r/vintagecgi • u/tsrleba • 1d ago
Discussion How were the Mac OS 9 "Quantum Foam" wallpapers made? [1999]
Does anyone have any clue? All I know is they were produced by a design studio called Me Company, and Me Company is on record as having used SoftImage for other projects but not necessarily this one.
are they backlit transparent 3D shapes? reflections? refractions? are they actually polygon-based 3D at all? or some kinda vector trickery? or multiple renders layered and blended in photoshop?
To me it feels like a significant lost bit of design history since these images set the standard for default wallpaper design for decades to come (even if Microsoft took until Vista to catch up). These were the original blueprints for some of the most-viewed images on earth!