Raygun Studio Blog

OUT INTO SPACE, MAYBE?

2012-01-30T15:31:00.000-08:00

To search for some extraterrestrial chickens. Have mercy on the cows. Or so the concept brief goes. Although we finished the work on this a while back, the blackout just lifted given that this goes into Chick-fil-A's 2012 calendar. The photographer for this assignment, Andy Mahr, contacted us to create the rocket and the launch platform in CGI for this image. Knowing that Scott Dorman from Smalldog Image Works would be doing the parts wrangling and final licks (aka compositing and retouching) made it easy to say "Yes", as this triumvirate constellation of Photographer-CGI-Retoucher is tried and true by now. Below the final outcome and a few in-progress renderings.

Building the Scene in 3D

It's all about the light, as any photographer will tell you.

Too bad, but this little easter egg didn't even make it past the internal review.

The Final Image

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

2011-10-07T19:40:00.001-07:00

It's been a rough week, you might agree, and no one put it better than The Onion right here, which captures pretty well how I was feeling the last few years following the general news. And I always thought they were in the business of satire... Steve's passing definitely beckons the question "Where Do We Go From Here?" and I think we all need a little pick-me up, which I'll share with you if you can spare a dollar for this great little diddy of the same name from my favorite 70s movie Vanishing Point. And if you don't have a dollar, I'll gift it to you, just send me your email. It's a great tune about another fearless explorer with big ideas and an even bigger drive to make them happen. Christopher was his name. And that's my segue to wishing everyone who reads this little blog a great weekend and Happy Columbus Day.

CINEMA 4D AND THE ART OF SURGERY

2011-10-07T19:38:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since the last post, but there really hasn't been much time to look over the edge of the monitor or leave alone in my "To Be Blogged" folder for that matter. Sharing with you that we're officially on Cinema 4D version 13 now, which really should have been version 12 it's that good. I love how the UI is cleaned up and it makes a lot more sense now. Most of all the physical renderer. It's getting to be one hell of a 3D program and the renderer is getting close to being real time and allowing us to work things up visually and in real time, artistically rather than methodically. So check it out if you're into 3D. Cinema is of course what we used to model this little sculpture for an image we did in collaboration with Hunter Freeman. For final render I much prefer KeyShot still, but Cinema 4D is getting there and I am glad KeyShot is getting into 4D at the same time. It will be great to have both legs to stand on.

INTERVIEW IN RESOURCE MAGAZINE

2011-07-28T00:31:00.000-07:00

RESOURCE, a photo production magazine wanted to take a look under the hood of Raygun Studio and granted me an interview. The issue just arrived in our mailbox. I have no idea why of all images we offered, the rats breaking into someone's home was chosen, other than the people at Resource must share my dark streak. I think Alex Baker did a great job in turning my rants into a good read and it's a pretty accurate reflection of how we do things and what our philosophy is.

Although I was really hoping the part, where Alex asked me what kind of music we play at the studio and I told him about Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, that it would make the cut. I know it's probably about as esoteric as the Raydiosity Esoterica setting but it goes well with bending splines, subdividing polygons and extending long gradients. What's interesting to me, back in Germany where electronic music was pretty much invented in the 70s, there were discussions—fears—about whether electronic music and synthesizers would someday soon displace traditional music and wooden instruments. The discussions in our industry today about CGI and photography remind me of that. And I get this question quite often, whether CGI threatens to replace photography. I don't know the answer to that, but what I do know, is that electronic music has come a long way since the 70s... it's all over the place now... but it really never made a dent into Polka. Or for that matter... Jazz.

Thanks again, Aurelie, Alex and Thomas for the interview. You can find out more about Aurelie's Resource Magazine or subscribe to the print edition on their website.

FLASHBACKS OF OTL AICHER

2011-06-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I heard again from one of my favorite art directors—Michael Wilde—asking me whether I wanted to participate in creating these poster images for the BMW USA offices, who are officially sponsoring the 2012 Olympics. Now with Michael, he doesn't really need to show me any comps for me to say Yes, but when I saw his comps, how could I say anything but... Yes! For me these have everything that I love... spectrum colors on black, a really great graphic design concept and they are iconic... a simple power that immediately gives me flashbacks of one of my other design heroes: Otl Aicher. He too had quite a hand in the world of graphic design for the Olympics in Germany back in the 1970s.

So we started out playing around with a few different ideas, different images representing various athletic disciplines and then I got into techniques... from simple Photoshop layering approaches to making the "multiple exposures" feel more like frames of motion captured over time even though they came from the same image to start with. This collaboration was definitely one of those projects that will make me say "Keine Frage!" if you were to ask me: "Do you love what you do for a living?"

