[HN Gopher] Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photog...
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Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)
Author : onhacker
Score : 722 points
Date : 2024-05-22 10:59 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (gmunk.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gmunk.com)
| all2 wrote:
| 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.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Why wouldn't you set a better background image?
| sanderjd wrote:
| 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.
| disillusioned wrote:
| Despite having seen this image thousands of times, I never
| considered it might have originated from practical effects, even
| if it was composited. Very cool.
|
| 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.
| ghusbands wrote:
| This comment is just a copy/paste of a quarter of the article.
| eganist wrote:
| It looks like it was just a mis-quote. All the paragraphs
| below the quoted one are included as part of the quote but
| don't begin with the leading >
| speedgoose wrote:
| It's perhaps an effective strategy to force us to read the
| articles.
| bmacho wrote:
| I skip long comments the same way I skip the article (I
| opened this one tho, for the picture)
| MarioMan wrote:
| This is basically how product photography works if you're on a
| budget. You keep the camera fixed in place but adjust the
| lighting between shots. Then, in post, choose your favorite
| components of each image and composite them together in
| Photoshop. I like watching a YouTube channel called "workphlo"
| that does this. The core process is the same for all of the
| items, but it's quite enjoyable to see him vary the techniques.
|
| https://youtube.com/@workphlo
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| Compositing like this is a nearly inevitable part of _almost
| all_ product photography, I think? Anything that has motion
| will lean towards compositing for all the surrounding
| elements. Except those incredible people who built motion
| rigs for burger drop ads.
|
| Capture One (the kinda sorta still industry standard
| tethering/photography capture software in the marketing
| industry, for all the high-end kit) has a really nice tool to
| help with previsualising compositing live.
| MarioMan wrote:
| Agreed. My thought on this enabling a "budget" option is
| that you can get the look of an expensive, multi-light
| studio with just a single speedlight and a lot of
| compositing.
| puttycat wrote:
| The technical ingenuity is impressive.
|
| 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.
| vsnf wrote:
| There was definitely a kind of warm, optimistic vibe that came
| with the Windows XP wallpaper. The whole UI language of the OS
| was similar too, with bubbly blues and greens everywhere. I
| suppose it captured a kind of positive cultural attitude
| towards computing.
| tavavex wrote:
| I think it was aimed at making the OS look less threatening
| and complicated to a new user. Then again, people did
| complain about it being a "Fisher-Price UI", so maybe this
| overwhelmingly positive perception is a result of people
| spending so much time with the OS and getting used to the way
| things were.
| vsnf wrote:
| I do recall the Fisher-Price complaints. As I recall it
| mostly came from the Linux (or Linux-inclined) crowd. I
| never really understood the complaints, though it was
| common enough that I must have just been missing something.
| But really, I don't get whats wrong with a functional UI
| that's also friendly and inviting.
| amatecha wrote:
| Just today I was thinking about XP and the phrase
| "Fisher-Price" came to mind. I liked XP's UI, even as
| whimsical and toy-like (and easy to make fun of) as it
| was. I'd prefer if computers and OSes retained the whimsy
| and character of that late-90's-early-2000's era of Win
| XP and the colourful iMacs, etc.
| userbinator wrote:
| _I suppose it captured a kind of positive cultural attitude
| towards computing._
|
| It was a time when MS was about giving users tools to do
| whatever they want, and not trying to coerce them down a path
| to be milked for $$$.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34021851
| sureIy wrote:
| Yes but also it was the same exact time when MS dominated
| and stagnated. IE6 shipped with Windows XP
| thefz wrote:
| Really? W10 is the best just after W7.
| qiqitori wrote:
| Yes, especially if you like ads in your start menu.
| ruszki wrote:
| I had no Windows edition since 98, which I didn't need to
| alter right after a fresh installation because of Microsoft
| bullshits. At least, it doesn't take a full day anymore to
| install and configure a fresh Windows.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Start menu in W10 is terrible. Especially since they had
| wonderful menu in developer builds which I was using as my
| daily driver. But in the end they replaced it with this
| monstrosity.
| thefz wrote:
| I don't have any.
| gizajob wrote:
| Windows 2000 was the platonic ideal Windows. Has been
| downhill since then.
| tivert wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Honestly, I kind of feel that's the contemporary style. My
| employer recently moved to a new office building, and feel
| exactly that way every time I have to go there.
|
| It doesn't help that it's 100% hoteled seating, so there's no
| "lived in" vibe to counter the sterility.
| epolanski wrote:
| I feel the other way around.
|
| Windows 10 with WSL, Power Toys and many other things sold me
| on windows for development.
|
| I still use a MacBook on the move, but if I work from home I
| would never swap to OSX.
|
| Way too many things annoy me: the filesystem, the file
| explorer, poor windows and multi monitor handling (to this date
| OSX sucks with 3 monitors and switches the output randomly when
| coming back from sleep/rebooting), the consistent issues with
| unlocking cameras/microphones, somewhat questionable support of
| non-Apple accessories (Bluetooth headset is an example), Docker
| support and there's some more.
|
| Win11 with Ubuntu22 on WSL2 is all I need.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| Same feeling from me. Windows 11 could be the perfect OS if
| they dropped the anti-user features and pestering, and make
| new features like Copilot and AI stuff opt-in instead of
| being forced down your throat by major updates.
|
| Basically have Windows behave like Linux, where you get the
| bare minimum and the letting you choose what to add on top.
| Shacklz wrote:
| > OSX sucks with 3 monitors and switches the output randomly
| when coming back from sleep/rebooting
|
| This drives me nuts with my Mac at my workplace. It's mostly
| an awesome workhorse, but when I switched to Mac I was
| flabbergasted that this can be an issue.
|
| The window-management I find also rather awful. When I asked
| the Mac-nerds I knew they all had their custom setup that
| includes some third-party-tooling, the built-in mission-
| control or whatever they call it didn't exactly receive
| favorable remarks...
| resource_waste wrote:
| Try Linux/Fedora intead.
|
| Windows is really awful, and Macs are super limited in
| hardware. (It might work if you only do web dev)
|
| Fedora is literally better than both. People are just so used
| to repeating the linux prayer of 'debian/ubuntu/mint', that
| most people don't know: Debian is an outdated/old distro with
| limited features and lots of bugs.
|
| Fedora is up-to-date, loaded with codecs and drivers, works
| with Nvidia, and has a 10/10 pro-consumer experience.
|
| No ads, no harassment, smooth, fast, everything just works.
| suby wrote:
| Fedora favors shifting the technological overton window over
| shipping working software. I first tried Fedora out on the
| initial release which switched on Wayland by default -- this
| was in like 2017, or around there. I installed it, booted to
| the login screen, and then logging in went to a black screen
| which booted me back to login. I was on an Nvidia card which
| was unsupported and I had no idea what Wayland was, so I
| ended up uninstalling it in favor of Linux Mint.
