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. Instead, with a camera, you can let the world do the work for you. The studio setup is also very simple (cardboard + acrylic panel + projector + fog) and easy to experiment with. I'm pretty sure photography was the right tool for the project.
The composite sounds like no picnic, either:
>With over 3,000 photos captured from the shoot, the initial stage of the composite was an exercise in patience as Munko diligently went through all of the assets and picked the best ones suited for the final image. He then dusted off his old 40 year-old designer fingers and brought them into Photoshop where he tirelessly combined exposures at a blistering 9k resolution.
He first build up the base image, which was obviously the foundation for the hero still, flushing out the core logo design with a variety of laser-infused illuminations.. These core layers were varied, ranging from minimal rim-lighting to a multitude of laser lines fanning through the central portions of the logo, lighting up the volumetric haze in a variety of artful ways. Compositing all these layers together was an extremely iterative process and was done in collaboration with Daddy Bear Art Director Ryan Vulk and Creative Director Christopher Ashworth, the two senior Directors on the Windows Brand Team.
Once the lovelies at the Windows team and up the ladder at Microsoft were happy with the aesthetics of the logo foundation, Munko then composited in the environmental passes, which consisted of separately shot layers of smoke and haze to create a very moody palette and accentuated the qualities of the practical approach.
The final touches were the lens flares, which were again shot as separate passes but were flaring the lens with a light source positioned in the same place as the laser projector, so the flares lined up perfectly with all the other passes. The final grade was applied to bring everything into the signature ‘Microsoft Blue’ palette, but still leaving a tonal range that kept everyone happy. The final 9k file was then sent to the magicians at XYZ Creative Production Agency, who specialize in high-end photo retouching and did the final optimizations on the hero image.
> Q: How did you come to compose "The Microsoft Sound"?
> A: The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, "Here's a specific problem -- solve it."
https://www.sfgate.com/music/popquiz/article/q-and-a-with-br...
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....
That's the Microsoft I am used to ^^
A lot of the promotional material highlights the sets, costumes and props from films on display, and they are certainly interesting, but far more interesting to me are the two floors of cinematic miniatures--diorama after diorama of physically-built miniature sets used as "virtual backgrounds" before they were mostly generated using CGI art (which I do appreciate). They are remarkable and remarkably interesting as pieces of art as well as cinema history. This story reminded me of this--sometimes the effect you want needs a tactile realism that is hard to replicate digitally, and is rarely as neat and toy-like.
What does "live-action shoot" mean in this statement? Wouldn't this just be "still photography"? When I think of live action, I think of people or at least ... action?
Although I like the 'amateuristic' style of the old Tux, I must say this new minimal penguin looks really good.
[1] https://mspoweruser.com/new-default-windows-10-light-theme-w...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_News_for_People_Who_Love_...
It's a weird feeling. Kinda like letting go of the desktop-oriented computer in favor of window-manager-oriented. There's beauty in the former, and simplicity and elegance in the latter.
My only other though is that I'm surprised this many people were needed to take that photo.
* Blasting loud music * Saturated with bragging, useless testimonials * Blurring-in was more common than actually seeing the work * Cutting away from the work to a human too quickly
Maybe I'm coming off as miserable, but this video was totally unsatisfying to watch.
It probably wouldn't work so well for a "4k" monitor, but I thought it neat at the time.
I drew it by hand with a pencil and scanned it.
I had another article headline where I commissioned an artist to carve the headline in stone and had it photographed for the printer.
I scrolled to the bottom for contact information but it keeps loading stuff so I never reach it.
https://www.metaflix.com/behind-the-scenes-of-star-wars-open...
"For mediocrity, turn to AI. If you want masters, call us".
Doesn't mean you don't need to have the creative vision first. But executing it with a camera and a light/laser/fog set and all the effort that went into it, seriously, just take a talented vfx artist and you get the same result.
It's different with nature photography and especially with humans. But there was nothing natural with this image.
I can almost smell it immolating.
This is like a startup spending hours upon hours on logo and name instead of actually building something.
So, the last thing that I would want to set as a wallpaper would be a reminder of that fact that I'm using Windows.
I guess I'm jaded.
> Creative Director: GMUNK
> Managing Director, Live Action: Oliver Fuselier
> Managing Partner, Digital: Dustin Callif
> Executive Producer: Robert Helphand
> Head of Production: Amy DeLossa
> Producer: Mary Church
> Associate Producer: John Stern
> Production Supervisor: Liz Welonek
> etc ...
I mean, come on.
I personally find this visual quite cold and soulless, compared to previous Windows wallpapers, mostly XP's of course. For me this also coincided with Windows becoming completely useless and my moving to a Mac.
For example
https://iso.500px.com/iphone-6-milky-way-wallpaper-interview...
Also the Ariel videos of nature and cities for Apple TV and Mac is another example.
Windows feels so corporate and boring tbh
And then photoshopped. /s
You always need 2 programs in Windows to do a thing right. /s
I knew what a wanted — an old fashioned looking wall with old-timey pictures of my relatives hanging on the wall. I also wanted a mantel with more photos standing on it that would run along near the bottom of the book cover.
I tried initially creating the cover in a paint program — layering elements together (wallpaper, photo frames, photos), adding drop shadows, but it wasn't coming together.
So I went to Lowe's and bought a 4' x 8' sheet of 2" insulating foam or some such, bought what looked like the oldest-fashioned wall paper, a gallon of paint, etc. In the end I messed up the lighting, but I suppose that is something I am still learning in photography. But I still liked the result.
https://imgur.com/a/12VN4sI