2011 WEBSITE REFRESH

2011-01-29T12:47:00.000-08:00

It's a new year and so we're kicking it off with a website refresh both for your desk and on the go. Check out the updated portfolio from the new thumbnail overview.

NEW iPHONE SITE

2011-01-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

We love icons and have come to love the iPhone too, so although having to create a separate website for the flashless iPhone, while a pain in the ass, it was kind of fun too. If you visit the Raygun site from your iPhone or iPod touch, you will be whisked there magically.

RAYPLAYER LOOP

2011-01-13T00:19:00.001-08:00

Been working on an iPhone app we named RayPlayer. It's capable of lining up small planets, which occasionally can take some time, so we figured we give people something to look at during the wait, as frivolous as some people might think it is. It's QuickTime, infinity, synchronized swimming and a little bit of illusion all rolled into one.

SEASON'S GREETINGS

2010-12-27T07:23:00.000-08:00

Season’s Greetings and Wishing You All The Best for the New Year. We'll be off to Waikiki for some R&R and back at the trigger on January 11th of 2011.

Santa's “CALIFORNIA SPECIAL” delivery sled, a 1932 Ford Roadster, painted with emission-free Candy Apple Red at Raygun Studio, Christmas 2010.

IF I COULD FLY

2010-12-20T22:12:00.000-08:00

Too busy to post anything lately, immersed in this project we call 12LVE. Check it out. But my main wingman John shared this cool YouTube video with me... hard to believe this is actually real... watch it til the last scene... amazing. if I could fly...

ONE-ON-ONE IN NEW YORK CITY

2010-11-01T08:57:00.001-07:00

Just returned from New York City where I was showing the Raygun book to ten select art buyers, art and creative directors. With all that email, conference calling, iChatting and even FaceTime, there's no substitute for meeting people face to face. And Debra Weiss who puts on these OnOnOne portfolio shows provides a setting for that second to none. I walked away with a new understanding how the work was perceived, how to present, explain and edit it down for the next showing. Priceless experience and as always a great shot in the arm that we're heading in the right direction with the work. Some pictures from the trip and space below...

GEEK MUSCLE MOMENT

2010-09-25T19:23:00.002-07:00

The new Mac Pros arrived this week and they are configured, fueled up and ready to do some burnouts. I don't know why Intel can't think of a better name than "Westmere" for their processor that powers the 12-core engine of these new high-end Macs. I can barely pronounce it in my native tongue and even there it sounds like decaffinated lavender tea from Northwest Holland. I would like to see them take a page from the book of muscle car marketing where the power plant matters too... why not V12, Viper 24 or Thunderbolt 5150?

Vinnie... please make some calls before the release of the Lipton Fine Twine.

Anyways, for now enjoy the view of this 24-barreled Raygun melting through some Photoshop ice texture zoom blurred lighting effect in seconds...

TIGHT WRAP

2010-09-16T16:37:00.001-07:00

Just picking up some pieces from a collaboration with Claudia Götzelmann who wanted to know more about CGI water while I wanted to know more about how pretty girls are shot. These pieces have been shelved for quite a while and I just felt like playing around with them again.

NEW BIN LADEN VIDEO SURFACES

2010-09-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

A new Osama Bin Laden video message has been leaked and it's clear now that they'll be back to audio tape next year.

SMILE, IT'S TIME

2010-09-09T12:11:00.001-07:00

FaceTime that is. Take a look into the new window at your local .Store. I guess, here's the reason you want to get not just one, but two iPhonefours. One for yourself and one for your best friend. Thanks Kevin, Claudia, Shawn, Annie, Chris & Chris, Charlie, David, Peter & Pete, Barbara, Mike, Vicki & Tracey, KandB, Wyatt & Tanya.

DRINKING WITH A BEAR

2010-09-09T09:23:00.001-07:00

Thanks, Mike for this great 'tip'. Take a look at this Tipp-Ex YouTube interactive. The one thing I've always wanted to do was drink with a bear, too bad this bear doesn't drink. But anyways, this is the best campaign I've seen since the Subservient Chicken.

DON'T GO MAD... ALLES WIRD GUT

2010-08-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

Christmas came a little early this year and I found myself back in LA for two crazy days on a shoot with Radical, complete with famous and funny director, fake snow, semitrucks full of stuff, and the best darn craft services I've ever had. Day Two we're shooting somewhere downtown LA and I come across this sign in the parking lot... I am not sure which way I should turn. But I am pretty sure it was Don Draper's secretary that came down the hall looking like she's going to a costume party.

