Digital Artist and Intel® Software Innovator Marc Potocnik’s fascination with graphic arts to capture life moments dates back to his early childhood in the small German town of Bad Honnef, on the Rhine River.

Potocnik’s artistic work goes back to his childhood days, as recounted in an earlier profile, where he describes how he began using felt pens at age 3 to draw simple images of things he’d seen or experienced. It became his habit to finish a sketch almost every day – a discipline he carried into adulthood.

Now a widely-recognized expert in rendering photorealistic scenes, Potocnik took a moment to talk about his latest creation showcased at SIGGRAPH 2019, his personal approach to digital rendering, and tomorrow’s opportunities in digital arts.

Marc Potocnik explains his creative process at SIGGRAPH 2019

What got you started in technology, especially for graphic arts?
My first contact with computers and digital content creation was late – I was 20, preparing to study Graphics and Design at the University of Applied Science in Düsseldorf. Early versions of Photoshop, Cinema 4D* and Adobe* After Effects* replaced my felt pens, bit by bit. Later I became a student assistant in an ad agency in my hometown. Soon I knew 3D animation was my passion. In late 2001 I founded my animation studio, renderbaron, and made my passion my profession.

What’d you exhibit at SIGGRAPH 2019 in Los Angeles?
I presented my studio’s latest animation work "Apollinarisstr." The project was an extensive study of highly detailed procedural shading and photorealistic lighting. It shows an everyday kitchen in spring, flooded with light – raw realism instead of another high-gloss lifestyle interior.

A scene from Marc Potocnik’s latest animation project "Apollinarisstr," presented at SIGGRAPH 2019

The project was created in Cinema 4D and rendered with the built-in Physical Renderer (CPU). Modeling and shading of the fruits and vegetables was 100% procedural, created with the native material system of Cinema 4D. Lighting was local illumination only. All models and textures were created from scratch.

"Apollinarisstr." was originally created for Intel to benchmark the 28 core Intel® Xeon® processor W-3175. The workstation Intel gave me scores at over 13,000 CPU points in Cinebench R20 and was a great help in realizing this project.

Did you run up against any special challenges doing this project?
One challenge was the completely procedural modeling and shading of fruits and vegetables. I created highly complex procedural shader setups exclusively with the shader toolset in Cinema 4D.

Also, I created the photorealistic lighting without the help of Global Illumination, only with a few manually placed lights and smart shader setups. This enabled me to fulfill my claim as a designer to artistically interpret light situations rather than technically simulate them.

When compositing with After Effects, it was important to get a credible analog-feeling result from the raw renderings by adding photographic artifacts such as chromatic aberration, glow, and so forth.

Tell us about other projects you’re working on.
The majority of my studio´s work is in the field of visualizations, or visual effects for TV documentaries. Also in our portfolio, we’re doing numerous works for TV commercials and well-known car manufacturers.

Intel® Software Innovator Marc Potocnik at SIGGRAPH 2019.

Do you think mainstream graphics work will head in the direction of photorealistic, real-time rendering? How do you see this technology impacting other fields?
The possibilities of real-time engines are impressive, but there’s a long list of rendering effects that still cost computing time. This is where classic CPU rendering solutions really shine – like the Physical Renderer in Cinema 4D, or external solutions such as Corona Renderer or Arnold Renderer.

How do you plan to leverage Intel® technology in your work?
Cinema 4D already includes Intel® Embree ray tracing acceleration for the Physical Renderer. For the Standard Renderer, Intel Embree has been updated with the current Release 21, which reduces render times to almost one-third compared to rendering without Embree.

With Release 21 of Cinema 4D, the Intel® Open Image Denoise has been introduced. As the first component of the Intel® oneAPI rendering toolkit, it accelerates sample-based rendering such as the Physical Renderer or GI methods like QMC by efficiently removing noise.
Especially removing the last bit of noise costs a disproportionate amount of rendering time. This is where Intel Open Image Denoise shines, by eliminating that last bit of noise and speeding up render times by up to an amazing 300%.

Project rendering takes place in my studio via Cinema 4D Team Render (distributed rendering) on Intel Xeon processors and Intel® Core™ i9 processors. Especially Intel Xeon processor-based machines with a high number of cores and dual sockets offer absolute reliability and 24/7 output for long renderings.

How can Intel help you succeed as an Intel Software Innovator?
It’s a great opportunity to get a platform for your own projects through demos and presentations at international industry events. On the hardware side, the more cores added to affordable processors, the faster outstanding quality can be rendered.

Follow Marc Potocnik’s Projects

• View Potocnik’s latest animation project Apollinarisstr.
• Visit the website for studio renderbaron
• Follow renderbaron on Facebook for the latest updates
• See the latest visual effects from studio renderbaron at their YouTube channel
• Read how Potocnik creates his effects in these articles:
  Surprising Volumetric Effects in Cinema 4D* Part 1: The Magic of Visible Lights
  Surprising Volumetric Effects in Cinema 4D* Part 2: Erupting Plasma and Sliced Clouds

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*First image, photo credit: Bernd Lutz