projects/citibank-generator

Citibank Artwork Generator

ClientCitibank

DateFebruary 15, 2025

StudioCoffee & TV

RoleProject Lead (Head of R&D)

DotDotDash approached Coffee & TV for an experiential project transforming Citibank's newly refurbished New York locations.

Citibank oil-painting artwork of a New York street corner with cyclists, parked cars, autumn trees and a striped steam stack — An oil painting generated from a photo, swirling in 3D.

Having teamed up with local photographers, Citibank wanted to convert these photos to beautiful artworks such as oil paintings and mosaics, on a variety of displays that ranged from wall-encompassing to smaller ATM screens.

The brief required 22 different 8K procedural artworks, with an animated process, transforming a blank canvas to completion over the course of 1 minute.

A downtown New York City location being painted over a minute.

In order to ensure a swift turnaround and maximum flexibility for locally photographed assets, I developed a hybrid AI & CG workflow that incorporated the most creative elements of proceduralism to accurately represent a painter's brush strokes.

Flowchart splitting a street photo into edge detection, depth and a text description to produce line-art and painted styles — The preliminary AI-driven workflow outlined for base image generation.

Outlined above, the initial AI-driven generation workflow allows for a softer, more painterly palette to take shape, as well as a series of guidance lines that can be later converted into 2D paths.

Using these elements, a Houdini-based workflow can fill in the more structural procedures and simulations. These include where a painter would place their brush, how they might blend colours, and how they might draw more definition for objects closer to the viewpoint.

Houdini diagram turning the painted image and line art into 3D patches, skeletal curves and low, medium and high detail paint layers — The 3D skeletal analysis taken place after AI generation step.

Oil-paint rendering of a narrow Manhattan street, red brick buildings with fire escapes framing a distant ornate skyscraper — A series of oil paintings of the New York skyline

Impressionistic painting of red brick walk-ups and autumn trees beneath blue glass skyscrapers and a construction crane — A series of oil paintings of the New York skyline

Swirling portrait painting of a brownstone window and red neon sign, with One World Trade Center rising against a pale sky — Portrait gallery artwork series

Looser take on the same scene, the One World Trade Center spire dissolving into thick pastel dabs of paint — Portrait gallery artwork series

By bringing the artwork into a 3D space, you can allow a simulation to think like a painter even down to the way colours are layered - if you look closely, you can see that vibrant base hues are layered beneath and are blended into upper, more defined layers of colour, that inform realism through design.

Chunky impasto painting of a white tower and a terracotta high-rise seen from street level, warm oranges against a lilac sky — ATM screen artwork variations

Finer swirled-brushstroke version of the same two towers, with window details emerging from the thick paint — ATM screen artwork variations

Tile mosaic of a New York street, red brick buildings, green trees and pale skyscrapers built from irregular coloured shards — Mosaic artwork variations

Mosaic variant with smaller, tighter tiles and thin gold grout lines tracing the buildings, trees and cars on the street — Mosaic artwork variations

Panoramic oil painting of red brick corner buildings in lower Manhattan, lined with trees, parked cars and street signs — Final panoramic images

Sunlit painted panorama of a New York park path under golden autumn trees, with pedestrians, a stroller and benches — Final panoramic images