Trike + RV = True Scamping  By  JerryScript (Read 5,615 times)

Like I said......It is not CGI.... and here is the proof of that.
dornob.com/tiny-truck-mini-trailer-super-small-mobile-camper-car/
Still, to me it looks susceptible to blow over. I would want a way to lower
the broadside profile and widen the rear wheel stance for more stability.

BTW, awful looking graphics/paint job on it along with the tacky hard to
look at interior IMO, but it certainly would get you noticed on the road though.

It was a design engineers electronic entry of a concept that was submitted for a contest in 2010 and so far 5 years later I have not seen one physical prototype presented for display and have not found any site offering them for sale.

This is however real:
www.apecamper.it/lavoro_ing.html

Dethleffs who has been making campers since 1948 has displayed this Slide On for the Ape50 (Bee50 like in apiary) at camping shows:
blog.casase.it/2010/10/17/ape-moca-piaggio-una-mini-casa-per-piccoli-e-grandi-viaggi/

I have not found it listed on their web site:
www.dethleffs.de/

Really? I'm calling BS on that. The guy Cornellius Comanns (curly hair & glasses) won first prize for the ‘schlagschattenn’ (English translation = 'drop shadow') lamp he designed/made, not the camper.
www.designboom.com/design/the-intelligent-hand-awards-ceremony/
He is a German industrial engineer, not a CGI geek.

Here are better pictures to help you see it is NOT CGI
www.designboom.com/design/cornelius-comanns-bufalino/

He is also the guy seen with the Bufalino camper display model. (and snuggled up in the sleeping bag.... sorry for calling him a dummy previously) BTW, If one were to put themselves into an image, human nature would almost dictate that they would present a bit more flattering & detailed imagery of themselves. (and more of them with more & better 'face time') Notice in the image looking forward at the handlebars: CGI would not have shown dust and dirt illuminated by the interior lighting on the windshield. It would have been perfectly clean and clear. Notice the exit sign & the stain on the wall dripping down over it, the garage door with the switch on the wall, the plug and wire on the floor, the tracks left by the wheels on the floor, the dust on the tires that left those tracks, the other outlet on the floor where he is standing behind the camper, the clothes hanging there, wrinkles in the baseball cap, the varying flesh tones & slightly messy hair sticking out from the hat, the seam in the cement floor, some of the pics show the cord on the floor moved out of camera view, Why have it there at all in CGI or to move it out of some scenes in CGI? why bother to partially cover the green & white exit sign/arrow or to even have it there at all. Why not the usual uniformity for the layers of wood in the edges of the plywood? Why the unnecessary variance in detail on the floor, the garage door, the wall and sign in the background? In the context of CGI, for a subject like this, such extreme extraneous detail would not be bothered with. Almost uniformly, CGI art for such things have a high degree of homogeneity in the composition as in textures, uniformity in lighting/reflection, shadow, background & focus. Likewise, elements in the subject would show high levels of uniformity with repeated texture & color, The subject here is the camper, not the environment it is in. There is way too much natural randomness and detail in the the environment shown here to have spent time simulating that and not doing an even more spectacular job with the subject in these images. (the camper) CGI is good these days but not that good nor necessary for what is presented here. They did spend time with lighting to minimize shadow inside the camper though. 

From almost any auto show, bike show, electronics/gadget show, etc; how many of those concept items actually ever make it to market or enough to be noticed? Not many I'd say. 

If they were CGI, (but they're not) then something most surely would have been said about these being CGI and who the CGI designer was and all other sorts of detail on that....... That is Not here... because that is not what it is.

These are camera photos of a (real & physical) guy in a big (real & physical) garage with his (real & physical) mock up of a camper..... an actual, physical, hands on design exercise, Not CGI. Granted, there may have been a bit of photoshop like manipulation going on with some images, (disappearing passenger side door) but that is not the same as CGI. Or that just could have been a removeable panel.... which it looks like hes doing in one of the pics.

EDIT: After closer inspection I noticed that it may actually be an aircraft hangar this is in. The seam in the floor is circular; just like a turntable in some hangars I've seen/been in back in my flying days. And in some pics, the table has been turned. First image is uncharacteristically darker compared to other images, yet the interior of the camper is well lit.

More Scampers:


How they're made which gives me ideas on what can be done next time an old Cushman comes up on CraigsList:

For CGI to get more realistic images, the algorithms in the rendering need to break up the homogeneity of color and texture or they need artificial intelligence engines that have been 'trained' to mimic things more naturally. The texture/image mapping on most CGI seems to be done mostly where texture, color, lighting angle intensity & color, shadow, reflection, transparency, aspect, scale (size), etc. are just applied via templates whether preset or sample generated. The problem there is that the template/sample size is too limited. A whole brick wall done with a handful of different looking bricks is still going to look fake when all you have is that handful of bricks to work with. And that is what is shown in the images presented here.

