Monthly Archives: January 2023

“The impossibilities are endless”: Yet more NeRF magic

Last month Paul Trillo shared some wild visualizations he made by walking around Michelangelo’s David, then synthesizing 3D NeRF data. Now he’s upped the ante with captures from the Louvre:

Over in Japan, Tommy Oshima used the tech to fly around, through, and somehow under a playground, recording footage via a DJI Osmo + iPhone:

https://twitter.com/jnack/status/1616981915902554112?s=20&t=5LOmsIoifLw8oNVMV2fYIw
As I mentioned last week, Luma Labs has enabled interactive model embedding, and now they’re making the viewer crazy-fast:

Me talk generative imaging one day

I got my professional start at AGENCY.COM, a big dotcom-era startup co-founded by creative whirlwind Kyle Shannon. Kyle has been exploring AI imaging like mad, and recently he’s organized an AI Artists Salon that anyone is welcome to join in person (Denver) or online:

The AI Artists Salon is a collaborative group of creatively-minded people and we welcome anyone curious about the tsunami of inspiring generative technologies already rocking our our world. See Community Links & Resources.

On Tuesday evening I had the chance to present some ideas & progress that has inspired me—nothing confidential about Adobe work, of course, but hopefully illuminating nonetheless. If you’re interested, check it out (and pro tip: if you set playback to 1.5x speed or higher, I sound a lot sharper & funnier!).

The world’s first (?) NeRF-powered commercial

Karen X. Cheng, back with another 3D/AI banger:

As luck (?) would have it, the commercial dropped on the third anniversary of my former teammate Jon Barron & collaborators bringing NeRFs into existence:

The Chainsmokers meet Stable Diffusion

“HEY MAN, you ever drop acid?? No? Well I do, and it looks *just like this*!!” — an excitable Googler when someone wallpapered a big meeting room in giant DeepDream renderings

In a similar vein, have fun tripping balls with AI, courtesy of Remi Molettee:

Bonus: Journey gets the treatment:

Bonus bonus: Journey gets rather hilariously silenced:

“PERSEVERE”: A giant statement of encouragement

The ongoing California storms have beaten the hell out of beloved little communities like Capitola, where the pier & cute seaside bungalows have gotten trashed. I found this effort by local artist Brighton Denevan rather moving:

@brighton.denevan

PERSEVERE 💙 • 1-6-2023 • 3-5:30 • 8 Miles

♬ original sound – brightondenevan

The Santa Cruz Sentinel writes,

In the wake of the recent devastating storm damage to businesses in Capitola Village, local artist Brighton Denevan spent a few hours Friday on Capitola Beach sculpting the word “persevere” repeatedly in the sand to highlight a message of resilience and toughness that is a hallmark of our community. “The idea came spontaneously a few hours before low tide,” Denevan said. “After seeing all the destruction, it seemed like the right message for the moment.” Denevan has been drawing on paper since the age of 5 and picked up the rake and went out to the beach canvas in 2020 and each year I’ve done more projects. Last year, he created more than 200 works in the sand locally and across the globe.

CGI: Primordial soup for you!

Check out these gloriously detailed renderings from Markos Kay. I just wish the pacing were a little more chill so I could stare longer at each composition!

Colossal notes,

Kay has focused on the intersection of art and science in his practice, utilizing digital tools to visualize biological or primordial phenomena. “aBiogenesis” focuses a microscopic lens on imagined protocells, vesicles, and primordial foam that twists and oscillates in various forms.

The artist has prints available for sale in his shop, and you can find more work on his website and Behance.

AI-painted animation: “Help Changes Everything”

In this beautiful work from Paul Trillo & co., AI extends—instead of replaces—human creativity & effort:

Here’s a peek behind the scenes:

AI: From dollhouse to photograph

Check out Karen X. Cheng’s clever use of simple wooden props + depth-to-image synthesis to create 3D renderings:

She writes,

1. Take reference photo (you can use any photo – e.g. your real house, it doesn’t have to be dollhouse furniture)
2. Set up Stable Diffusion Depth-to-Image (google “Install Stable Diffusion Depth to Image YouTube”)
3. Upload your photo and then type in your prompts to remix the image

We recommend starting with simple prompts, and then progressively adding extra adjectives to get the desired look and feel. Using this method, @justinlv generated hundreds of options, and then we went through and cherrypicked our favorites for this video

“For All Mankind”

Hey friends—Happy New Year! I hope you’ve been able to get a little restful downtime, as I’ve done. I thought it’d be nice to ease back into things with these lovely titles from For All Mankind, which I’ve belatedly started watching & which I’m quite enjoying. The work is by Imaginary Forces, whom I’ve admired ever since seeing founder Kyle Cooper speak in the 90’s:

From the creators:

Lines deviate and converge in a graphic, tactile world that pays homage to the past while hinting at the “what if?” future explored throughout the series. Like the show logo itself, these lines weave and merge to create stylised representations of human exploration—badges, almost— ultimately reminding us of the common thread we share.