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Which of these images was made using CGI and which is a photograph? Can you tell the difference?

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One of the above images was created using a camera and modern commercial lighting with familiar retouching techniques using software such as Photoshop. The other image was rendered using CGI using software such as Blender. They are both top-notch product images, but can you tell which is which?

I won’t tell you the answer just yet (sorry, I know you’re just dying to find out!), however, the use of CGI in product photography is becoming ever more prevalent as technology improves, making the 3D rendering more photo-realistic, faster and subsequently cheaper than traditional commercial photography.

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The new Lord of the Rings intro looks CGI, but it’s 100% practical effects

Two decades after the first movie and seven decades after the first book was published, The Lord of the Rings is getting its TV show version. Perhaps you’ve already seen the gorgeous intro that Amazon prime recently launched. It totally looks like it was CGI – but it actually isn’t. The whole thing is a combination of masterfully created and filmed practical effects.

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Blender for photographers – Compositing photography with CG elements

I started in photography as a stepping stone into digital art. As with most photographers, I started taking pictures of everyone and everything. It was not fun hiking with me; I was the guy stopping every five minutes to take pictures of trees and rocks.

During that time I was mesmerized by 3d artworks and by the incredible landscapes and props other artists were creating. Even though I was eager to start creating 3d artworks, the technical difficulty and the steep learning curve kept me from it. Or at least it was a good excuse. But then… the donut tutorial came out, and then, everything changed. We’ll it sounds a bit dramatic, but it really was a good starting point to start delving deeper into 3d.

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What would plastic waste look as ocean life? This incredible short film will show you

The problem of plastic in our oceans has been around for a while, and it’s not getting any better. But director and CG artist Pascal Schelbli reimagined plastic waste not as a part of the problem, but as a part of the ecosystem. In his short animated film, The Beauty, he creates an imaginary sea world out of plastic that will make you both amazed and sad.

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Is photography going cameraless? Shutterstock buys CG market Turbosquid for $75,000,000

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It’s been said for years that CG is coming to take away jobs from photographers and in some respects, that may be true. We know that companies like Ikea use almost exclusively CG imagery in their catalogues now instead of actual photographs of the products. But this is nothing new. Back in 2014, 75% of their “photography” was CG.

With many photographers around the world unable to work in 2020, though, CG imagery has seen a fairly solid uptick, which would probably go a large way to explaining why stock photography company, Shutterstock has purchased Turbosquid, the world’s largest 3D model marketplace, for a whopping $75,000,000.

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The person in IKEA’s latest ad is a hyper-realistic CGI model

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We are already witnessing the change in the industry with CGI models taking over ads and campaigns. The latest ad from IKEA Japan is one of the examples, and it’s really interesting to watch. Instead of a human, IKEA used a computer-generated model to be a star of its ad, and I believe most of us couldn’t guess that it wasn’t a real person.

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New “virtual” model agency turns to Uncanny Valley as COVID forces model shortage

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The COVID-19 crisis has hit the fashion modeling industry hard. This is why fashion photographer Shavonne Wong had an idea that could keep the industry alive. Just like these crazy times that we’re living in, the idea is kinda crazy too: Shavonne started a modeling agency that hires virtual models for virtual shoots.

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Last Of Us 2 shows us the right way to pack a cable post shooting (or when looking for zombies)

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Cables seem to be popping up more and more in our lives lately, whether it’s power cables, USB cables or whatever. And as many of us have shifted our attention towards video, there are even more, with HDMI and microphone cables. But cables require care, especially the expensive ones. There are ways to wrap them up properly and definitely ways you don’t want to wrap them.

But what does this have to do with video games? Well, The Last of Us Part 2, it seems, has taken this mindset to heart, to provide more realism. It shows pretty much perfect techniques for wrapping cables and ropes that never tangle and come loose when thrown.

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People call out Disney over this lame CGI cover-up of an actress’ butt

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Poor Photoshop and CGI work may be called “a fail,” but hey, at least it never fails to make us laugh. Disney recently came under fire over a lame CGI work they did in Splash. The 1984 movie can be streamed on Disney+, but it comes with a terrible cover-up of Daryl Hannah’s butt.

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Here’s how to combine practical effects with CGI in videos

If you’re shooting videos, you can find both practical effects and CGI useful. But combining them can give you limitless creative possibilities. In this video, Liran Friedman of Artlist will show you how you can bring practical visual effects and CGI together and shoot an original and fun video.

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