|
| It's not like they weren't aware this wouldn't work for the
| majority of the desktop marketshare. They didn't try to
| mitigate this by detecting your card and defaulting to x11.
| They did not apparently care. Evidently causing friction and
| getting the ecosystem to switch was more important to them
| then my machine working with their software.
|
| I'm sure Fedora is great, but I think it's poor form to
| recommend it to people new to Linux.
| resource_waste wrote:
| The irony is that last year, Mint didn't have a recent
| kernel, so you couldn't use NVIDIA on Mint.
|
| Not sure what to recommend then.
| behnamoh wrote:
| I remember the good old days when I would spend so much time
| choosing the right wallpapers for my PC and phone. Nowadays, the
| wallpaper is completely hidden from me because I am constantly
| switching between apps on macOS thanks to my Raycast custom
| keyboard shortcuts and I never see whatever picture I set...
|
| 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.
| esafak wrote:
| I use the Unsplash MacOS app to rotate it.
| https://unsplash.com/apps
| HenryBemis wrote:
| I used (like many many many) to do this. And one day I thought
| to myself.. hey.. that greenish background color of Win NT was
| cool (R0, G128, B128), wasn't it? And then the Windows 2000
| blue.. oh how beautiful.. (R60, G110, B166).
|
| And later in life i switched to total black with dark mode for
| all my devices (and my eyes thanked me for it :)
| hulitu wrote:
| > Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed
|
| And then photoshopped. /s
|
| You always need 2 programs in Windows to do a thing right. /s
| msoad wrote:
| I don't want to be a fanboy but the wallpaper is so soulless and
| industrial. I like how Apple always tries to bring nature to
| computing with wallpapers and screensavers.
|
| 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
| ggm wrote:
| "The apple wallpaper was physically built (by nature) and
| photographed."
| gizajob wrote:
| Yeah I do kind of love the current dynamic "different every
| time" Mac OS wallpaper / splash screen. It's corporate Apple
| but still great, and infinitely better than MS's Borg-like
| contentless flatness.
| oefrha wrote:
| The Windows login screen has been showing dynamic landscape
| photos for a loooong time. Of course, the part where you
| accidentally click on one of the search labels (?) and it
| opens Bing in Edge (previously IE), which is one of the three
| hundred ways you can accidentally open Edge/Bing in Windows,
| is not cool at all.
| npteljes wrote:
| Windows can have Bing Wallpaper, which changes the wallpaper
| every day. It's not installed by default, but it's a fun
| offering from Microsoft.
| amatecha wrote:
| Nice, so many good photos in that post! Thanks for sharing :D
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _I don't want to be a fanboy but the wallpaper is so soulless
| and industrial. I like how Apple always tries to bring nature
| to computing with wallpapers and screensavers._
|
| To each their own. I personally have more than enough nature
| around me; I prefer it to not also invade my computer.
| resource_waste wrote:
| The emotions you used are classic of Apple's Victims.
|
| At least you are aware you are a fanboy. Its the first step to
| freedom.
| dogleash wrote:
| Apple has sterile attempts to pretend they're not sterile.
|
| And that's fine. That's all it has to be. Something
| aesthetically appealing and universally brandsafe. But it's not
| not-soulless.
|
| Have you ever read a F500 companies press release about a
| (re)branding or new logo or something? Where they retell the
| story the branding consultants told the executive suite about
| what the new image means and the vibe it embodies? But the end
| result is just bland nothingness that doesn't standout from the
| pack at all?
|
| That's the energy in every Apple attempt to show personality.
| Hypercalculated and ultimately meaningless.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| The _original_ Windows 10 wallpaper. In a later release, it was
| replaced by a brighter and cleaner version that was drawn on a
| computer. I personally prefer the later revision.
| noname120 wrote:
| > replaced by a brighter and cleaner version that was drawn on
| a computer
|
| Can you source this statement?
| leoedin wrote:
| I went looking - and there's a wiki dedicated to just this
| topic.
|
| https://windowswallpaper.miraheze.org/wiki/Windows_10
|
| It does seem that the original was replaced in May 2019 by a
| brighter version, although whether it was drawn on a computer
| or not is anyone's guess.
| jerbear4328 wrote:
| According to the wiki, it was not drawn on a computer, but
| created again in the same way as the first. I personally
| prefer the darker original, but most Windows users use
| light mode. It's cool that it has 25 people listed in the
| credits for what seems like a such a simple image.
|
| > GMUNK was also involved in this version, and stated that
| it was created under the same methodology as the previous
| version.
|
| https://windowswallpaper.miraheze.org/wiki/Hero#Later_versi
| o...
| meisenhus wrote:
| As impressive as this looks (and is), the effort strikes me as
| monumentally oversized. This particular picture, with its
| straight lines and everything artificial, could have just as well
| come out of a renderer. For substantially less cost, the result
| would have been the same.
|
| 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.
| guitarlimeo wrote:
| But that's exactly what's interesting with this! Everything
| can't just be viewed through the lens of costs, the effort to
| make something unnatural like this in real life is part of the
| art itself.
|
| If you're just looking at the end result, yeah, same result
| could've been achieved with VFX with a lot less costs, but it
| also wouldn't have as much value.
| dag11 wrote:
| That's like saying why should anyone at all make music, art,
| hire actors, etc., when A.I. will be able to do all of these
| tasks identically over the next couple years (partially
| already).
|
| The human element is important. Because we're humans.
| aniviacat wrote:
| Once AI is capable of delivering similar quality, many
| musicians and actors will indeed be replaced.
|
| But until this technology exists, musicians and actors will
| continue being employed.
| hulitu wrote:
| > As impressive as this looks (and is), the effort strikes me
| as monumentally oversized
|
| Like a lot of things in Windows (Taskbar, Settings): Measure
| with a micrometer, draw with a pencil, cut with an axe. /s
| kuro_neko wrote:
| I'm reminded of the recent Steam Deck OLED video. It's
| obviously something that could be done with VFX, but I thought
| it was really cool.
|
| I think this is similar. Just like in movies, there are
| directors who don't use VFX as much as they could...
| dag11 wrote:
| I work with the folks who built that! It truly was months of
| giddy passion on their part[1]. And it was such a joy to see
| in person.
|
| Disclosure: I might not have worked on The Orb but I do work
| on Steam Deck and other projects at Valve.
|
| [1] https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/41180
| 511...
