LookingOutwards-05 – Page 5 – [OLD FALL 2019] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

Sean Meng-Looking Outwards-05

Miquela Sousa
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1wjiQ0bqic

Miquela Sousa, better known as Lil Miquela machuca, is a fictional character and digital art project. Miquela is an Instagram model and music artist claiming to be from Downey, California. The project began in 2016 as an Instagram profile. By April 2018, the account had amassed more than a million followers by portraying the lifestyle of an Instagram it-girl over social media. The account also details a fictional narrative which presents Miquela as a sentient robot in conflict with other digital projects. The team engaged artificial intelligent 3D graphic while creating and modeling this figure to Make it ultra realistic. Now, the project set a new trend for fashion field to start using fictional computational generated model for their campaign and lookbook. This is also the sign of the overlaps between technology and fashion.

Steven Fei-Looking Outwards-05

With the advent of digital graphics, art has stepped into a new era with faster pace and more opportunities.

The 3D artist, Hirokazu Yokohara, has integrated 3D modeling techniques with computational renderings to produce photo-realistic scenes and images. Instead of directly drawing and painting 2D information onto canvas, the artist utilized the 3D modeling software called Blender to compose the objects. Such a process provides the artist with more details and considerations for every element of the forms. In his famous work the Golden Skull, the artist takes advantage of the software to first create the complex geometry and control each part of the skull and bones parametrically to get immediate results. Later, textures are selected and mapped freely onto the parts to give a general impression of how the 2D image of the specific scene should look like. Finally, by utilizing another real-time renderer EEVEE, the artist is able to see quick result of the photo-realistic image provided by the computer which calculates the lighting and compositions of the graph with tremendous speed.

Such a process strongly attracts me not only for its new, organic way of modeling forms which could hardly be achieved through pure handwork but also for the quick, human-interactive process of producing images through putting realistic factors and textures. Such a process indeed has shaped a more dynamic and innovative design strategy, and it also paves the way for quicker image presenting through computing and parametric controlling.

Substance Painter — Organic 3D modeling with texture mapping

click here to see the original artwork

Mihika Bansal – Looking Outwards – 05

The artist that I want to look at for his computer 3D graphics is Peter Nowacki. The particular piece of his that I found to be interesting was his HBO – Home of the Original. The piece itself was made in 2014, and it was part of an ad campaign for an HBO series he was publishing in Asia. The process that he followed to create the piece itself was interesting as well because it focused on lighting and shading in a way that made it pop.

Peter works for a company that specifically creates these hyper-realistic looks for other companies. A lot of brands want this look because it is very eye-catching and the 3D graphics do a good job of conveying something that otherwise would not be conveyed well.

Alec Albright – Looking Outwards 05

Rokly Wang. Modeled in Zbrush. Texturing in Zbrush and Photoshop. Retopologized in 3DCoat, Rendered in Maya using mental ray, and the hair is using Maya hair system. — “An Elderly Curmudgeon” by Rokly Wang

The hyper-realistic image above was made by Rokly Wang in May 2012. It is admirable to me because it almost feels too real to be true. This face, generated from scratch, not modeled on an existing human, seems like an extremely high quality photograph. It was processed in various softwares such as Zbrush, Photoshop, and Maya. I do not know the underlying generative algorithms, but I can imagine there is some sort of mapping technique for aspects such as lighting, hair placement, etc. The artist was able to manifest his creative sensibilities through the demeanor of the man in the image, the lighting, the aging, etc.

Katrina Hu – Looking Outwards – 05

The Utah Teapot

A modern rendering of Newell’s Utah Teapot

The Utah Teapot is very commonly regarded as the most important object in computer graphics. Made by computer scientist Martin Newell in 1974 when he was a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, it was a breakthrough in 3D computer graphics. Newell was looking for new ways to make computer graphics look more realistic, and he needed a subject. The teapot was the perfect object for Newell to demonstrate his complex algorithms, as it had both concave and convex surfaces, and it cast shadows on itself.

I admire the simplicity yet effectiveness of this project. The teapot was not too simple nor too complicated, and it is easily recognizable. It also didn’t need a texture for the object to look realistic. This teapot eventually paved the way for lots of future computer graphics research, and both Adobe and Pixar got their start at the lab Newell worked at.

