American in Spain

3D Bottle Window Effect

August 7, 2011

Virgen del Carmen (in bottle)In my local cured meat and cheese shop, they have this bottle of water that is very intriguing. It's meant to be a souvenir of Colindres, the town where I live, showing the Virgen del Carmen, the statue of this version of the Virgin Mary (more or less a goddess of fishermen) that they parade around town once a year. In the photo, she's seen in front of the town church. What's cool about the bottle is the exceedingly clever 3D visual effect it presents. Watch the video first, and then I'll explain it.

Pretty cool, huh? Did you figure it out?

Details that are crucial for the effect to work:

  1. The frosted nature of the bottle, with just the window bit being clear. If the rest of the bottle were opaque, there would be very little light to see the image.
  2. The lines between the window panes to give a parallax effect.
  3. It has to be a clear liquid.
  4. And the photo on the back of the label on the back of the bottle, of course.

Personally, I'm dying to know if the liquid is actually water, because water in a glass bottle refracts a lot. I also wonder if the actual image on the back label is distorted in anyway to counteract the refraction.

Pretty cool, huh?