Windowlicker – A Tribute to Aphex Twin and Chris Cunningham

(Free PDF to download) Chris Cunningham made history with his interpretation of Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker”. The climax is an exaggerated grimace that appears at the end of the clip. by Phil Amelung and Daniel Hennies

Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 26, 2015. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.

Our goal was to reproduce this character as faithfully and in as much detail as possible, even though the reference material was very scarce. We therefore had to make do with screenshots from the video and a handful of snapshots from the shoot.
For further references for the pose and anatomical details, we photographed our own model according to these specifications and made use of 3D.SK’s extensive image archive. Our tribute to the Windowlicker video seemed to us to be a suitable project for extensively testing the new C4D integration of Solid Angle’s Arnold Renderer in particular.
C4DtoA (Cinema 4D to Arnold) originated as a hobby project in 2012. At the time, it was a personal concern of mine to be able to use this engine in Cinema 4D (C4D) as well. A developer friend began programming it, and Solid Angle has since taken over development completely.