It's also where I met Barbara, the producer from Austria who made me speak German and helped smoke all these cigarettes. She sports the best tattoo I have ever seen in my life. She swore she's not on suicide watch, and never even thought about it in this way when she had these life-affirming words edged into her wrist. I really believe her, even though I can't imagine a better way to remind oneself, that whatever it is, it's not worth dying for and to put away the razor blade.

MORE TRANSPARENCY NEEDED

2010-08-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

Just finished a fun piece for Tracy Locke/Schlage titled "Transparency" with Chad Vander Lugt art directing this piece and Scott Dorman of Smalldoggin' making sure the composite passes the muster of probability. We were asked to build the two open floors out of glass, including workstations, desks, conference tables and even threw in a couple of elevators and then composite in the individual people portraits. Went out and captured HDRIs of the surroundings while the photographer was up on a crane shooting the building and giving free rides to anybody who wasn't afraid of heights. Here's a look at the final and some under-the-hood pieces leading up to it.

The final CGI/photography composite

Close-up of the transparent floors

The HDRI pano used to light and provide reflections for the CG parts

An in-progress rendering of the glass floors

A rough rendering populated with CG people to help with perspective in shooting the warmer bodies

The building used in building the building

Erik and a fearless companion up on the crane shooting angles

Everything starts with an idea

SIGGRAPH 2010 IMPRESSIONS

2010-08-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

Managed to spend a day at Siggraph in LA a couple of weeks back to get caught up with whats new and what will be new in CG. Overall impression? Faster, higher res, touch screens, and ground zero for GPU vs. CPU rendering. Nothing earth shattering really, its more evolutionary. Seems we have reached the point, where the tools and the speed is there and it's now coming down to the artistry. Which is perfectly fine with me :-).

Okay, I am going in...

A 180 view from the entryway.

The break dancers at the live motion capture booth seemed tired, even though they were working in shifts of three. What a job.

And then there was this realtime interactive demo of a fully-raytraced Porsche aus Stuttgart on an HD display touch screen. Change colors in real time. Definitely for those who don't know what they want and put off their decision making until the last second. But don't they realize that all creative reviews and sign-offs are now done on iPhones nowadays?

RealFlow 5... had a look at their sheeter demon, so maybe our CG water can finally be less "cheesy" and nice integration with the Maxwell rendering in Cinema 4D. The pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit together quite nicely. This is going to be just what the doctor ordered for a piece we're working on with Robert Schlatter.

Best of all, the guys from Luxion/KeyShot showed off Version 2.1 of their realtime rendering software, with translucent materials (aka subsurface scattering) and lots of small improvements overall. Please ship now...

THE BIG RESET BUTTON

2010-08-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

Lots of times I get so busy around here and got so many things going on in my head at the same time that I lose focus. All these little cogwheels spinning at different speeds and sometimes even in different directions... and the big machine starts to jam. That's when I need to hit the Big Reset Button. The only thing that works for me is to face death for 10 seconds on opening and then everything comes into focus and things start running smoothly again. Junkie that I am, the home grown (and street legal) psychopharmica Adrenaline and especially the magical Endorphin that gets dispensed right after to counter the Adrenaline are what's really going on, or so I was told by my instructor in the 90s. I like the skydiving thing because you can slip out for just one afternoon and get it done. It's also the furthest thing from dealing with the virtual computer world, it's so real. Running or working out just doesn't have the same effect on me for some reason. So while I am working this Sunday getting things out the door (procrastinating really while writing this blog entry) and getting ready for a big shoot day tomorrow in LA, I did manage to reset the machine last Sunday. Took my brand new iPhone into my hand and out along for the process. Enjoy the video and let me know if you want to go jump, I get ten bucks for every referral ;-)

RENDER IN' MOTION

2010-08-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

For better or worse, it seems we're getting more and more into motion. And, yes... it's rendered... to answer the question of "Is it real or is it Memorex?" This turntable Mustang is something we're playing with as a result of some conversations about 4K video and the fusion of 1440 frames of raytrace rendering and AfterEffects magic. Enjoy.

SEE, GEE, AYH!

2010-07-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

Now that looks familiar... hmh... where have I seen this concept before? Got to hand it to them though, they were able to pull it off completely "in-camera". Now, why didn't WE think of that?

THE CLEANEST DIRT YOU'LL EVER SEE

2010-07-20T16:00:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the demo video of this new physics engine simulator: milk shaker, rabbit thumper, sock smasher and dirt piler, throw-all-your-render-cores-and-then-some-at-me piece of software? Scaaary great. Thanks for the link, Shawn. Wonder what year the Mac version will ship.

