Weird news: You Won't Believe These Images Aren't Photographs. And You Shouldn't, Because They Are Photographs

Thursday 5 March 2015

You Won't Believe These Images Aren't Photographs. And You Shouldn't, Because They Are Photographs

When artists David O’Reilly and Kim Laughton published a series of incredibly vivid "computer-generated images" on their blog, Hyper Real CG, the stunningly realistic pictures were met with awe and disbelief.

Not quite enough disbelief, though, considered it was all a joke and the purportedly computer-generated images were actually regular photographs, Death and Taxes reported this week.

"my mother always loved tomatoes"  Artist: sexysam66  Software: Blender #hyperrealcg #emotionalrender #cgmemories #nostalgia #subsurfacescattering

A photo posted by HYPER REAL CG (@hyperrealcg) on Mar 2, 2015 at 1:20pm PST

Multiple media outlets, including Gizmodo, Laughing Squid, The Daily Mirror, and HuffPost UK were fooled. “I can’t believe these hyper real pictures are completely CG and not real,” Casey Chan wrote on Gizmodo’s Splod. Casey Chan, your instincts were right. Gizmodo and HuffPost UK have corrected their stories, while the Mirror has removed their article altogether, and Laughing Squid's remains uncorrected.

"Real toilet with brown walls" Artist: David OReilly Software: Maya 2012 #hyperrealcg #toilet #brown #cg

A photo posted by HYPER REAL CG (@hyperrealcg) on Feb 24, 2015 at 8:50am PST

A simple reverse Google-image search would have easily showed that all the images on O’Reilly’s and Laughton’s #HyperRealCG tumblr are photographs readily found on the Internet. This image is in fact the fifth result that appears if someone searches Google Images for the world “dolphin.”

"Dolphin leaping from water" Artist: Po-man Picsar Software: 3ds Max Render time: 8 hours #hyperrealcg #realism #dolphin #water #3d #romance

A photo posted by HYPER REAL CG (@hyperrealcg) on Feb 24, 2015 at 8:51am PST

O’Reilly tweeted on Monday that the blog was intended as a joke and he never expected anyone to take it seriously:

So.. I thought the #hyperrealcg joke was really obvious - the blandness of virtuoso 'photoreal' 3d. Didn't expect sites to take it literally
— David (@davidoreilly) March 3, 2015

That’s not to say CG images can’t be incredibly realistic. Last year, Ikea revealed that up to 75 percent of the images found in their catalogs are actually computer generated.