A work of 3D graphics that I found interesting is the augmented reality installation “Organised Labour (2016)” by UK artist Alan Warburton. The installation is of green protesters that block a street in Paris and was produced for Une Journée de Coïncidences. I admire the artwork’s simplicity and strong impact because I appreciate how Warburton uses clear digital models and AR to convey his ideas. I suppose that the algorithms used to render this artwork had to respond to the environment of the Parisian street so that the shadows and size of the installation fit into the environment convincingly. The artist’s goal of the project was to explore the immateriality of AR and how it relates to the urban landscape. As such, the artist’s sensibilities show through the final product because the green model fits into the environment but, due to its style and the fact that it only exists in the digital realm, is constantly reminding the viewer that its not a physical object.
Peter Kolus is a senior 3D artist and a CG generalist. Kolus has taken lead projects for leading companies such as Disney, Tiger Beer, and Mercedes Benz. For one of his projects, he collaborated with Leo Calliard and Gosia Sluszkiewicz to create a series of artworks called “Heroes of Stones.” I was intrigued by it because it shows such detailed and realistic stone sculptures of heroes and villains from comic books. It was really interesting to see vivid expressions captured on each character’s face, even though they were supposedly just sculptures. In addition, each individual artwork carries so much detail on all aspects, such as lighting and texture. He successfully turned his interest in comics to a realistic artwork in a compelling setting. Kolus was responsible for shading, rendering, and composition. It’s possible that he may have used programs like 3ds Max, photoshop, and nuke to generate different textures and shades.
Rhinoceros 3D is a 3D computer graphics and CAD (computed aided design) software that was developed by Robert McNeel & Associates. Rhino utilizes four different viewports that assists in modeling in different window formats to allow 2D analyses to be made. Rendering and animation is a frequent use of Rhino as the enhancements and plug-ins make it very helpful. Creators are not much limited in what they would like to accomplish within Rhino3D as third-party plug-ins and add-ons allow for different types of rendering and animation as the final product. While Rhino is quite frequently used in the context of architectural modeling, there are other means of use for architecture in industries such as industrial design, automotive design, produce design, as well as graphic design and multimedia. Because Rhinoceros allows for geometries to be mathematically precise based on the NURBS mathematical model, it helps for precise representation of curves and freeform surfaces in computer graphics.
Andreas Wannerstedt creates aesthetically pleasing projects that show motions of simple geometric shapes. Wannerstedt renders relationships between different geometric shapes through motion, often showing perfectly fitted geometric relationships. The motion in the 3D environment he created appears seamlessly. The environment and relationships are often set up in a way that allows Wannerstedt to loop the footage. The end result is a footage that feels a little bit like an illusion because of how seamless all the relationships and transitions are. Wannerstedt also frequently includes elements of nature in his work to allow his work to feel more realistic. These natural elements also act as a device for Wannerstedt to provide the audience with a sense of scale for his project. A large portion of his work are simply for entertainment and self development, but this skill set is also applicable to professional endeavors. He recently did an advertisement for Adidas. His work always comes with sound to either set the atmosphere or provide even more information on the relationships between the geometric shapes. These sounds are often indicators of the material and the impact of the motions.
For this week I would like to talk about digital artist Adam Martinakis.
First I would say, his artwork is amazing in both art taste and expression. His work exceeds his peers in his deep thinking. Even though I can guess all those techniques he applied, I can never come out of something this stunning.
I am not sure about the algorithms he used in the software. I would guess he basically did the model, and adjust the texture with variables like density, spacing, transparency, value and refraction rate.
In some articles, it says he uses “mixture of post-fantasy futurism and abstract symbolism.” He also addressed relationships between humans. In his work, we often can see human body/ bodies being displayed in segmented ways. By computer 3D technology, he expressed his thoughts in a very detailed way. Those details made audiences feel close to the artwork in some way and the surrealism idea inside of the artwork made audiences give the reality a deep thought.
His artworks are so powerful that pale all the explanations.
Alexey Kashpersky has experience in creatingCG artworks, large amounts of 3D models for televisions, and 3D printing studios. His series of Virus artworks are intended to raise awareness while transforming it into something fantastic and something that had its own unique character. These majestic drawings although initially pleasing draw attention to the dangers of these viruses and diseases in the most thoughtful and fantastical way possible. Through VR, attention to detail and clean modelling, he is able to create beautiful forms which morph and grow as they evolve.