KEYSHOT, HOTROD & WHATNOT

2010-07-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I uploaded any real work or something worth looking at, so to all those who haven't jumped ship yet from our humble little blog, this is for you. I checked out a hot rod show in the East Bay a few weekends ago and looked at some mighty fine cars with Frank, Connie and Alex. A 1932 roadster was especially fine and inspired me to do this render job. It's been a bit of a dry run lately so this was also good render therapy. Enjoy.

WE'RE ON THE COVER OF A MAGAZINE!

2010-06-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

...as Mike Wazowski would say. Just found out that our Space Girl, an image we collaborated on with D.C. photographer Cade Martin is the key image for the new Photoshop website, www.photoshop.com. And not even a bar code over the face! How do you like that, Sully?

VIRTUAL BLOOD

2010-05-04T17:32:00.000-07:00

This is the blood that an oath for good design was signed with. It's virtual blood, Virtual like the blood that thankfully didn't get spilled on Times Square. Thank you, Mr. T-Shirt man. Can't quite believe we stood there, right in the middle of it, my daughter and me just a few days ago, thinking how great... this City. I LOVE NY.

FLASH BACK

2010-04-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

This is a bit of a Silicon Valley type post, to give you fair warning. Not sure how many of you readers are old enough to remember what the web looked like until Flash came around. For those who don't, here's a screenshot of Netscape's homepage I took... I don't know why... back in 1994. Yes, Netscape... Mosaic... AOL... Mozilla... FireFox. Those guys:

What about Flash though? A little "flashback" might be in order... it started as FutureSplash... a neat little plug-in that allowed you to create and display vector animations. Animations that downloaded really fast over those slow dial-up modems. It became Flash when Macromedia bought it. They were king in tools for making interactive CDs at the time. And yes, one could actually play tiny little videos over the web... using Apple's QuickTime mainly... that's if you were a coding and video compression Ninja. But you never knew how or even if it would play. It was trial and error. Just like everything else about making pages for the web. Needless to say graphic designers, who are by nature control freaks, were not the early adopters of the World Wide Web.

Flash allowed designers to design once and play everywhere. Something that Java promised, but never delivered. It is also the simple reason why (click on link if you're not familiar with it) YouTube succeeded, which... and you'll find that hard to believe... started out only 5 years ago. What was it they offered that had never been done before? Simple... your video would play! You uploaded it and no matter what format you sent it or who you sent the YouTube link to... they were able to watch it. Anybody could just post a video now and it could be seen by anybody, anywhere. Guaranteed. It wasn't about standards or technology, it was simply about predictability and removal of the need for expert skills. Come to think of it... not unlike the Mac in 1984. Ironically it's the iPhone and iPad that are the only platforms your Flash video won't run. Interesting though that Apple didn't ban YouTube also. Wonder why that works ;-).

Now Adobe... these are the guys that gave us Illustrator and Photoshop. Adobe... who has been making the best graphic design tools for 20 years now. So if HTML5 is really the present and the future, where are the graphical authoring tools? I've you've seen them, please let me know. I did find aa MUST SEE design tutorial video (in Flash of course) on YouTube if you want to get a head start on the future...

NEW WINDOW TO A HIDDEN WORLD

2010-03-31T14:27:00.000-07:00

In the course of working on a project with Erik and Scott involving some CGI insects, Diana, the art director, shared this great link with us for inspiration. Miroslaw Swietek is a photographer in Poland who goes out in the pre-dawn hours and flashes sleeping insects covered in morning dew. Just when you think you're familiar with the world around you, someone opens a window and shows you the world in a brand new way. The brilliance of these photos is just stunning. Here's the link to the story.

POSER 8: FIRST IMPRESSION

2010-03-19T04:16:00.001-07:00

Just installed the new Poser 8 and I have to say I am excited to see that they finally got around to clean up after the mess they made of the interface over the last ten years. If you're old enough to remember when Poser was taken on by MetaCreations, you know that Kai put in one of the most amazing, intuitive and clean interfaces on the Mac, or any computer for that matter, and quite some time before his ideas started popping up in the OS X betas. Anyhow, so I just gave this new version a quick spin... some new alien character by the name of Andy is the default figure now... I wonder whether that's a hommage to the amazing Andy Murdoch. He sure looks like the flying chief that kidnapped the baby and put him into a glass jar.

Either way, I kind of prefer a semi naked fist fighting blonde.

I really like the new folder based navigation system for poses, figures, parts... the library... now that there is so much content, the old way of browsing the library really became tedious. To that end, it's great that the new Poser gives us a search function now. How about groups of poses, morphs, or hair belonging to a figure together or highlighting related content in bold if it relates to the selected figure?