| pompino wrote:
| The final image is shaped by a variety of people observing live
| changes to the scene and giving inputs. You can't iterate as
| quickly when you're interrupted constantly by the artist having
| to modify the scene and then render it. I'm sure you would have
| made a nice looking image using a digital scene, but I don't
| think you can duplicate the experience. It would not have been
| the same creative atmosphere.
| autoexec wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it'd be far faster for a team of people to
| view various options on a screen while an artist moved
| virtual lights around and played with colors and lens flair
| effects in a computer than it would be to wait around while
| people set up and move around various lasers and projectors
| and smoke machines between attempts and then looked at a
| screen to see how the camera picked it up.
| pompino wrote:
| No, it certainly isn't. Creating renders and scene
| modelling is definitely not real-time. Teams do markups and
| sketches for brainstorming.
| asimovfan wrote:
| 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....
| sdeyerle wrote:
| If I'm not mistaken, wasn't this actually the installer
| background screen that got repurposed as an option for a
| wallpaper?
| MrJagil wrote:
| The linked post is titled "Background image from the windows
| 95 setup window"
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/wallpapers/comments/bicyok/backgrou.
| ..
| magic_hamster wrote:
| As already mentioned it was the install setup, and it's my
| favorite Windows background to date as well. It's actually a 2
| bit image with all blue and black, with dithering. It's very
| comforting in my opinion.
| paulmooreparks wrote:
| That Microsoft Natural Elite on the left side of the image is
| still the only keyboard I use, or will use. I have a stack of
| four backups in the closet.
| edvards wrote:
| Is there a name for this visual style?
| reddalo wrote:
| I also wonder this. It's a recurring style from '90s
| software.
| isametry wrote:
| I don't have an exact answer either, but based on this
| particular image, "duotone effect" is definitely a keyword.
| nom wrote:
| 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.
| lewiscollard wrote:
| (Disclaimer: no special insights into what Microsoft was
| doing at the time; I merely lived in the same era.)
|
| I'd call it an artifact of only having 16 colours to work
| with when SETUP boots. Obviously, most machines at the time
| had more to work with than that, but VGA - which is to say,
| 16 colors at 640x480 - was the baseline. And remember that
| Windows 95 could be installed from _floppies_; looking fancy
| is good, but you don't want to gratuitously use disk space.
| No multiple versions of the same image for you!
|
| Let's take this fancy "Mac with some other random shit on a
| desk" image from Unsplash:
|
| https://unsplash.com/photos/black-and-white-self-
| balancing-b...
|
| Here's what it looks like with various ways of reducing it to
| 16 colours:
|
| https://imgz.org/iC7KufjC.jpg
|
| (I know, the images are small on a modern display! Each
| square is full-size, because we're VGA.)
|
| Top left is the original, obviously. Top right is what
| happens if you just reduce it to 16 colours; it looks like
| nothing in particular, and it weighs in at 153K (exported in
| a modern graphics editor), or more than a tenth of a 3.5"
| floppy disk. Bottom left is what happens if you do it with
| dithering; you can make it look like you have more colours
| than you actually do, but it also weighs 153K.
|
| And bottom right is SETUP.BMP. It only uses _two_ colours
| from the palette ("0, 0, 255" blue and black). That's 1-bit
| colour which means my SETUP.BMP when exported to an actual
| BMP only takes up 38.5 kilobytes.
|
| So the answer to your question, I suppose, is "use as few
| colours as possible and don't waste disk space" or
| "dithering" or "the 90s", but often the technical limitations
| of a period plus time become an aesthetic.
| huygens6363 wrote:
| I hate myself for saying it, but this feels like an artistic
| variation on "we spent 500 hours manually perfecting React button
| animations" or "I built a Lisp so we can have more interesting
| configuration files for our ... todo list app".
|
| 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_.
| cl3misch wrote:
| You're not wrong, but the production team might be more
| justified when you account for the huge number of users seeing
| this image.
|
| Would a synthetic image sufficed? Yes. Can it be worth it to
| invest in artists creating something nice if millions of people
| see it? Yes.
| huygens6363 wrote:
| Bah. You're right. I'm being obtuse and need more coffee.
| Nerding out on things is fun, my whole life is based on it. I
| guess I feel some rivalry with the artistic world. Maybe it's
| jealousy.
| autoexec wrote:
| It's kind of sad how often the best way for artists to get
| paid and have their work seen is by creating corporate
| advertising. At least in this case it's just a pretty logo
| and not a direct lie or manipulation.
| danieldk wrote:
| I don't know. I think a nice wallpaper can cheer up the day and
| make a system more lovely. Seems relevant when it reaches so
| many people.
|
| However, I have never really liked this wallpaper (the few
| times I have seen it as a non-Windows user). The random
| desertscapes and dynamic wallpapers in macOS are really much
| more appealing.
| omnimus wrote:
| Two main reasons to make it this way is to also generate movies
| for possible ads etc. And creative process - you get a lot more
| happy accidents and variety doing it this way over "draw
| anything" in photoshop which can be pretty daunting.
| rossant wrote:
| (2015)
| dang wrote:
| Added above. Thanks!
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Why do this when you can get an identical picture from photoshop?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why do this when you can get an identical picture from
| photoshop?_
|
| It gives it character and helps ensure you'll get good artists
| to work on it. Though now I wish they'd made that clear by
| making the intermediate shots desktop defaults.
| fsloth wrote:
| If you can get kick-ass smoke and particles like that in
| Photoshop out-of-the-box please do tell me how.
| kookamamie wrote:
| To me as a photographer and as computer vision expert, this
| sounds wayyyyyy over-engineered and -produced. I get that there's
| a big vision (and budget) involved, but c'mon!
| UberFly wrote:
| Yea, I appreciate their dedication but the end-product doesn't
| equal the effort when Jane in XBox 3d effects department
| probably could have done this during her lunch break.
| omnimus wrote:
| For one still sure but they have made lots of movies from
| that set that were used for promotion. At some point this is
| a lot easier to get so much much material and quick
| variations.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| If only they had the same dedication to keep ads out of the
| core OS.
| cranium wrote:
| You have to take into consideration that the default wallpaper
| is arguably the most seen picture in the entire world.
| rob74 wrote:
| 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...
