MOVE LIKE A RAT, TALK LIKE A CAT

Messing around with Cinema 4D's IK chains and Hair Module.

OUR FORAY INTO 4K

Or as they say in Silicon Valley: The Future is Now. This new year also brought a new challenge in the form of a CGI motion piece we developed for a friend and client, Amine Chabane of Marseille Inc. His Silicon Valley start-up company develops 4K video chips while revolutionizing the way chips are designed and prototyped on the side. Marseille unveiled their first 4K video chips at CES in January and needed a demo loop with killer 4K content to strut their stuff, content that would actually do their massive display and new 4K chips justice. You might be asking yourself, what in the hell is "4K"? Simply put, it's when HD is just not good enough. Another way to understand it, is to think of it as video running at print resolution. Roughly four times the number of pixels of today's HD runnning on these 5 foot flat panel HDTVs you can pick up for less than a grand at BestBuy nowadays. When you think about it, even though they are called "High-Definition" those TVs are actually quite low-res, given that they have continued to get larger and larger but the resolution has stayed the same. So you don't actually see more detail on a bigger HDTV, just bigger pixels.



Compare that to your Retina iPhone or Samsung HTC phone, where the displays are basically staying the same small size, yet the resolution or the amount of pixels in that space keeps getting higher and higher with every generation. An iPhone 4 packs about 10 times more pixels into every inch than a large HDTV, while the iPhone 4s' camera shoots pictures that are now twice the resolution of what even the highest-end HDTV can display right now. It looks like 4K displays are not that far off.

For the demo then we created a motion piece that exceeded what the chip and display can deliver rather than just barely meeting it, as most RED 4K footage would and pack in tons of detail and tricky things that would tax the system enough to show where its maximum performance tops out.

The result was a four minute 4K loop that weighed in at 56 gigabytes incorporating timelapse Nikon photography, RED camera footage, and the cherry on top... a 360 of our CGI Hot Rod, the 1932 Ford Roadster you may have seen around here. This time around with a custom Marseille California Sunset Orange paintjob and personalized vintage California license plate. And then imagine having to render out 5000 print magazine pages at 300dpi and you get the idea. We let this render over the holidays, spread out over several 12-core machines, cranking the quality settings to the max.

To see the final loop on the 4K display at Marseille in Santa Clara was breathtaking.

It's difficult to express other than "you have to see it to believe it". But for what it's worth check the HD version of the video above or click on these still frames to get a taste.





If you're seriously interested in this kind of thing, who knows, I can talk to Amine and maybe arrange a demo for you at Marseille in Santa Clara and you can see for yourself what the future looks like right now.

INTERVIEW IN RESOURCE MAGAZINE

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.

TIGHT WRAP

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.

RENDER IN' MOTION

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.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK

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?

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 2D view, Brian Gunderson, the art director showed me a sketch of the sectioned bottle in a 3D perspective view to get a better understanding of what's going on...



I didn't notice his little camera in the corner and misinterpreted the sketch as the view 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.






Here's a look at the final image...


And a closer look at the detail...



Probably the most fun we had with this project however was the last minute design and illustration of the artwork on the cans themselves, originally to come from the client but instead added on as super fun side project in the making of this image. And yes, Waldo is in there somewhere.

FLIGHT OF THE HUMPBACK

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.



Progressing towards the final image with whale texture in place and Erik's toy ship prop in place. We liked how the whale feels more dimensional and dynamic when at a slight angle and not totally pure side...



The problem however was that the toy ship was pure side and being a photo not something you can simply rotate to fit. I felt that that toy boat being too small in scale anyways could be improved upon anyways and then we can match the air boat to the whale. This steam punk air ship is what I had in mind, complete with transcontinental luggage and hat box...



The near to final composite...