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Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)

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Re: Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)

#161

Post by sanderjd »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #37
all2 wrote: post #2

This is one of my favorite examples of practical effects. I hate windows as an OS, but I still admire this every time I log in at work.

Why wouldn't you set a better background image?

I think this is actually an interesting question. I think I've been leaving on the default desktop on any computer I use, for over a decade now. It's not just that, it's every kind of setting. I just don't futz around with things that don't actively get in the way of my work anymore. I used to love to tweak everything, to try to pour my personality into a sweet computer setup, but after using computers for fifteen years or so, I just lost interest in that.

Re: Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)

#162

Post by dessimus »

NayamAmarshe wrote: post #152
esjeon wrote: post #82

I've been spending a lot of time on photography (though mostly w/ film cameras) during recent years, and only recently realized this is actually photographed. (It took long because I'm a long-time Linux user, so I barely seen the image.) Many people say this would've been easier with VFX, but I disagree. The image has highly convincing details that would take a long time even for highly talented VFX artists to nail.…

Here's someone recreating the same wallpaper on Blender in 13 minutes: https://youtu.be/EIfrP365iTQ

The video is 13 minutes, but its a time lapse so it could have been hours or days of work.

Re: Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)

#163

Post by linsomniac »

esjeon wrote: post #82

I've been spending a lot of time on photography (though mostly w/ film cameras) during recent years, and only recently realized this is actually photographed. (It took long because I'm a long-time Linux user, so I barely seen the image.) Many people say this would've been easier with VFX, but I disagree. The image has highly convincing details that would take a long time even for highly talented VFX artists to nail.…

>you can let the world do the work for you.

Reminds me of the Spaghetti Sorting algorithm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_sort

Re: Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)

#164

Post by justsomehnguy »

benjaminpv wrote: post #115
rjmunro wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the "default background quality setting"? (I'm not a windows user)

In Windows when you set a wallpaper it (sometimes) silently transcodes the one you selected into a new, smaller version. It doesn't always, there's a heuristic, but it's assumed it happens to prevent people from selecting a 1TB terapixel photo and have it destroy the machine. Anyway, since it transcodes the WP into a JPEG, it has the ability to select a compression ratio. That ratio is pretty famously https://superus…

I've seen machines which needed to swap to show the desktop, because the wallpaper was a high/true-colour BMP and it was like half the memory the machine had!

Re: Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)

#165

Post by sanderjd »

javawizard wrote: post #80
rob74 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup... but, if everyone thinks it's a rendering, and you could have saved tons of money by actually rendering it instead of doing what these guys did, it's still a waste of money if you ask me...

You must not be a fan of https://youtu.be/_ve4M4UsJQo?si=99yLl7V2hisVp0zT then. (That commercial literally had Honda execs complimenting the team on the quality of their CGI when they first saw it. Needless to say they were blown away when they found out it was real.)

That awesome! The funniest part is the end though, where the car is revealed and it's boring and kind of ugly. The commercial is way too good for that car :)

Re: Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)

#166

Post by sanderjd »

schmidt_fifty wrote: post #78

I hope someone will one day talk about me the way corporate america talks about its logos.

Yeah when I read things like this, I always sit in awed wonder for a moment, trying to figure out where these people are totally full of crap, or whether they really think about things this way, and are just very different than me.

Re: Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)

#167

Post by dspillett »

surgicalcolor wrote: post #156
sph wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking like an engineer, and speak as if there is a right amount of time to spend on artistic endeavours; if you cross this threshold for you it is a "ridiculous and colossal amount of effort". Budget aside, art isn't constrained or criticized by how much effort the artist put in. All that matters is the result. A wallpaper or any other artistic creation isn't less beautiful or evocative because the artist s…

No, he's just being realistic. Even without getting into semantics about "what is art", the reality is that this is promotional material for advertising. This wasn't commissioned by a rich patron to put up on exhibition for MoMA. This isn't to take away from the artists skill, effort, creativity etc. but the context of this is inherently a business and economic decision. There's no artistic impetus, no political/soci…

> Even without getting into semantics about "what is art"

They say, before making comments about what they think is art :-)

> There's no artistic impetus, no political/social/cultural message.

There is, as you state in your next couple of sentences:

> … monopolistic megacorp funded to show off … typical "look at how much money we spent" exercise to showcase

You can, probably rightly, call it a crappy impetus. But that was impetus for the exercise and could be called the artistic impetus. Even if you disagree strongly on that particular point, it is definitely a message.

To be slightly more fair, that wallpaper is a major part of the initial impression people have of the OS version, much like XP's Telly Tubby Hill did. The XP image was trying to convey “friendly, welcoming”, the Win10 one tries to convey something more like “dynamic, technically competent, flashy”. While it may not be an expression of someone's inner feelings or a societal property or anything like that, some art is more about directing your impression of something than it is about expressing someone else's and that is what this image was for and what it does.

Re: Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)

#168

Post by nom »

edvards wrote: post #100
asimovfan wrote: post #29

Although this is great somehow in my opinion this was the best windoze wallpaper It somehow captures my soul, perhaps because i was very young when i saw it https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....

Is there a name for this visual style?

If you refer to the color and not the composition, it's called halftone. Unlike analog halftones, you calculate where to place the dots in a way that minimizes visual error, called dithering.

Re: Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)

#170

Post by bravetraveler »

linsomniac wrote: post #163
esjeon wrote: post #82

I've been spending a lot of time on photography (though mostly w/ film cameras) during recent years, and only recently realized this is actually photographed. (It took long because I'm a long-time Linux user, so I barely seen the image.) Many people say this would've been easier with VFX, but I disagree. The image has highly convincing details that would take a long time even for highly talented VFX artists to nail.…

>you can let the world do the work for you. Reminds me of the Spaghetti Sorting algorithm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_sort

That's how some 'trick' card decks work, for anyone unfamiliar
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