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| That can be said for many other artistic creations. But if
| you ask me, the fact that it was so elaborate adds
| something to it. The end result might be the same but the
| intentions and the process to get there matter.
|
| Also, waste of money. We're talking Microsoft. It's not
| like those money we're going to be spent on charity. They
| paid some creative people to do creative work. We should
| appreciate that.
| kefabean wrote:
| But it has the air of the banal. For something supposedly
| so creative it seems to totally lack....creativity. I
| suppose 100% in keeping with a tech company's vision for
| what a computer desktop should look like.
| kuro_neko wrote:
| I think it's a little bit comfortable to think of a tech
| company as putting money into the arts.
| javawizard wrote:
| 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.)
| alias_neo wrote:
| I knew what this was going to be before clicking it.
|
| We had an Accord at one point when I was a kid, and Honda
| sent us (my dad) a DVD of this with some behind the
| scenes when it released.
|
| I watched that DVD a hundred times, maybe more.
| sanderjd wrote:
| 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 :)
| blackoil wrote:
| Am neither a photographer nor any vision expert. But, what's
| the point of having billions if to not spend on whimsies.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Sometimes these things land and sometimes they don't. XP's
| grassy hill seems to have been universally loved but could
| easily have been seen as lazy.
|
| Granted, MS used to actually take theming seriously. XP had an
| excellent marketing campaign that tied in with the visual
| scheme of the product. Even the OS sounds tied in with the
| choice of music for their commercials, "Ray of Light" by
| Madonna.
|
| Now we just get the wallpaper and there's no concerted effort
| to make a theme of joy or accessibility or creativity or
| anything.
| prmoustache wrote:
| It was lazy in the sense that photo had not been taken
| specifically for XP. It was a pro photographer seeing a nice
| thing to take a picture of with not specific project in mind,
| snapping it, then having it sold through a stock photo
| agency.
| et-al wrote:
| Gmunk was working on visual graphics for the web back in late
| 90s / early 2000s with Vir2L.
|
| If they wanted to, they could have easily banged out half a
| dozen wallpapers in an afternoon using Maya or whatever, but
| they chose the physical route.
| vitaflo wrote:
| This is the hilarious part about the comments. Nobody knows
| who GMUNK is and it shows. Dudes been knocking it out of the
| park for decades.
| JusticeJuice wrote:
| He's my all time fav digital artist, his infrared
| photography work is fantastic.
| bch wrote:
| May well be, but I'm reminded of Columbus' Egg[0].
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus
| jmprspret wrote:
| Gmunk is awesome
| diego_sandoval wrote:
| Whenever I have to use Windows, I feel dirty, like Microsoft's
| filth is slowly contaminating my spirit through my interaction
| with the computer.
|
| 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.
| Zecc wrote:
| I don't know about you, but more often than not I have
| maximized windows covering the background image. The thing
| which reminds me I'm using Windows is the start button. Not to
| mention.. everything else.
| sschueller wrote:
| Very cool but I would prefer spending all that time and money on
| building a better product and what they delivered.
|
| This is like a startup spending hours upon hours on logo and name
| instead of actually building something.
| column wrote:
| This is such an ignorant take. The default wallpaper is seen by
| millions if not billions of people. Many never change it. It's
| an important part of the branding. The total cost of the shoot,
| including equipment, salaries, the studio, etc. is NOTHING to
| Microsoft and its marketing budget. It's not like they had to
| prioritize this over anything else, they are printing money
| left and right, they are a trillion dollar company and the
| default wallpaper is a key aspect of how people see their core
| product, Windows. It would be disastrous of them to ship with a
| sub-par wallpaper and in what world would the money "saved"
| would make a difference to "build a better product"?
| sschueller wrote:
| Have you used the Office365 Suite lately?
| Scharkenberg wrote:
| Yes, it's still the best office suite in the market.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| Does Microsoft have plenty of money to do anything? Sure.
| Does the trillion dollar company spend an appropriate effort
| on the product itself? Certainly not!
|
| The issue is this: From Windows 10 and up, almost every
| interaction with the UI is a little bit broken, and I could
| fill pages just describing things that used to work just
| right in Windows 7 and earlier. It appears the Windows UI is
| now designed and approved by the visuals only. And now we
| learn about a disproportionate effort to create a visual.
|
| So it's easy to see how a comment that points out this
| discrepancy, resonates with everyone who is halfway through
| their thousand daily cuts of UI punishment.
| paradox460 wrote:
| And yet the best wallpaper they ever used was a lucky fluke
| by the photographer, who was driving through Sonoma after a
| rainstorm, in a year where they had to burn the vines off a
| hillside due to blight infection.
| nallerooth wrote:
| I think the wallpaper is minimalistic, elegant.. and boring,
| which is why I usually end up using a wallpaper from KDE Plasma.
|
| https://store.kde.org/browse?cat=299&ord=latest
| superasn wrote:
| These are nice wallpapers. I hope this works with the Variety
| wallpaper manager.
| xzjis wrote:
| They made a video showing off how it was made:
| https://youtu.be/ewmXizBqjl0
| kennyadam wrote:
| Yes, they did, it's embedded in the article you're ostensibly
| commenting on.
| giljabeab wrote:
| Shame they went a little overboard with the smoke and post fx
| really. A cleaner sharper image would have been nice
| Krisando wrote:
| > Shame they went a little overboard with the smoke and post fx
| really. A cleaner sharper image would have been nice
|
| Microsoft replaced it in 2019 with this one:
|
| https://static.miraheze.org/windowswallpaperwiki/9/99/Img0_%...
|
| I personally think the original is more interesting.
| schmidt_fifty wrote:
| I hope someone will one day talk about me the way corporate
| america talks about its logos.
| sanderjd wrote:
| 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.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Too late to edit, but I meant to say *whether they are
| totally full of crap, ...
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| Brand identity is a big thing
| esjeon wrote:
| 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.
| 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.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Also pretty sure it was the fun tool for the project.
| kqr wrote:
| Which details are you thinking of? I was under the impression
| that with ray tracing, physically based materials, and fluid
| dynamics our computers wouldn't be hard-pressed to
| realistically render a static scene with light (of varying
| coherence and other properties) going through a piece of
| plastic and hitting swirling fog.
|
| The parameters of the scene need to be set up, yes, but then it
| would be just as easy to generate a few thousand frames from
| it. Also it's easier to version control for experimentation.
| kthartic wrote:
| In 2015 (almost 10 years ago now) the tech probably wasn't as
| convincing as it is today. But I agree you could probably get
| like 90% there
| xattt wrote:
| The Stranger Things intro scene is CGI. Artists were
| consulted who originally created similar titles in the 80s
| with practical effects to see how they could do it too. The
| old-school artists said to just do it in CGI because that's
| what they would have done.
| bombcar wrote:
| People don't hate CGI - they hate bad CGI. It's hard to
| explain, but you know it when you see it.
|
| Bad practical effects do exist, but even when bad they
| don't look "unnatural".
| jcl wrote:
| I recall Amazon's Lord of the Rings title sequence [1]
| received some criticism for looking fake, even though
| they filmed it practically [2]. I'd guess it was due to
| folks assuming title sequences are CGI, combined with the
| fact that few people really know what poured liquid metal
| is supposed to look like.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV-dDyYgwkc
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZEpWvQFXqQ
| bombcar wrote:
| There's a similar problem with gunshots and explosions -
| we want what movies have given us which is _not_ what
| they actually act /sound like - so much so that live
| recordings of actual gunfire/explosions is often deemed
| "fake".