OK, the first and second pictures are obvious as not completely real to me, the second being more "fake" than the first if not completely so. The 3rd landscape image comes closest to being believable, yet there are some things about the uniformity of coloring and textures across the whole picture that point to fabrication. the color and texture of trees in the foreground are all the same and have the same brown trunks with green pseudo-random fractal branchy stuff overlaid. Better than some CGI I've seen, but still don't reach completely believable realism. (to me anyway) Trees in the hills in the far background are all the same hue only broken up by earth showing through... If you look closer you'd see that. The snake looking thing does not have any discolored, scratched, missing or misshapen scales, all are uniformly shaped and sized and in a perfect, flawless pattern except for a seam where things do not match up exactly...... which is unnatural and can be seen in the large forward section and the same way in the middle section. The apple coloring is unnaturally uniform as are the water droplets and one look at the stem screams fake. Lighting & shadow seems wrong as well. Maybe I just have an eye to detect the subtleties of fabricated imagery. Some times It may be difficult to describe what it is that makes it fake, but I know fake when I see it. The Bufalino images don't fall to the level of CGI uniformity. So, nope, I'm not buying it. I stand by my claim that the Bufalino images are not CGI.

The Ape camper is inspiring. Makes me want to get a 3 wheeler to do something similar.

The little Ape 3 wheelers are just not going to do it for me. As cute as they are, I think something with a bigger engine & a bit more HP would be better. And the width of the rear track is a bit worrisome to me as well. I've seen youtube videos of these things ripping bloody fast around dirt and asphalt tracks. But if it were not for the ability of these things to drift in corners on the dirt tracks and the ones racing on asphalt with their shopping cart wheel stabilizers on front, these things would flip over several times at the first corner they came to. They do seem to have their rear tracks widened a bit too for the sake of stability. (such as it is) Looks like wicked fun though.

AHA!!! There are bigger ones. There is one called Ape TM 200. It has either a 218cc gas engine or a 422cc diesel, has a cab with room for 2 up front, (just barely) an optional (I think) steering wheel and a big cargo box on the back that would be easy to convert into something like a camper. Then there is a 200cc gas powered one called 'Calessino'. But it is more open with canvas half doors and a canopy top and is most often used as a taxi vehicle. The trouble with all of these is that they have manual trannies & their top speed is only about 45 MPH. Not very practical for us here on this side of the big pond; even if we have any of those over here. There might be good reason why they are limited in speed capability, but those little Apes screaming around the tracks at breakneck speed seem to dispel that notion some.

Are there any folks here with a 3 wheel scoot? Not the Can-Am Spyder or MP3 types, nor with the outrigger kits. But rather a true 3 wheel scooter with 200cc or more and 2 rear wheel drive? I'd be interested in knowing how they handle and if they thought that it might be possible to build on them a la APE TM 200 or like the APE minicamper with the Oasis themed exterior shown in those videos or even the 'Bufalino'. I'm thinking along the lines that jerryscript is except with a true 3 wheel scooter. (or even one with a Motor Trike GT3 conversion done to it)
So,.... 3 wheeler folks: would this be possible?

BTW, I agree jerryscript; I think common sense would show a single axle vehicle to be inherently more stable.... certainly more predictable at least. (less hassle too)

First off, my sincerest apologies for my gruffness regarding the bufalino. Once on to something I'm not completely satisfied until I have THE truth. After some serious digging, I was blown away by what I found. But just let me say one thing... I was right about Not ALL of it being CGI. Most of it was CGI however, except for some of the organic stuff. Like the guy with the glasses. (who it turns out IS a CGI geek after all along with being an industrial designer) And (using a link below) in a scene you can see him and a dog in a field with some sheep (that stuff is real) and the camper. (CGI inserted into the field & sheep image with photoshop)

With this link I found the truth: (but some of the images are no longer available there)
cernulois.cgsociety.org/art/piaggio-bryce-ape-tricycle-photoshop-trike-vehicle-rhino-camper-caravan-small-transport-design-car-bufalino-living-in-a-3d-904036

With this link I found some of the missing images from the other site:
www.archilovers.com/projects/71445/bufalino.html

I just couldn't let this go because it bugged me that I didn't know completely for sure, without any doubts. (even though I was mostly sure about it) I even made some attempts to contact Cornelius Comanns through the first article presented on this subject. But it was from 2010 and nobody seemed interested in responding. It was my intent to get the truth from the horses mouth as the saying goes. So I dug in deeper and tried to find a way to contact him more directly. Today my persistence was rewarded. No need to make contact now as he says so himself (in the article in the first link above) how the images were generated and that is what I was looking for.

It is amazing work; paying attention to the detail subtleties that would otherwise be ignored or not expanded upon. (like a dirty window or innocuous stain on a wall) WOW! but it was good enough to fool me. (boy was I punked) (and bemused about how wrong I was)

I am humbled as well because I so rarely end up with my foot in my mouth. It was possible for me to just stay quiet and not admit my error, but that's not the kind of person I am.

So I've confessed... but if I ever get so cocksure again, don't anybody be afraid to remind me of my "bufalino hunt"