Hyejo Seo – Looking Outwards 05

This CGI award winning “All You Need Is Ecuador” campaign was created in order to attract more tourism to Ecuador. It was created by a Brazilian agency Studio, Manipula, using CGI. The campaign accurately promotes the bio-diversity in Ecuador – from its animals and nature. This 3D campaign was eye-catching since it was a creative way of illustrating the attractions of Ecuador – something a simple 2D graphics could not achieve. Ecuador campaign was a good example of the use of art to make campaigns more interesting, which is what I aspire to do in the future.

Sean Leo – Looking Outwards 05

Alan Warburton – East Tower, 2016

East Tower. gif 2016 – sequence of modeled floors of the BBC East Tower by Alan Warburton

In 2016, artist Alan Warburton was accepted into a residency by White Noise City, that placed artists into the BBC East Tower, soon to be demolished to make way for a new development. Warburton created a virtual replica based on documentation of the site in mid-2016 that restored the building to an ideal state.

Not only is his replica incredibly photo-realistic, it is also free. Often digital assets, of this quality and scale, would be priced with a professional market in mind. By releasing it for free, Warburton enacts a radical and democratic action. He states on his website, that the model ” can be used for any purpose, with the hope that the real-life 20th century space continues to live on in 21st century digital animation, virtual reality, architecture, 3D printing and games.”

He created the model using Maya and Vray.

Caroline Song – Looking Outwards 05

The 3D computer graphics image I chose depicts three ballerinas dancing outside while the sun is setting. I was first drawn to this image because of the way the image is made, by integrating triangles to carve out the forms. I thought it interesting the combination of using geometric, rigid shapes to describe a scene that is so airy and contains such natural forms.

I also admire this piece because of the different ways I can experience it, from both near and far. From afar, I cannot tell the triangles are making up the entire piece, and therefore, it looks like a painting or an image. But when I come up closer, I can see it is the triangles that are carving out the image, and therefore, I can experience the duality between geometric and natural forms.

Image result for am time the great destroyer — “Ballet” by Kai Lawonn and Tobias Günther

I suppose the algorithm used to create this piece of art had to do with the optimization of the triangles and the way each triangle is set to a single color, and together with all the other triangles, this creates the piece.

Another part of this piece that I am intrigued by is the artists’ use of when to show the outlines of the triangles and when to not. It seems that they made the choice to show the outlines in a gradient, as the far right showcases the lines most prominently and from there, as the viewer’s eyes move to the left, the lines fade. I believe this shows the artists’ artistic tendencies because the placement of the triangles themselves needed to be intentional and attractive, based on what the artists wanted to be shown. In this case, I think they wanted to show the light contrast from one end of the piece to the other, which is so prominent through the triangle outlines, and may not have been as noticeable otherwise.

Xiaoyu Kang – Looking Outwards – 05

The name of the project is called Everyday: December – 2016. It is a series of digital artwork created by Eugene Golovanchuk, who is a self taught 3D digital concept artist also known as Skeeva.

The project consists of thirty one drawings that are created through digital medium, and the drawings are created one per day in the month of December in 2016.

The entire project focused on the idea of dark surrealism. However, each one of these drawings in the project is constructed based on different topics, ranging from environmental design to installation design. Since all thirty one drawings are drastically different, I only picked two images that represents the diversity in Golovanchuk’s style.

Kristine Kim – Looking Outwards -05

Antoni Tudisco, Summer Update Series, 2018

Antoni Tudisco is a German 3D artist and motion designer. The artist never revealed his technique and process behind his works. I can only assume that he uses already developed softwares like adobe creative cloud but I am also so interested and confused on how he creates all these hyper realistic textures with such limitation (computer generated). He creates many commercial arts and works for big companies. I was drawn into this piece because of his usage of collaborating realistic textures and abstract illustration together. The way Tudisco renders his 3D works and motion graphics is very unique and complex. The vibrancy and extremely abstract imagery helps Antoni Tudisco build his style and his pieces only work because it is computer generated and all done on a device. I admire Antoni Tudisco because of the endless amount of 3D works and motion graphics he produces with just a computer.

Antoni Tudisco, Beat the Robots, 2018. Motion graphic