| ska wrote:
| This is also the American/bald eagle problem. When people
| hear their actual cries, they're often confused.
| bombcar wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ2uMauyBow vs
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8SdqOT_no0
| ramses0 wrote:
| Speaking of "Bad CGI", the making of the HBO Intro:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agS6ZXBrcng
| dahart wrote:
| That's a reasonable guess if you don't follow graphics
| developments, but the tech for producing realism hasn't
| changed that much in the last 10 years, most of the realism
| developments have been incremental. The main thing that's
| happened in CG in the last 10 years is speed and scale
| improvements. There were great fake-or-real CG photo
| contests in 2015 and earlier where some of the CG was
| photoreal enough to trick most people. The Windows
| wallpaper definitely could have been 100% there 10 years
| ago, for a skilled CG artist who knew what they wanted. The
| reasons for doing it practical don't necessarily hinge on
| whether it was possible to do it in CG, there are good
| reasons to do it physically anyway.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Specular reflections and diffuse media (fog) makes for
| massive render times though, in my experience.
|
| I did something similarish with water a long time ago, using
| a spectral renderer, finding spectral data for ocean water
| absorption and reflection, realistic spectral sun/sky model,
| and a physically-based ocean wave simulator to create the
| surface.
|
| The underwater "caustic god rays" looked very nice and
| realistic, and setting it all up was easy once I had found
| the data. But it took ages to get rid of the noise.
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| Yes. But why would you do all these computer-ish things to
| provide a backdrop for a computer? Where is the creativity in
| that? Where is the attitude, the whimsy, the irony, the
| juxtaposition?
|
| Considering how much of current technology stems from geeks
| just proving that their crazy idea could work and looking for
| money for it afterwards, the disrespect here for another
| geek's craft and intuitions is wild.
| noname120 wrote:
| Nah that's post hoc rationalization. The amount of busy-work
| that went into it is ridiculous. Just because a colossal amount
| of effort was poured in this wallpaper doesn't mean that they
| used the right tool for the job or that the output was better
| because of it.
| sph wrote:
| 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 spent thousands of hours on it.
| surgicalcolor wrote:
| 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/social/cultural message.
|
| It's a computer wallpaper that monopolistic megacorp funded
| to show off how wealthy it is. It's a very typical "look at
| how much money we spent" exercise to showcase success or
| whatever.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> 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.
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| 99.9999% of all art is not commissioned by a rich patron
| to put up on exhibition for MoMa. It's just something
| that artists do.
|
| IT geeks are all for imposing their own creative
| restrictions on their work -- using Haskell when the
| competition is using PHP, developing their own
| distributed network persistence layer on top of SQLite
| when there are products out there that already exist but
| they just don't like for pseudospiritual reasons.
|
| But artists who _just make pictures_ are expected to be
| cost-effective and not to put any value on their
| artisanship?
| sph wrote:
| You know, it's art even if it has no ambitions to be
| exhibited at the MoMA.
|
| > It's a computer wallpaper that monopolistic megacorp
| funded to show off how wealthy it is.
|
| Groan. It's not possible to have a serious discussions
| with someone starting from such a cynical position. After
| all, what is even the point of creating anything? We're
| all going to turn to dust and be forgotten forevermore.
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| There's a right amount of time for artistic endeavours and
| it has all been used up by our niche metaprogramming
| project.
| dev1ycan wrote:
| "All that matters is the result. A wallpaper or any other
| artistic creation isn't less beautiful or evocative because
| the artist spent thousands of hours on it."
|
| Disagree, HEAVILY, a ton of the biggest marvels in the
| world are so because of how much work was put into them.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| I think the process of creation is the thing
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Here's someone recreating the same wallpaper on Blender in 13
| minutes: https://youtu.be/EIfrP365iTQ
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| The time lapse is 13 minutes long.
| nar001 wrote:
| Copying is a lot easier than creating though, the Windows
| team had to start from scratch
| skrebbel wrote:
| Your comment made me laugh because out of context, it
| suggests "the Windows team" is averse to copying things.
| dspillett wrote:
| Not that I'm saying the video doesn't show some skill, but
| creating a fresh image from scratch is quite a different task
| from recreating an existing one directly from a reference.
| dessimus wrote:
| The video is 13 minutes, but its a time lapse so it could
| have been hours or days of work.
| hu3 wrote:
| Looks good but rather too foggy and not as crisp as the
| original which is much more detailed. Video artifacts
| notwithstanding.
|
| blender: https://i.imgur.com/0BjMWi3.jpeg
|
| original: https://i.imgur.com/GGwVibG.jpeg
| josefresco wrote:
| IMHO it's not even close.
| DrewADesign wrote:
| Agreed. As a tech artist, I'm 100% positive I could get a
| bang-on reproduction using Arnold or some other really
| solid photorealistic rendering engine, but it would
| probably take longer than using real cameras, practical
| props, and doing a bit of massaging in post. The
| modeling, color, camera angle/focus length/etc. are all
| really easy. Tweaking the subtleties in the light, glass
| shaders, fog, etc to get them good would take quite some
| time. It would only make sense if it needed to be
| animated or you needed a bunch of versions with
| modifications. Definitely a 'use the right tool for the
| job' kind of thing.
| FootballMuse wrote:
| TBF, the blender version you reference was from an
| animation, not the first single still render.
|
| blender (frame 0): https://i.imgur.com/XIV8Hma.png
|
| original: https://i.imgur.com/GGwVibG.jpeg
|
| Also, it includes a caveat:
|
| > Unfortunately, due to the nature of volumetric rendering,
| I was unable to economically render the final animation at
| a high resolution with enough samples. So I had to resort
| to denoising, which sadly degraded the image quality and
| made it a bit flickery.
|
| > Perhaps, with enough computing power, I'll be able to
| return to this project in the future and provide a cleaner
| final render.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Regardless, the photographers may well encounter those
| amazing "happy accidents" (something that so rarely happens
| when I use software).
| PKop wrote:
| Looks terrible and not all that similar.
| doikor wrote:
| It doesn't look as good and Blender/3d modeling software in
| general have come a long way in the last 9 years or so
| (Windows 10 came out in 2015)
|
| Sure it could can/could be done but it would take a lot of
| time to get as good a result. Probably easier to just
| photograph it for real and photoshop a little bit.
| linsomniac wrote:
| >you can let the world do the work for you.