Looks like the sketch render has been worked on too. Fun stuff. Hope to find some more time to sink into this new release soon.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK

2010-03-17T02:10:00.000-07:00

Kate stopped by today to say Hi and drop off the new 7x7 magazine with the flying whale in Erik Almås' picture of supermodel Maggie Rizer. Not up to speed with the who's who in supermodelling, I had to google her name. Turns out she moved to San Francisco from Manhattan and is working on a comeback after being out for a while. The reason? Her stepdad gambled away her fortune of millions of dollars she had made in supermodelling. With Lotto Quick Picks. Wow. You'd think that the guy at the corner store would have told him that this isn't his game, after he spent the first million there. It's almost harder to believe than her flying out on a whale ship.

ANYBODY HAVE A BANDSAW HANDY?

2010-03-10T13:18:00.000-08:00

Working on a series of images with photographer Robert Schlatter that are combination of our CGI and his iconic photography. One of the shots involves half of a retro soda pop bottle, the other half a CGI component that's still under wraps. Although the final image is really a pure front, somewhat 2D view, the art director showed me a sketch of the bottle in a perspective view from above to get a better understanding of what's going on with the other side. To that end he sketched the bottle sectioned in half... which I misinterpreted as something he was actually looking for. Since the bottle is photographed, I asked him how he was going to cut the bottle and keep the soda in it... jokingly... then went ahead to render some takes... and I think it works quite well, no OSHA necessary.

FLIGHT OF THE HUMPBACK

2010-03-05T21:37:00.000-08:00

An interesting and welcome break from the regular glass and chrome work, which came to us courtesy of the upcoming Spring Fashion issue of San Francisco's 7x7 Magazine. The original reference had the whale floating, the way they do when they are resting in the water. I first imported the model of this Humpback into the renderer, before posing it or fixing the UV maps of the texture. Just to get a perspective and play with it a little. I love how the basic T pose and the messed up texture tiling made the whale feel like a 747 Zebra Zeppelin. In the end, flaps came down and the Zebra was escorted back into the jungle, but I still like that first shot and while maybe not right for the final image, I think it's perfect for the blog.

SWEET VALENTINE

2010-02-14T22:17:00.000-08:00

Happy, bitter, sweet Valentine to all you loving fools... why does love hurt so good?

REALFLOW BRAWL

2010-02-11T00:06:00.000-08:00

So here I am a little past midnight working on this RealFlow simulation, really simple actually, two glasses of water pouring into a tray and making some ice cubes float and move. Not sure whether I didnt apply enough external pressure to these hotheads, but instead of a nice smooth result, what do I get? They break out into a fight. What are the viscosic energy numbers for a peaceful pouring? Anybody?

Click here to see the full version of the movie.

TURNTABLE MAGIC

2010-02-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

Here's a turntable rendering we did not long ago in HyperShot Pro, but it didn't make it into the reel. Enjoy.

YouTube is a little crummy, even in HD, but you can click here to see the HiFi version from our server.

LOUSIANA SQUID

2010-02-06T16:02:00.000-08:00

Anybody involved even peripherally in 3D knows the name TurboSquid, but what do they have to do with Katrina and it's aftermath? Pretty interesting interview. Here's the video.

RENDERHEAD

2010-01-27T02:27:00.001-08:00

My friend Michael keeps me up on what's cool in music and technology-related art. Found this youtube link in my idle iChat window after I came back to the computer tonite. Thanks, Mike! Reminds me of a General Electric 3D ultrasound... maybe its the same technique... in any case... check it out:

CGI BEANSTALK

2010-01-27T02:17:00.000-08:00

Finally finished the Jack & the Beanstalk project, where we provided the CGI part for a composite by Cade Martin and Michal Horevaj. This is a close-up from the GI rendering on an 8 core. Each square represents one of the processors working on resolving the image. I wonder who gets to design the look of this render progress feedback mechanism. Whoever it is, it's a work of art on its own. Truth told I almost like it better than the rendered result.

ALIEN INVASION TAKE TWO

2009-11-24T15:43:00.000-08:00

A while back I started working with photographer Cade Martin on a collaboration where he was looking for a spaceship to go with his beautiful retro woman from Mars (she must be from the French part of Mars), anyways it was fun and the image is somewhere in the portfolio section. This one here is a take that wasnt quite the final that Cade liked, but I thought I share. I modelled the breathing tube in Cinema, using a succession of - appropriately enough I think - oil tank shapes along a spline, or a bunch of splines really since I wasnt sure how far the spaceship is into the distance. Then played with it in the new Hypershot until I had something that felt like the right angle and feel.

