9/7/01
The first image of the Dramatic Rust series, this originated out of a desire to experiment, prompted by my purchase of the superb book "Real World Bryce 4".
Like several other works, this is focused on an anomalous object in a natural setting. In this case, it is a shape that is obviously artificial, carved out of a natural stone. Its function is abstracted away, so that we only focus on its artificiality.
The terrain is a pixellated fractal...
The artifact is a torus, a sphere, and two terrains used to make the cracks...
A second terrain is used for the sandstone from which the artifact is emerging, and a third is the distant mountain.
To prevent the sandstone from showing through the cracks in the artifact, a duplicate of the artifact, without the terrains, is included as a negative object embedded in the sandstone.
The texture of the background stone is a carefully scaled "Rustic Vein" texture, while the eroding sandstone is based on "Arizona". The artifact texture is based on the Texture Library "Rainforest" entry.
The shadows are softened by an array of twenty lights, spread by 2D Disperse, similar to that used in "Glacial Erratics". Later images in the series get more from the lights in terms of realism, but even in this image with its harsh light and sharp shading, we can see some of the softness that are characteristic of real shadows.