|
| Reminds me of the Spaghetti Sorting algorithm.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_sort
| bravetraveler wrote:
| That's how some 'trick' card decks work, for anyone
| unfamiliar
| marhee wrote:
| Interesting but I am not sure I understand this:
|
| >> contact-and-removal operation takes constant time, the
| worst-case time complexity of the algorithm is O(n).
|
| How is the contact-and-removal operation constant time? How
| can that assumption ever be true? If you use a parallel
| processor like human vision or human feel (ie. which pressure
| nerve activates on the hand) it may appear constant, but if
| you use a computer it would be n right (as you would need to
| check n slots). Wouldn't either defy O(n)?
| thfuran wrote:
| You're talking about some other kind of sort.
| dahart wrote:
| The analog algorithm described is not described for digital
| computer. It's an amusing theoretical thought experiment
| and not a recipe for actual fast sorting. It's O(n) when
| you use your hand for contact and removal. I don't know if
| it's possible to implement spaghetti sort on a computer,
| maybe not, but I guess if it were possible, it would
| probably at least require n processors to sort n elements.
| Maybe the nearest analogy on digital computers is radix
| sort.
| Izkata wrote:
| Radix sort is probably the closest usable one, but a more
| direct translation would probably be sleep sort.
| dahart wrote:
| Oh yeah I forgot about sleep sort, that is similar and
| also more in the same spirit as spaghetti sort. ;)
| sdwr wrote:
| You can simplify the "human hand" to a rigid metal sheet
| that comes down from the top and stops on the highest
| object. Still constant time, but no "parallel processing"
| needed.
|
| The point is that reality itself is highly parallel
| lambdaxyzw wrote:
| I wonder if the removal operation is not actually
| O(sqrt(n)). Depending on the way we structure thought
| experiment of course. But as the pile of spaghetti gets
| bigger, the act of picking the largest one is constrained
| by:
|
| 1. how fast your hand can reach for the next spaghetti
| piece - on average proportional to the radius of the pile
| of spaghetti, which is proportional to sqrt(n).
|
| 2. to actually notice the biggest piece, you need to
| again wait for a time proportional to sqrt(n) - light
| propagation is not instant.
|
| So if we start thinking about this algorithm more like a
| computer scientist would (how fast it is as n grows to
| the infinity) it doesn't seem to be O(n) IMO.
| posix86 wrote:
| Depends on the mathematical framework you're working
| with.... there's a genre in theoretical compsci that deals
| with parallel algorithms, and as a toy example, I remember
| an O(1) sorting algo (given O(n^2) processors). This
| example is more fun than anything, but ofc in general
| you're free what constraints you subject your statements
| to.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Spaghetti Sorting is just one of the _Analog Gadgets_ called
| out in Dewdney 's "The Armchair Universe" (originally in his
| _Computer Recreations_ column in "Scientific American").
| There are many other cool ones (beginning on page 28):
|
| https://archive.org/details/armchairuniverse0000dewd_x2e7/
| tshaddox wrote:
| Of course, _all_ computation is just setting up some physical
| stuff in such a way that, after the laws of physics play
| themselves out for a while, that physical stuff will be in a
| new state, and you 'll be able to interpret your desired
| result from that new state.
| starstripe wrote:
| I would have used VFX for this as I'm pretty sure it would have
| been more cost effective to achieve a similar result. Most
| people, like me, probably just assumed this was VFX anyway. But
| I'm glad Microsoft didn't though, as this is a fascinating
| story and case study.
| mateus1 wrote:
| Microsoft surely wasn't too worried about the cost.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| the ironic thing is they have all those photos of real life
| places they use for wallpaper those are all photshopped to
| an insane degree to remove the ugly trees and clouds and
| other natural formations and make the colors extremely
| different
| theeandthy wrote:
| Honestly it's way more satisfying to work analog.
| Experiencing the colors in "real life" spatially. Also,
| collaborating with others and being able to share the process
| in a studio rather than on a screen is an amazing experience.
|
| Another thing is the fog rising up to create diffusion on the
| light. Even the best VFX in the world will only ever be an
| approximation to the real thing.
| amelius wrote:
| > with a camera, you can let the world do the work for you
|
| How do you let the "world" remove your greasy fingerprints from
| the glass?
| brontosaurusrex wrote:
| Absolutely, there is no happy accidents in VFX.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I think if you handed this image to a VFX artist and said "make
| this," they could do it. They probably could have done it back
| in 2015, too.
|
| But the team making this image didn't have it in advance. They
| just had some ideas they wanted to try out.
|
| The story of how it was made is not just the story of the
| techniques they used, but also how they applied and adjusted
| those techniques to try things and see how it looked.
|
| This image was "made" in that people built the stuff that was
| photographed, but it was also kind of "discovered" in that they
| tried a bunch of things until they discovered what they liked.
|
| That's possible in VFX too, but the process is different and
| too many iterations can quickly erase any cost advantage. This
| is one reason animated movies are disciplined about locking the
| script early in production. You can't cost-effectively improv
| your way through an animated movie the way a director and
| actors can with a camera and a set.
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| I agree with all of this -- particularly the exploration and
| discovery aspects.
|
| But a side note on this:
|
| > You can't cost-effectively improv your way through an
| animated movie the way a director and actors can with a
| camera and a set.
|
| The Jim Henson Company is working on exactly the technology
| that supports this, actually -- the business of live puppetry
| capture as distinct from, say, motion capture.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzbBdRHqGcQ
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDIlylZwLJE
|
| This kit is expensive/bespoke but I don't know that it's
| _that_ expensive, set against how much money goes into making
| movies with large-scale bluescreen work these days. And it's
| wholly amenable to improv.
| egypturnash wrote:
| They've been experimenting with this since at least 1989.
| https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Waldo_C._Graphic
|
| People have done simpler realtime rigs with off-the-shelf
| hardware and software in the past decade: see "The Dog Of
| Wisdom", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-UmfqFjpl0 which
| was made with Blender and a Leap Motion:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a_M9VsZ6Lk
|
| And now we are completely drowning in VTubers, who use
| software like Live2d that analyzes a webcam image and uses
| it to control the motions of a pre-made 2D character. I've
| only ever seen it done to spice up the video of people
| streaming video games but I'm sure there's someone doing
| no-budget cartoons with it. There's also Adobe Character
| Animator, which has been used for various TV stuff like a
| live performance of Homer Simpson or a few low-budget
| shows.
|
| And then there's VRChat; a few thousand dollars of head-
| mounted display/facial capture/body trackers and you can
| get realtime full-body tracking. There's probably someone
| fucking around with making movies this way too.
|
| At this point I'm pretty sure that you could get most of
| the functionality of that hand-tooled puppetry gizmo by
| just taking a sock and gluing a couple of ping-pong balls
| onto it and tweaking some tracking software.