ICON PORN

2009-09-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

Nice to see that someone is paying attention, and nicer yet to see the otherwise obscure Xsan icon get a little press on Cult of Mac. Although I don't think there was any intent to have anyone misuse them like this. But hey, if you must. Here's the link to the Cult of Mac article with a close-up gallery of many more icons. Bring your own tissues.

WHAT RECESSION?

2009-09-01T21:58:00.000-07:00

We’re too busy to worry and are looking for an extremely talented and 5+ years experienced Photoshop and Cinema 4D artist for high-end print advertising work. You may be able to compensate for experience with genuine hunger. But keep in mind it's not a junior or training position. Reviewing books of qualified candidates now... email resume and a portfolio link.

DOESN'T LOOK LIKE A SONG TO ME

2009-08-31T13:03:00.000-07:00

August is just about over and just in time, I received this photo in my inbox. Thanks, Kate. Promised to keep you in the loop on the outcome of this assignment, well, here it is. And, yes, that's Bryan Davis, the photographer there... taking in the exposure. If you want to take a closer look, you can check it out on Howard and 2nd Streets in San Francisco.

Keep an eye out for the other hurler, it should be popping up today also.

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW

2009-07-30T01:31:00.000-07:00

When we were first offered to work on this project with Bryan Davis, my first reaction was "That's disgusting!" It's about a sea of rats and an office full of what Kate politely referred to as "yuck" and to me was pretty obviously something closer to this. But once we really embraced it... figuratively only of course... questions come up: Are rats wet or dry? What PMS number is bile? What does a keyboard lool like if you dip it in battery acid? Does sulphuric acide on a carpet cause a fire? You start looking for reference... from chemical spills, to college binge drinking outcomes to exploding laptops, just to discover... these textures are amazing! And really nothing quite like what you expect when you get started. The other fun part of accepting this challenge is shooting HDRI at a photoshoot with a rat dompteur and discovering that rats do a better job when praised. I guess it's true... you learn something new every day.

At the photoshoot with Claude, Bryan, Owen, and Kate.

Our rats are not quite as cute and it makes no difference whether you praise them. Stay tuned for the final outcome of this mess.

COOL 4D INSTALLATION

2009-07-25T15:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've had a chance to make an entry, gone subsurface to work on some cool stuff we can't talk about. Good thing there is some art out there we can talk about, like this incredibly precise 4D installation, my friend Aurelio shared with me...

Created by Urbanscreen. Germans... figures. Enjoy!

PHOTOSHOP 3D

2009-06-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

Spent a little quality time with my old pal Photoshop, maybe because he's the least flakey or maybe because he loves me unconditionally... in any case, the new 3D functions were something of interest to me for a while, and I finally found the time to play with it, thanks to Lynda who has a course on the matter. The most surprising and fun tool I discovered is the image based modeling, which is where you can create an extrusion based on gray values in an image, i.e. white is high and black is low... great for creating landscapes, mountains or cities on the quick and cheap. You'll find that under 3D > New Mesh from Grayscale > Plane.

Make sure you start with an RGB image, not too high res, and check out the New Mesh from Grayscale > Cylinder and Sphere too. Pretty cool what you can do with this.

HIGH AS A KITE — ABOVE NEW YORK

2009-06-12T20:04:00.000-07:00

A photographer friend of mine, Chris Conroy, sent me this amazing link allowing you to immerse yourself in New York. It was the final push for me to get a ticket and make that trip to New York, the trip I've been putting off for so long. But that's another post altogether... stay tuned.

2009 WEBSITE REFRESH

2009-06-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

Thrilled and relieved to announce the new Raygun website with new work for 2009, and many small refinements and improvements. Thank you Monste from yummyink for getting my blog out of the starting blocks and thank you Claudia, Carolina, José and Sue from tompertdesign for an amazing job on the design and the Flash presentation and the tenacity to stick through all of my endless refinements and changes of mind. I hope you feel it was worth it.

So what's new besides the portfolio? One of the new links on top is a sitemap, just for you Kate (and anybody else who wants to see all the work on one page in 2 seconds). New, too, is a link to request the printed book as well as a direct link to iTunes where you can download our Raygun app, check it out, it's only $0.00.

And then there's a link to this Blog, a space where I am planning to provide a look inside the plasma chamber of Raygun, share timesuck links and show work in progress of interesting projects as they happen, rather than put them off until the annual portfolio refresh. And, yes, I am aware that the link here to the website and the link back on the homepage to this blog is what they call an Infinite Loop. Hope you don't get trapped...

