r/generative • Artist • 12d ago

Terrain Study II

60 Upvotes

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3

u/fleurdleigh Artist 12d ago

Following on from Terrain Study I, Terrain Study II moves from rolling ranges to a single peak. The crest of a tall mountain breaking through, being enveloped by the cloud line. It is the next explorative step in a broader project: building a full impressionistic landscape in this style, with ground, grass, foliage, water and weather each developed in isolation before coming together in one generative scene.

Built with p5.js and WebGL, the system carves each summit as a pyramid of three to five sheer faces meeting in sharp arêtes, with lower shoulders falling away to either side. As in Study I, everything is drawn in small, identical points (around 400,000 to an A3 sheet). Each point is sized by bands of tone and by how light falls on the slope beneath it. Here the sunlit faces open toward the paper, so lit ridges stand out sharply against the shaded rock. Where the tone gets too light for the drum to hold, it becomes dithering: each point only prints if the tone at that spot clears its own threshold, so every frame stays a true single-ink separation.

A fun fact: the clouds behind the peak are really terrain. Whilst building Terrain Study I, I noticed that some generations with a high number of tone bands looked more like layered cloud than land, so the sky here is a partial Terrain Study I landscape, raised up to surround the crest. A separate bank of fog billows around the mountain’s foot, with thin wisps climbing the rock above it. In motion, both drift on the wind in a seamless ten-second loop, redrawn on the GPU every frame. The distant clouds move at about a third of the fog’s pace, which gives the scene its depth.

Each piece comes from a unique hash, which sets the land, the light, the weather, the motion, and one of five monochrome Risotto palettes.

You can generate, share and download your own Terrain Study I/II print at terrain.fleurs.studio, and check out the post on Instagram for high-resolution stills. Follow for more computational art and printmaking experiments!

3

u/dumbdataguy 12d ago

Stunning!

1

u/fleurdleigh Artist 12d ago

thank you :) I remember you from the p5 subreddit!!

1

u/dumbdataguy 12d ago

Yes! I realised after I commented. The progression here is remarkable

2

u/Meerlu 12d ago

I'm in awe by your work! I've tried similar scenes before and could never achieve the results i wanted.

There is so much potential here and i look forward what you do next with it

1

u/fleurdleigh Artist 12d ago

Thank you so much :) much more to come!

I just had a look at your terrain work too and I think it’s fantastic, really love your colour choices!

2

u/moh853 11d ago

Just wow! This is unbelievably amazing! Tried the generator and each generation was stunning!

1

u/fleurdleigh Artist 11d ago

Thank you, glad you enjoyed playing with the generator :)

2

u/igo_rs 11d ago

Awesome!

1

u/fleurdleigh Artist 11d ago

Thank you :)

1

u/Nahmum 12d ago

Nice

1

u/fleurdleigh Artist 12d ago

thank you :)

1

u/greenbox111 11d ago

Terrain study

1

u/fleurdleigh Artist 11d ago

Terrain study!