CGI Renders Are Real Photos (2017)
petapixel.com
petapixel.com
"Cool C64 demo you have there buddy, I could do that in Unity in an afternoon". Yes, but would you? (Edit: and even if you did, it would be a copy of a unique style born out of specific circumstances.)
The picture was apparently taken before it became part of a winery.
The designers would have told the CEO that this is going to be seen by 100x more people than a Superbowl ad spot, and 100x as many times per person too. So getting the perfect image/sound made for the cost of a single superbowl ad is a great deal.
Of course, whether they've succeeded at producing the perfect image is another matter.
The Windows 95 startup chime was composed by Brian Eno, so MS are used to paying for this stuff.
This kind of maximal efficiency attitude is precisely why programs aren't "fun" anymore. Oftentimes, taking the scenic route instead of the highway is how you awe and inspire people; I know I was.
If anyone reading this remembers the 90s and early 00s with Easter Eggs and other fun programs with character, y'all know what I'm talking about.
It's a company, efficiency is money. That's why companies exist.
why programs aren't "fun" anymore
Programs have nothing to do with this, you grabbed that out of thin air. This is about making an image.
Oftentimes, taking the scenic route instead of the highway is how you awe and inspire people; I know I was.
That's good advice for vacation, not a professional environment where someone is paying you for results.
These kinds of "Wait... Seriously? Wow!" stories play a big role in inspiring the next generation to come and do the work of the future. We're seeing far less of them now in computing, and everyone wonders why the younger generations aren't as inspired about technology anymore.
When everything is a brutal race to the bottom to fleece you for every damn bit you're worth, damn right everyone's going to find greener pastures to be inspired by.
I'm answering why we should (within reason) splurge on these kinds of fun, seemingly pointless side tracks.
When you say 'we' should splurge you really mean someone else.
Also this wasn't a splurge, this probably took less time to make than doing it in CG and people who can do the photography probably don't know how to do it in CG in the first place.
A lot of product photos that people think are renders are real photos too, just done with a Phase One.
I was on a small cruise on Switzerland's PS Gallia [1], the fastest lake steamboat in Europe. When you're on it, you can look down the center of the main deck to watch the engine at work. The engine is perfect. Perfect casing with diffuse white (IIRC) reflection, perfect golden metallic joints with glossy reflection, perfect little vials of oil on top of each moving part, to constantly oil them. It felt too perfect to be real, and really looked like it was animated CGI, yet it was there, 3 meters away from me, moving and powering the boat.
[1] https://www.lakelucerne.ch/en/your-cruise-experience/explore...
Shots of the engine
The reason it looked like CGI, in part, is because the engine is unexpectedly big, shiny, and COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATELY PLACED.
We usually witness such stupidity only in sci-fi, where it's all made-up, so it's OK.
Whenever I travel to a 1st world western country, both city and suburb, I see the clear blue sky and sceneries (buildings, roads, layout) that make me feel like I'm in a 3D FPS or city sim game.
The teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhqGCPMfkNM
Behind the scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC_yTMST7mw
I cannot remember it unfortunately, but the youtuber had to show some background footage to convince people those weren't fake.
edit: Found it - https://www.youtube.com/@OleksandrStepanenko
I've always said a retoucher always tries to stray away from what a cgi artist looks to achieve. i.e. they want what each other have. perfection, and a lack of it.
Yet... I know this sounds arrogant, but I feel like I would eventually realize they're real photos if I stared at these long enough without being told. i.e. If I saw them framed on a wall and walked past them every day.
The image noise, surface imperfections, chromatic aberrations, etc. are clues, and yes a raytracer can reproduce that, but not usually this well. That's precisely why I think these are beautiful.
I don't think I would notice it out of context though...
It is slower to render than using "thin glass", and lighting the checkerboard surface underneath the glass isn't as efficient (you can't do naive Next Event Estimation through the refraction of the glass volume, but you can do manifold walks to solve that), but we do it at that level of fidelity often enough when required and have been for years. There are times when it's not required though, so approximations can be acceptable in more forgiving situations.
But if we found a thousand different versions of that scene in CGI, I would bet that every single one of them would use a checkered pattern plane that's slightly reflective. Maybe even uses marble subsurface scattering. But none would add a sheet of glass on the plane as a not-forced modelling choice. That's what makes the photo identifiable as a photo.
Most of the parts of a photography burger are literally inedible.
[1] https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~david/Classes/Papers/p343-whitted...
[2] https://techgage.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Rob-Posing-W...