KUTIMAN

2009-04-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

What you are about to see is a mix of seemingly unrelated YouTube clips composited together to create a unique and new work of art, called Thru You. It's amazing, and amazing too, the creativity of Kutiman, who is behind this eclectic composition of videos and sounds. And I just love that Steely Dan drummer who opens this thing... "The Mother of All Funk Chords"

OBSERVING WATER

2009-04-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

This project has been a collaboration with photographer Claudia Goetzelmann. The idea behind was creating an aura of water around the model standing on different postures. 3D techniques were important on this scene in order to keep the model "out of the water" without damaging her make-up, hair style and shooting set. Observing the water falling has been one of the main assets on this project. A wide H2O research, studying the light, textures, shapes, movements, speed, etc. You are thirsty, aren't you?

WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE

2009-04-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

Sand, jungle and snow... were the ingredients for this latest Land Rover outdoor campaign. Kurt Geisler from Y&R who concepted and art directed this billboard went to see the final installation on this cold winter night in New York City and sent me this picture. I love how the snow board fades into the night sky. I am really happy the message is in such a great place!

BEFORE & AFTER

2009-04-21T10:38:00.001-07:00

On the right you can see the final digital retouched piece. Ready to mark the seven differences?

TURNING DAY INTO NIGHT

2009-04-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

I think just about every retoucher in the Bay Area has been asked to work on this Sprint campaign by Goodby, it's just such a vast campaign, I guess. Here we were asked to find out whether we could get away with a NASCAR shot that was taken in the day time and turn it into a night time shot, then create the trademark light swirls that make up the monster cars. I thought it looked halfway decent, but in the end, the time was found to do a shoot at night after all.

NEW GILLETTE BODY WASH COMMERCIAL

2009-04-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

New Gillette Body Wash commercial. In this case the 3D has been used to cover the body of the model while having a shower. Movement, texture, speed, shape, anatomy and color have been the challenges to accomplish.

INSIDE OUT / OUTSIDE IN

2009-04-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

Piece written by Jamie Kripke.

I had the opportunity to work with the insanely talented Michael Tompert of Raygun on this ad for EA's new game. It was a very cool experience to collaborate with another artist that looks at things so differently. As someone that creates 3D objects from scratch, he views things from the inside out, where as a photographer, I look at things the opposite way. This was totally fascinating to me, and has changed how I now look at objects.

For the record, Michael was hired by Heat (via Kate Chase) to create the image, and I was there to shoot photographic elements, and to create the feel and mood that would translate to the main image. We rented the Alameda airstrip and wet it down with a water truck, then arranged the cars into a rough approximation of the layout. We waited for the light to be just right, then started shooting like crazy in order to capture as many elements as we could. Which looked kind of like this:

Michael also did shots of everything from the car's POV so he could get the reflections right. We also did shots of the car blasting through the scene on wet pavement to get details of how the water comes out off the wheels, which was really fun to shoot, and looks kind of like this:

Then we shot a million more frames of everything, and Michael went back to his studio with a bunch of jpegs (yes, jpegs) and started work on the final image. When he sent it to me I was totally blown away. It had been through a million rounds of art direction and retouching and had taken on a life of its own. I think it looks pretty killer, but have a hard time seeing my hand in this project.

Michael insists that I did create the mood that was the starting point for the image. I guess I'll take his word for it. I had a blast on this shoot, and am hoping to do more of this kind of work.

SANTA'S VISIT

2009-04-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

Santa Claus took some holidays this year and he decided to visit us coming all the way to California. I took him down to Santa Cruz, CA. He could not get enough surfing. That's the Christmas card I created in his honor the past 2008. Finally, he enjoyed the sun and the waves of the Pacific Ocean.

NEED FOR SPEED - UNEXPECTED FIRST SIGHTING

2008-09-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

I was expecting a new MacBook Air, but this first sighting of the NFS Key Art was even nicer.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP

2008-04-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is a submission for Adobe's Photoshop "See What's Possible" contest. Participants create a 15 second animation/video piece using graphic applications as Photoshop, Flash, or After Effects and develop the new Photoshop logo. Tolleson Design has been commissioned to re-design the new identity look. Thus the new Photoshop mark exhibits the quality of an empty vessel that can be enhanced over time.

PDN FEATURE

2007-05-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

This story has been featured in PDN Magazine under the column that Hal Stucker reports with the title "A Touch of Class" which features retouchers and provides a behind the scenes look at interesting retouching projects. If you are interested in more... here it is. Enjoy it!

The Dark Side Of Chocolate
A sweet job for retoucher Michael Tompert involved bringing this delicious confection to life.