| pavon wrote:
| I always assumed it was CG because there are aspects that look
| unrealistic to me, in particular the bloom along the edges is
| too bright compared to the illumination of the rest of the
| panes and the light beams coming from the on the corners looked
| artificial. Turns out it looks this way because they projected
| brighter light on the edges and corners. Neat.
|
| When I saw this headline I mixed up windows versions and
| thought it was going to be about the Windows 11 Bloom
| backgrounds, which I always assumed were made with physical
| materials, but it seems like I am wrong about that one too,
| hah!
| DonHopkins wrote:
| I love the way the smoke evokes Windows making your computer
| overheat, melt down, and burn up.
|
| I can almost smell it immolating.
| hhlh wrote:
| Your comment does not make any sense. Windows is not known for
| making people's computers overheat and melt.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Unpopular opinion, the windows logo peaked at 3.1.
|
| My only other though is that I'm surprised this many people were
| needed to take that photo.
| toast0 wrote:
| I never saw it in the wild, but the windows < 3 logo is pretty
| neat. But the typography is serif heavy which lots of people
| don't like.
| trojanalert wrote:
| This is so over-engineered, it tells you that when you have
| billions, you do the most whacky things. A 5-minute VFX job will
| yield the same results. But no, there's so much f*k you money,
| they had to do this.
| Pawka wrote:
| That was my first impression too. Curious what is the cost of
| wallpaper.
| taejavu wrote:
| I would love to see the results of your 5 minute VFX job.
| mabster wrote:
| My favourite is a production team spending millions on
| something trying to make it look like a home movie, etc.
| blowski wrote:
| Traditionally, one of Microsoft's weaknesses was how crappy it
| looked against Apple. Maybe they are trying to say "we care a
| lot about making this look good".
| high_na_euv wrote:
| On the other hand this will be shown to bilions of people
| almost everyday as a front screen of Windows
| JusticeJuice wrote:
| The cost of this shoot would pale in comparison to the
| marketing budget.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Shame MS don't spend this much time on effort on... every other
| part of their design for everything.
| pompino wrote:
| They don't need to because you can't argue with success. They
| continue to have the dominant product in the space for several
| decades.
| isametry wrote:
| Successful product != well-designed product.
|
| Microsoft got Windows where it is by having no sense of self-
| respect and willing to play the B2B race to the bottom. And
| it remains dominant thanks to decades' worth of legacy
| software that needs to continue running.
|
| So that's cheapness and momentum.
|
| If Windows was _ever_ a beautiful product, it certainly isn
| 't now. It would never become popular today in its current
| shape and principles.
| pompino wrote:
| >Successful product != well-designed product.
|
| Anyone can say that about any product. That doesn't make it
| true. Windows is a successful product that satisfies a need
| that people and businesses have. You can't fake dollar
| bills.
|
| >Microsoft got Windows where it is by having no sense of
| self-respect and willing to play the B2B race to the
| bottom. And it remains dominant thanks to decades' worth of
| legacy software that needs to continue running.
|
| >So that's cheapness and momentum.
|
| >If Windows was ever a beautiful product, it certainly
| isn't now. It would never become popular today in its
| current shape and principles.
|
| I'd rather sell a hundred million copies than convince some
| randos on the internet that my software is "beautiful".
| simmerup wrote:
| They do, that's why they have like 5 competing design languages
| ZuLuuuuuu wrote:
| Imagine if they spent the same time for fixing/improving the
| search bar on Windows instead of the recently announced Recall
| feature.
| blitzar wrote:
| Microsoft aggressively filters out this type of substandard
| employee in their interview process.
| rambambram wrote:
| Recently I came across this minimal Linux logo:
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gnu-linux_minimalist...
|
| Although I like the 'amateuristic' style of the old Tux, I must
| say this new minimal penguin looks really good.
| Clamchop wrote:
| Appears to be apeing the circular emblems of recent versions of
| macOS.
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| Something I find deeply funny about this is the amount of work
| invested here just to have the default background quality setting
| in Windows 10 still be < 100%.
|
| That's the Microsoft I am used to ^^
| rjmunro wrote:
| What is the "default background quality setting"? (I'm not a
| windows user)
| benjaminpv wrote:
| 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 < 100% and as a result there's some degenerate cases
| where a wallpaper that looks good when viewed in the
| filesystem looks terrible when set to the background.
|
| https://superuser.com/questions/1377883/how-to-prevent-
| wallp...
| Scharkenberg wrote:
| The size threshold is now at 25 MB, I think.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| By far the most appropriate use of the word "degenerate" in
| the derogatory sense.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| 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!
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Right, I feel like between that and seeing it a lot over remote
| desktop I've never really appreciated the quality of the
| original. I always liked the wallpaper set from the windows 9x
| era because they were designed to look good in low quality
| 256-color modes.
| NietTim wrote:
| Never knew, always assumed it was just a render. Very cool!
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| Same here. And I think it was the purpose to make peopel assume
| that
| flobosg wrote:
| A bit more information about the default Windows 10 wallpapers:
| https://www.raykovich.com/project/windows-imagery
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| This rather speaks against Microsoft than for them. There was
| zero sense in creating a physical installation to capture it. The
| result feels digital and should have been digital. This speaks of
| Microsoft's poor planning and bad execution of plans and ideas.
| sneak wrote:
| The guy who did this also did some of the incredible work on Tron
| 2. I'm a big fan.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Tron: Ares, the upcoming sequel to Tron: Legacy? Or a different
| Tron 2?
| sneak wrote:
| No, I meant Tron: Legacy. The second Tron film. I didn't know
| they were doing a third one.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I've never seen someone call Tron: Legacy "Tron 2". TIL.
| lordgrenville wrote:
| When I saw the headline I confused it with the one from XP [0],
| and was imagining a team constructing that hill, laying the
| grass, etc.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_(image)
| fredley wrote:
| See also: The search for Autumn
|
| https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/02/autumn200702
| devsatish wrote:
| That's a cool read! Followed the VF article and eventually
| landed on this Reddit post where they shared the full res. ht
| tps://www.reddit.com/r/windowsxp/comments/s2i9ta/finally_w...
| another2another wrote:
| An interesting read, which led me to lookup Kilbride in CA,
| and found it's even highlighted on Google maps:
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place//@43.4246699,-79.9457692,
| 1...