He also compares his imagination of these viruses to coral reefs, hoping to live the healthiest and happiest life travelling around the world through his imagination.
This visual was the cover art for the release of a recent album by one of my favorite bands, TOOL, designed by their artist Alex Grey. What I really love about this artwork is that it establishes not just a 3D image, but a 3D environment. The piece is very atmospheric in its arrangement, and also has a strong sense of perspective and motion. In order to achieve this, Grey used his artistic sensibility. Specifically, the behavior of the top and bottom borders of the image really reinforce this sense of immersion, as does the emanating light which generates ominous highlights on the eyes and contributes to the image’s tone of mysticism. His contrasting use of blur and definition enhance the sense of movement.
I could not find the software that Alex Grey used, but I would guess it is Rhino or a similar one. I also guess that this is a more complex version of our classwork now: using one coded element (a 3D eye), using nested loops to repeat that component and guide it along a warped path, adding a light source with something like V-ray, and taking a perspective angle view.
This is located in Seoul, Korea, where a large screen display of a building is made to look like water waves crashing and moving around inside. The display is extremely realistic, with the installation of audio as well as the feeling of the water that’s about to break the glass and flow out into the streets. The company who made this installation is d’strict, they are a digital media tech company that specializes in designing and making, and one of their goals is bringing new visual and spatial experiences to the world. The installation uses an effect called anamorphic illusion to convey the visual. I find the installation very impactful and creates an experience that is new to many people, showing what computer graphics are now able to do.
One artist whose work I recently came across and really admire is Rebecca Tell, or “Bexelyn,” the lead artist at Sago Mini. I fell in love with her artwork “Mr. Strawberry & Friends Go Camping,” in which she utilized the 3d software Cinema 4D to construct and render a scene of cute little food characters out camping in a forest.
I was drawn to this piece’s soft color palette, curvy stylization, and cute character designs, all of which are signature features of Tell’s unique 3D modeling style. I especially admire this work because of the amount of intricacies embedded within the canvas – although the camping scene stylistically looks really simple, Tell had to individually model each character and prop in the work, as well as color, light, and shade these assets and the background as well. As someone who’s used 3D software like Maya and Blender before and had difficulties even extruding 3D models correctly, I’m really appreciative of the amount of work Tell put into this piece and hope to apply that same mindset of hard work in all of my future projects.
3D graphics have come a long way since its inception in the late 1970s, and is prevalent everywhere today. This is most prominently seen in movie and video game industry, where new technological breakthroughs revolutionize the industry every few years. Modern hardware and software allows us to create extremely complex, photo-realistic environments through techniques such as photogrammetry and physically-based-materials. We can even somewhat accurately simulate the physics of the real world to create realistic looking fluid simulations like fire, smoke, and water.
However, despite the extreme amount of detail that can be achieved through our current technology, recreating realistic, believable CG faces remains one of the biggest challenges in the 3D graphics industry. No one can pin-point exactly what it is that makes a computer-generated face uncanny; even if every hair, every pore, every bead of sweat is generated, it will still remain in the uncanny valley.
There have been a few successes when it comes to creating fully computer-generated faces that are distinctly NOT human. The alien race from the 2012 movie Avatar is a great example of how a CG face can achieve a sense of realism and believability. More recently, Marvel’s Thanos has taken the spotlight as being one of the more successful fully-CG characters. However, these aren’t human faces, so they never come across as uncanny.
The most successful CG face that manages to cross the uncanny valley, in my opinion, is the recreation of Sean Young’s character, Rachel, in Bladerunner 2049, courtesy of the English VFX company MPC. The combination of ideal lighting conditions, high quality 3D scans, the painstaking recreation of every muscle on Sean Young’s face, and the amazing performance of body-double Loren Peta resulted in what is probably the most realistic looking CG face in movie history. And of course, a lot of credit goes to the animators that made the subtle facial expressions look absolutely flawless.
Most of MPC’s success was achieved through how the scene was filmed – camera angles, lighting trickery, and so on. The recreation of Sean Young’s character would not have looked nearly as good in any other lighting condition or environment. 3D graphics technology has yet to conquer the challenge that is the human face.
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