May 02, 2007 By Hal Stucker. Chocolate has earned a place in the collective fantasy life of the human race, symbolic of sex, love, pleasure and luxury. Those were the connotations that retoucher Michael Tompert of Raygun Studio in Palo Alto, California, and art director Michael Wilde of San Francisco's Maiden Lane Communications sought to capture in the campaign that Maiden Lane pitched last year to chocolate maker Ghirardelli. One of the images showed a Venus Flytrap made out of chocolate; the copy read, 'Bite it before it bites you.'"

Michael created the chocolate "skin" covering each subject entirely from scratch, so his greatest challenge was making the objects in each image appear as if they were actually made from chocolate—the way chocolate Easter bunnies are.

For inspiration, he first went to the web and searched for pictures of chocolate, to get different ideas about the highlights, shadows and textures found in pieces of chocolate. He then undertook the informative, but potentially fattening, study of actual chunks of the stuff, viewing the samples with different types of illumination and studying the way light interacted with each surface. He soon discovered that the key to creating a believable image was in getting the color absolutely right. The ads were for dark chocolate, so he usually went all the way to black on the color and then came back a little, and added just the right mixture of reds and browns.
The ad that shows a chocolate eye and bears the tagline "Maybe you should be afraid of the dark" provides a good example of some of the intricacies involved and some of the creative choices Tompert made. The initial image came from a royalty-free stock photo.

He first masked out the skin and used curves to take the color down to a dark brown, while also painting black into the shadows to make those even darker, and also using masks to selectively add red and brown tints to highlights and mid-tones. He then began drawing the eyelashes, first drawing a path to create the shape, then using the smudge tool to "finger paint" in the color on the path, and to create blur and give the lashes the effect of depth-of-field falloff. "It's all in how you control the smudge effect, how much you control the fade-out and the strength of the smudge that makes it sharp or blurred, and also in the shape of the 'finger' you're using to apply the tone."

Chocolate starts out as liquid. So all the objects he created had to suggest that kind of flow, as if it had, at one time, been poured into a mold and then solidified. This meant that the points at which the lashes connected to the eyelid needed to have a slightly rounded, somewhat "liquid" look, which Tompert also achieved using the smudge tool. He used the same method to connect the spikes on the Venus flytrap to the "mouth" of the flower, also adding blur there to simulate falloff in depth of field.

To add highlights, he used Photoshop's layer effects and worked in screen mode removing the dark tone. He also placed the highlights on the undersides of the lashes, to give the subtle effect of light emanating from the eye, rather than the eye being illuminated by an outside source. Lastly, he used the dodge and burn tool to fine-tune both highlights and shadows.

On his first attempt, Michael had added a fair amount of red to the skin and the lashes, trying to give the effect of a matte-surface, similar to what you would find on a powdered-chocolate truffle. This, however, turned out to be the one instance where even a subtle change in color destroyed the effect. Tompert went back to the image, subtracted red and added black, further painted down the shadows, and added white to the eyelash highlights to increase contrast. He finished by also enhancing the highlight in the pupil, drawing a second shape over the existing highlight and then brightening and sharpening it to make it cleaner.

Alas, for all the hard work involved, Ghirardelli wasn't sold on the Maiden Lane pitch. Michael, however, is sanguine, pointing to his chocolate series as both an interesting exercise in visualization and a nice addition to his portfolio.

More tips and tricks: Creating the Venus Flytrap

Michael created this image almost entirely within Photoshop, using only a stock photograph of a piece of velvet for the background. After studying a number of photographs to understand the basic structure of the plant, he began by drawing the shape that would become the flower's left lip. "I wanted to make sure I was getting the reflections and the material right, and make sure I had the feel and the glossy look down," he says. Here he used Photoshop's layer effects to create a beveled edge on the lip and to add highlights and shadows. "It's a very deep function," he says of the effects. "Among the things you can do, you change the way light reacts to a surface, and you can position a light to provide a highlight."

He then used the pen tool to draw the shape of the spikes, and filled the shapes with color. "In Photoshop, you can then give these shapes attributes," he says. "You can give them thickness, they can throw a shadow, they can accept light, like an object in a high-end 3D program. The layer effects won't necessarily get you all the way to where you want to go, but they'll take you about 90 percent of where you want to get the image." For example, the reflection the layer effect added to the spike dropped off too early, and didn't run to the end of the tip, so Michael had to smudge and paint in the rest.

Michael was also careful to keep edges rounded and plump, in order to give the effect of a molded chocolate object that had once been liquid. As a final touch, he used the smudge tool to add blur to selected parts of the image, to give the effect of falloff in the camera's depth of field.