Microsoft shot real lasers through a window to make Windows 10's wallpaper — surprisingly the iconic art wasn't computer generated

The Windows 10 desktop wallpaper scene above wasn’t clinically and digitally spewed forth by some 3D rendering app. Rather this iconic floating window image, with mesmerizing light rays cutting through the haze, was physically set up and photographed by designer Bradley Munkowitz, also known as GMUNK, reports PCGamer.

Munkowitz used physical mirrors, lasers, and smoke machines – as well as a stylized glass window construction - to deliver Windows 10’s signature wallpaper. Thousands of exposures were taken, featuring permutations from different color filters, light beam shapes, patterns, sizes, and variable amounts of smoke. In the end, there could only be one default Windows 10 wallpaper, but it is interesting to think about what could have been.

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You don’t have to think too hard, though. Thankfully, Munkowitz documented the Windows 10 wallpaper production process, and provides a cornucopia of images which rival the default wallpaper, but feature different color and light been configurations. Check out the behind-the-scenes video above and the gallery below to enjoy some alternative reality Windows 10 wallpapers. You might even be inclined to use some of these on your current computer. There are even more at the source link.

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Composing the Windows 10 signature wallpaper shot ahead of the operating system’s release in July 2015 sounds like a lot of effort to create what some might consider a simple wallpaper. In 2024, with generative AI pumping out pixels to fulfill all sorts of imaging, illustrative, and photographic needs, it is easy to expect that we might never see such an elaborate physical setup employed to create computer wallpaper images again. Computer and AI-generated art should also be more affordable, crowding out expensive physical setups to the fringes, for use in high art and so on.

As a person who once worked in newspapers when scalpels and cow gum were used to layout pages, and when art tech like Letraset and omicron foiling were popular, it feels natural for older imaging technologies to become redundant. They are left behind as newer, faster, and more flexible tools replace them.

Moving up to the present day, we have just seen a refreshed version of the Windows 11 Bloom wallpaper released to coincide with the dawn of Copilot+ PCs. Bloom images come from a 3D art project by the Spanish art studio Six N. Five.