"Moonlit Dystopia" | Entry for Art Explosion Contest hosted by @juliakponsford
“The apocalypse didn't happen overnight. The world didn't end in a satisfying climax of explosive special effects. It was slow. It was boring. It was one little thing at a time. One moral compromise, one abandoned ideal, one more justified injustice. No dramatic wave of destruction sweeping across the world, just scattered spots of rot forming throughout the decades, seemingly isolated incidents until the moment they all merged.”
― Isaac Marion, The Burning World
This is my entry for @juliakponsford's Art Explosion contest, this week themed "City" ... It is the first time I am participating and I'm quite happy to be doing so, finally! =)
Moonlit Dystopia
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What I did:
Those of us who create art using fractals know that it is an amazing medium for creativity, where the possibilities are literally infinite. Usually, the way things are done is, you search the chaos for something that "speaks to you" and give it substance.
It's actually almost like being a photographer, except you have super powers to be able to mould the world you're looking at, and manipulate the light in whichever way you choose, to then frame and shoot a perfect "shot".
So usually, themed contests aren't a favourite for us. The process of an idea first and execution afterwards is kinda backwards for fractal artists. But for this, I had an idea =)
The theme immediately put in my mind a little program I discovered a few months ago called JSPlacement. It allows you to generate random heightmaps for use in 3D rendering programs, and the 'Metropolis' mode, even though still in an experimental phase, worked perfectly for my concept.
So I generated a few until I found something I liked, and then imported that into Mandelbulb 3D with the HeightmapIFS formula:
The buildings started out a bit flat, so I tweaked one of the parameters to heighten them:
And finally, I needed to find my frame... I zoomed in a bit and turned the camera slightly... I wanted the "city center" in the one corner, and two main roads to give some perspective.
I ended up zooming in even more, as you can see here, before starting to work on colours and lighting:
First things first, I wanted some hard shadows:
I then darkened the scene by lowering the gamma a bit, as well as the light intensity:
Next, some texture... To get the dystopian feel, I went with a real grunge-y image:
Foor moonlight, I changed the colour of the light source to a nice pale blue:
And finally, to get even more dystopian, and soften some of the harder edges, I added some smutty fog:
The final image also has a bit more darkening of the general tone of the image... All in all, I was very happy with the result, and hope that you are too! ^^
Thank you very much to Julia for hosting this contest... I hope to do more in the future!
Thank you for your upvote 💖
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A few recent posts of mine:
"Didnt Planet" - Gallery: Fine Art | "Paradigm" - Gallery: Motifs, and Contest Winners! | "Chocolate with Red Berries" - dIFS Pong with @welshpixie!
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If you'd like to support me further, or follow me elsewhere, I'm on these social media:
Patreon | Instagram | Facebook
My Bitcoin wallet address:
1DPGX72eQj5TNVpSG1grRMxVAaDuqGG2RL
All Images, Creative Commons License.
Wow, this is really awesome, I love your process and how real this looks. I totally see your point that the fractal work allows you to almost be a photographer -- this is awesome. Also, btw, this is @lilyraabe - but writing from this account where I am just now launching an artist initiative based from my personal collective. :) Anyways, gonna resteem this and see you around!
Hi Lily! =) ... Thank you for your comment and resteem! I got your invite on Discord too and have just finished writing my introduction there. I really love the whole concept and believe it's got a bright future ahead of it! Also, I just noticed my friend @falseyedols is there too =D
Yep, he sure is. I asked him to consider curating our music section! :)
This is GREAT! Love the grunge moonlit feel. I had no clue that cityscapes could be generated like this! How long does it take to render one of these?
Thank you! =) Well, it depends on your resolution and also a few settings. This one didn't take long at all (just under 25 minutes) because I only rendered it at 2600x1950 and the single formula is a simple one.
More often than not, though, my renders take from 2 to 8 hours. And more if I'm using reflections/transparency.
Congrats on earning a special mention!
Yeah, 25 minutes does not sound bad. So I assume you have a rendering computer and another one for work? I understand the pains fo waiting for an 8 hour render. I've ruined many a system because of it, lol.
Sorry for late reply! Sadly, no, I only have my one machine.
Indeed, I've also learnt the hard way by burning two CPUs before realising the temperature it gets to while rendering fractals! ... I now have a super fan on my CPU, and 3 other system fans.
I truly wish I could afford another machine though. That would easily double my productivity.
Omg. Newfound respect. I honestly thought you were rendering on another system. Gosh, yeah, the cooling fan helps but it still messes with your system. We need new ways to render stuff.
Thank you! =) Well, it depends on your resolution and also a few settings. This one didn't take long at all (just under 25 minutes) because I only rendered it at 2600x1950 and the single formula is a simple one.
More often than not, though, my renders take from 2 to 8 hours. And more if I'm using reflections/transparency.
Wow @mandelsage. This is incredible, as always. I am glad to see you still doing so well here :)
Thank you ;) ... I am doing okay, though I used the smartsteem service to buy votes for a while (decided to stop doing that) which helped me get some SP. I'm trying now to focus on building community links and get those precious organic votes. Hard, and takes longer, but feels so good when your post gets upvoted without having been bought!
You've received an upvote from a @slothicorn! Click here to learn more! (@justatouchfey) ((.)ω(.))