attracted too the medium. My first CGI image was a proposal for a light installation. It was abstract and real at the same time. After returning from USA I started with my own computer. I felt a bit like a pioneer with unclaimed property under my feet. PP: What tools do you use?
GG: Nowadays mostly Vue XStream 7 and Cinema 4D with VRay as render engine, but most of my imaging till 2004 was done in FormZ and a little Maya.
PP: Where do you find your inspiration?
GG: I'm kind of hunting and gathering my images. I don't want to let this process become too conscious, because being attracted to something is too complex to be handled by reason. If I come across an interesting image in my mind or elsewhere, I let it sink down and after a while, when it is sedimented (a process of forgetting and remembering), I try to build it.
PP: I love your image 'Zone' - it seems that this has emerged from the sort of process you describe - the process of remembering and forgetting. Another thing that attracts me to this image is it's relationship to the image 'Nirvanagoodbye'. Through the use of colour (and the fact that the images appear next to each other on your website) it seems as though we're seeing the interior and exterior of the same location, even though I think the 'Nirvana' series predates 'Zone'. I guess my question is whether you reuse your 3D scenes and 'shoot' them from different angles? I find this idea of reusable assets really exciting and unique to CGI. There's also the idea that by creating these 'unheimlich' images using 3D software, there's a tension or contradiction between the unchartable space of the dream and the vector-perfect simulation of the 3D scene.
GG: 'Nirvana' and 'Zone' are not the inside and outside of the same scenery, but I do work this way. 'Departure' from 2007 and 'Wenn' from 2008 for example base on the same 'set'. I often reuse maps, textures and furniture. The chair in 'Nirvana' is the same as in 'Token' from 2006 and so on. The point of the 'shot' or viewer as I usually refer to it, often changes during image construction, til it finds it's final destination. I often have half a dozen render cams in a 'set' before it is finished.
PP: Where are the limits of CGI? What can't be done? What would you like to do but can't?
GG: That depends on the way you are going. If mere photorealism is the aim, human imaging is still the most difficult item. My approach is a bit different: My interest is the intrinsic properties of the medium. So every result has it's own justification. It is my decision to say whether I want or not, and my decision is not controlled by photo realistic interest, which is, to be honest, a bit boring after a while. Tweaking realism is where the game gets interesting.
PP: Your work seems to me to be hyper real rather than photo real - finely detailed but very 'clean'. Is this a conscious decision?
GG: Almost every decision in CGI is conscious. To add dirt and stained surfaces is a conscious decision. Dirtiness isn't, unlike in reality, the natural state in CGI. I have to have a certain creative intention to add dirt, which I actually do sometimes. PP: Modelling dust and detritus could probably get quite boring though!
GG: You are right! PP: Do you think of your artistic practice as similar to any traditional art forms - painting or sculpture, for example?
GG: Painting is the reference, although modeling reminds more of sculpting. But I'm often enough a lazy modeler.
PP: I've noticed your earlier work includes a lot of images that look like ghostly re-renders of institutional spaces and show-homes. Was this a deliberate decision?
GG: In part: There were still severe hardware and software restrictions. On the other hand I was interested in the interior as a genre. You can't really separate the tracks that lead to an image. Let's put it like this: I was interested in what I could do.
PP: Your new work seems to involve more vegetation - can you tell me more about this?
GG: In evolving my interiors, I came to a turning point. The image that marks this point was 'Einblick' from 2007. Although it is not a strict change, there have been exteriors before and interiors after this image, it marks the shift from inside to outside. Actually not only in my sujets (is this French word also known in English? In German it means depicted scenery).
PP: I think the German meaning is unique - 'sujet' from French translates simply as 'subject'. I was thinking that the change in your work not only involves more exterior scenes but exterior scenes with vegetation. From a technical perspective, making vegetation look authentic and unregulated can be quite difficult. Your vegetation looks authentic but is still regulated in many ways. I'm thinking of 'Paddy' and 'Plantage', where nature is to some extent 'contained'. I'm wondering whether you approach the limits of CGI vegetation as a technical challenge to be overcome or rather as something to play with conceptually.
GG: I have a playful mind and to overcome technical challenges is not my main interest in CGI.
PP: What are you working on at the moment?
GG: I'm clearing my head for a next step. As an intermediate interest I'm playing with traditional painterly approaches in the shape of CGI. An example is 'Containerlandia' from 2009. It's an attempt to transfer abstract painting to an CGI environment.
PP: This image stood out as something quite different - I definitely recognised art references (Donald Judd/Daniel Buren/Sean Scully etc). 'Cistrans' has something optical (i.e. op-art) and minimal about it, and 'Uhuhpool' reminded me a little of Hockney's pool rendering. I personally think these are your strongest images to date and I look forward to seeing what you do next.
GG: Thank you!
PP: How do you know an image is 'finished'?
GG: Good question. In the old days I worked after this formula: An image is finished if every attempt to improve it makes it worse. Today telling when an image is finished isn't so difficult any more. There is a certain strain when an image gets overworked. After finishing, I have more difficulties with the question if the image is good or not. This is how I handle it: Sometimes I know it on the spot, sometimes I ask my wife, sometimes I try to forget the image after making, without looking at it for 1-2 month. After that time I usually know what it's worth.
News just in. Mark Wallinger has won the tender to produce the Ebbsfleet Landmark - a giant white horse that will tower over the new developments around Ebbsfleet.
The Ebbsfleet project is one of a few high profile public commissions that utilise visualisation, alongside the Fourth Plinth scheme in Trafalgar Square. Whilst discussing public sculpture and visualisation, this blog has quite a few examples of public sculpture in situ, and the striking thing is that so many of them look like visualisations.
The same problem is illustrated over and over on the website of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. It shows an impressive catalogue of perfectly rendered public sculptures. Many of these have the qualities of virtual objects - matte, evenly coloured, cartoonified forms which are documented from overhead, apprehended like museum objects on a massive scale. Take a look especially at Balancing Tools. Is it just my eyes, or does this look computer-generated? It was installed in 1984, so the photographs predate decent CGI.
I wonder what it is that makes these sculptures look unreal? And why the intersection of computer visualisation and public sculpture interests me? Perhaps it's the tension between the visualisation and the real thing: how the work is 'sold' prior to it's implementation. Always from a flattering angle. Always instantly apprehended for what it is. Hmm..
Just been doing my regular trawl of the net in search of CG + Fine Art goodies, and I began considering how CG images often tread the line between visual conventions and how the production of virtual objects/scenes is always open to interpretation in terms of aesthetics and process. Once again, the apparent clarity and precision of CGI masks it's ambiguity.
An example of aesthetic polysemy in CGI: Martin Dorbaum has a 'series' of images here, cut from the same aesthetic cloth which sometimes come close to resembling game environments, sometimes architectural visualisations, sometimes photographs, sometimes hyperrealist paintings. The image could go one way or another depending on resolution, render settings, modelling techniques, camera angle and so forth. Treading the fine line between a game environment, a photograph and an architectural visualisation is what makes these images work as art, what makes them rich subjects for study.
Regarding process, suppose we think of sculpture and CGI - when an artist makes a 3D scene or 3D scans an object he creates sculptures which could be considered as copies of real objects, as 'virtual' originals, or as blueprints for real world 3D printouts (see