| duckmysick wrote:
| More details about the Bliss wallpaper:
| https://windowswallpaper.miraheze.org/wiki/Bliss
|
| > With Bliss, Microsoft went a step further than merely
| licensing it: they bought the full rights to the image meaning
| no company would ever be able to license the photo from Corbis
| again, as the image was often used as part of XP's marketing
| and the Luna theme is modelled around its color scheme. It was
| purchased for an undisclosed amount of money in the low six
| figures; O'Rear cannot reveal the exact amount without
| violating a non disclosure agreement. He did not receive the
| full cost as Corbis handled the sale. As a result of its
| Microsoft acquisition, it was permanently removed from Corbis'
| website and has never been available on Getty Images or other
| sites that Corbis cross-licensed photos to. The vertical shot
| was also included in the acquisition, as O'Rear cannot release
| it due to his agreement with Microsoft.
| SamBam wrote:
| I mean, that's not surprising at all that they would want to
| own the image. It would be ridiculous if that was also being
| used to advertise vaping or Bitcoin or something.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| For a moment I confused it with the one from W11 and wondered
| how they got all the folds so smooth and uniformly spaced.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| That's a lot of effort for something god knows how many people
| change as pretty much the first thing after they first login to a
| new system.
| d--b wrote:
| Oh, how I wish my cloud workstation was just a HD cam pointed at
| boxes somewhere in Pennsylvania, and people just changing things
| very quickly.
| LoganDark wrote:
| The alternative versions of this wallpaper are extremely pretty.
| I think it's awesome that they've been made available like this,
| I just wish they were available at a higher resolution. Would
| love to use one of the red or purple ones on my 4K display.
| djeastm wrote:
| I certainly can appreciate the artistry in building it and also
| I'm happy that the artists found joy in making it, but I can't
| help but wonder why MS bothered.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Also interesting: Brian Eno on his work composing one of the
| Windows startup sounds:
|
| > 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...
| Lutzb wrote:
| Slowing down the Windows 95 startup sound 23 times makes it
| sound even more Brian Eno.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNIfbdi41ho
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I also built a wall (with literal wallpaper even!) in order to
| create the cover for a genealogy book that I created.
|
| 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
| bonki wrote:
| The lightning might indeed not be the best but I really like
| it, well done!
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| Awesome!
|
| My home studio doesn't have plain, unobstructed walls for some
| simple shots, and while a paper roll backdrop is a good
| substitute, sometimes you want a wall, or a corner, or you just
| want to use wallpaper.
|
| So I built a massive construction with doubled-up cardboard
| sheet, girders made with pallet corners, these gigantic split
| pin things and hot glue, and then I spray-mounted wallpaper on
| it.
|
| I also did it at the wrong time of year, when the air was still
| too damp and the heating needed to be on, so it didn't last an
| enormously long time before things rippled, because it turns
| out cardboard has some quite organic behaviours in moist air.
|
| So it was almost a failure. But I'd absolutely do it again,
| replacing the cardboard with foamcore or thicker insulating
| board.
|
| It was a really fascinating, liberating process to take that
| much control over the process, and I've been doing similar
| since, assembling my own photographic tools to a level that
| looks a bit like obsession.
|
| I think maybe many software developers here don't understand
| the parallels between doing this sort of thing and assembling
| your "stack" for a few applications.
|
| A true photographer's "tools" barely even start with the
| camera. There's a whole array of tools beyond that, beyond
| peripherals, that extend into the scene or into methodology.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| The result is amazing! It reads the direction of the book on
| the cover.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| We must not forget the legal side of this. Microsoft knows
| everything about intellectual property rights. If I were going to
| design a logo to be displayed literally billions of times across
| every screen running the windows OS I would make very sure it was
| beyond any conceivable infringement allegation. A generated smoke
| image might be up for some allegation of copying, that the
| generated smoke or some other aspect was "created" by the
| software. A physical photo shoot means zero possibility of any
| outsider having any contribution in the final image.
| layer8 wrote:
| I always found that wallpaper a weird choice, being dark-
| depressing and uninviting to the average user.
| fckgw wrote:
| I believe Windows 10 was the first with a dark mode built in.
| Maybe to compliment that?
| layer8 wrote:
| There are ways to make a dark background that looks inviting,
| but this is not it. And it has enough bright highlights to
| make it uncomfortable when you actually like to have a dark
| screen in a dark environment, so it's also not a particularly
| good dark-mode background.
| crawsome wrote:
| It's a really cool project, but the video presentation was just
| horrible to watch. All I really wanted was to see the fixture in
| plain form, but they tease you the whole time.
|
| * 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.
| entropie wrote:
| I have an vertical monitor (1080x1920) I use mainly for browsing
| and the site is basicially not readable:
| https://i.imgur.com/5Klt2Ls.png
|
| I scrolled to the bottom for contact information but it keeps
| loading stuff so I never reach it.
| criddell wrote:
| A useful keyboard shortcut is ctrl-end. You might have to hit
| it a couple of times, but it will get you to the bottom.
|
| I'm on Windows, but I'm guessing macOS and many Linux DEs have
| something similar.
| partdavid wrote:
| If you have a chance and are interested in the subject, I highly
| recommend the Musee Cinema & Miniature in Lyon, France:
| <https://www.museeminiatureetcinema.fr/>.
|
| 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.
| 1-6 wrote:
| This wallpaper is definitely less appealing without the story to
| go with it behind the scenes.
| larodi wrote:
| So much for generative art in product design.
| tdeck wrote:
| This reminds me of the famous photo from filming the Star Wars
| intro text:
|
| https://www.metaflix.com/behind-the-scenes-of-star-wars-open...
| dantondwa wrote:
| Note that the latest version of this wallpaper is CGI. [1]
|
| [1] https://mspoweruser.com/new-default-windows-10-light-
| theme-w...
| 725686 wrote:
| The very first thing I did when installing Windows 10 was
| changing the desktop image. It amazes me how many resources
| companies put into stuff that users don't give a peanut.
| metaxy2 wrote:
| I don't know if there's a name for this genre of photography
| (it's not exactly "abstract" since clearly things are being
| represented), but another example is the cover of Modest Mouse's
| Good News for People Who Love Bad News [0], which looks like a
| digital drawing or composite but was physically built and
| photographed by bandleader Isaac Brock.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_News_for_People_Who_Love_...
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Previous discussion on HN (2019):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21854161
| geon wrote:
| I saw a photographer who mimicked the style of early 90s
| raytracing. Chrome spheres on checkerboards and such.
| dhosek wrote:
| Reminds me of someone once asking me how I got the hand-drawn
| pencil look to the type on an article in the typography magazine
| I published about the T-26 type foundry.
|
| 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.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| It's remarkable to know the process behind this work of art
| truely
| i2shar wrote:
| Brilliant! Just today, I was listening to a panel of world class
| artists being asked (now trite) questions on AI taking over their
| jobs and they concluded something like:
|
| "For mediocrity, turn to AI. If you want masters, call us".
| kra34 wrote:
| should somebody tell them about ML models?
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