Faking fake
January 2, 2017 10:10 PM   Subscribe

Still File, by Skrekkøgle, is a series of photographs staged to resemble e.g. unconvincingly photorealistic raytraced 3D graphics. Making-of photos included. Skrekkøgle hijinks previously.
posted by cortex (19 comments total) 46 users marked this as a favorite
 
Awesome. Love Skrekkøgle. Need to start wearing my Durr again.
posted by migurski at 10:27 PM on January 2, 2017


Cool! Still can't figure out the teapot balanced on its handle though.
posted by gold-in-green at 10:36 PM on January 2, 2017


How did he get (or make) the distorted teapots?
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:37 PM on January 2, 2017


They 3d-printed the "marble" cone, so presumably they did the same for those.
posted by aubilenon at 10:49 PM on January 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think by 3d printing distorted versions of the model, Joe in Australia.

At least that's what I think from this pic.

Also cool to learn about the Utah Teapot!
posted by kittensofthenight at 10:49 PM on January 2, 2017


My graphics programmer friends will get a kick out of this! I was doing basically this yesterday at the SF Moma by taking shots of anish kapoor's Vortex, which looks uncannily like real-life mid-90's demoscene environment mapping.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 11:45 PM on January 2, 2017


I thought 2 and 3 were the most visually striking. Is 4 a recreation of something specific? It looked odd, but I wouldn't have assumed CG.
posted by PMdixon at 2:43 AM on January 3, 2017


Ah, the wonders of the mind's eye.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:46 AM on January 3, 2017


Love this.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:02 AM on January 3, 2017


Is 4 a recreation of something specific? It looked odd, but I wouldn't have assumed CG.

I don't know if there's a specific classic reference object for that, but the overall composition feels very, very "I bought a raytracer, look what I rendered last night!" to me: textureless, highly-specular objects in gaudy colors arranged in an unnatural fashion with a needlessly distorted reflected background to emphasis the turtles-all-the-way-down reflective calculations being crunched by your Pentium II over the course of 12 hours or so.

It looks basically precisely like the sort of thing that would be difficult to photograph but easy to fart out in TrueSpace in five minutes and then spend forever waiting on the render for.
posted by cortex at 8:02 AM on January 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Oooh. I had hoped he'd do a Cornell box, which was initially intended as a physical reference to compare with computer graphics, but became a standard render scene like the Stanford bunny and the Utah teapot.
posted by zamboni at 9:36 AM on January 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Sure, now we can't even tell if something is fake anymore!
posted by blue_beetle at 11:16 AM on January 3, 2017


This reminded of the excellent music video for "Robot High School" by My Robot Friend. (previously)
posted by contraption at 12:29 PM on January 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


cortex: "Is 4 a recreation of something specific? It looked odd, but I wouldn't have assumed CG.

I don't know if there's a specific classic reference object for that, but the overall composition feels very, very "I bought a raytracer, look what I rendered last night!" to me: textureless, highly-specular objects in gaudy colors arranged in an unnatural fashion with a needlessly distorted reflected background to emphasis the turtles-all-the-way-down reflective calculations being crunched by your Pentium II over the course of 12 hours or so.

It looks basically precisely like the sort of thing that would be difficult to photograph but easy to fart out in TrueSpace in five minutes and then spend forever waiting on the render for.
"

That's kind of the point, isn't it?
posted by Samizdata at 1:41 PM on January 3, 2017


Indeed! My point is that it looks exactly like that to me, vs. looking like anything other than CGI, as contrasted with PMdixon's reaction. Which may speak as much as anything to my having been that dingus with a copy of TrueSpace.
posted by cortex at 1:47 PM on January 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Cool post, it's the behind-the-scenes stuff that really makes one appreciate the images. Sent the link round to friends and fellows along with the Penny Prank.

(Also cortex, don't suppose there's any chance of you using your Mod Powers for Evil and retitling this "Reflections On Faking Fake" just for my amusement?)
posted by comealongpole at 9:11 PM on January 3, 2017


Because of the reflections.
posted by comealongpole at 9:12 PM on January 3, 2017


with a needlessly distorted reflected background to emphasis the turtles-all-the-way-down reflective calculations being crunched by your Pentium II over the course of 12 hours or so.

Ah, I think this is the piece that particularly went over my head.
posted by PMdixon at 11:52 PM on January 3, 2017


Fake news I can support.
posted by Kabanos at 9:08 AM on January 4, 2017


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