Landscapes

This is a test film I made a few years ago, using one of my favourite software apps ever – Terragen.  Music by Ligeti.

It’s just a study of natural landscapes and rock formations, with care for composition, lighting and camera, inspired by Kubrick and Koyaanisqatsi cinematography.

Terragen uses height-field maps (flat grayscale images) to create its land forms, but another wonderful piece of shareware software called World Machine makes the creation of heightfield maps an artistic, mathematical and geological pre-production stage before rendering these in environments through Terragen.

I’m always amazed at how shareware software like those above and the enthusiasm of the user communities provide the digital art world with superior work compared to other big commercial terrain generating applications (without naming names).