The Floating Gardens by Rutra

Vue • Fantasy • posted on Aug 13, 2007

Open full image in new tab Zoom on image

Hover over top left image to zoom.
Click anywhere to exit.

Members remain the original copyright holder in all their materials here at Renderosity. Use of any of their material inconsistent with the terms and conditions set forth is prohibited and is considered an infringement of the copyrights of the respective holders unless specially stated otherwise.

Description

*** This looks much better in full-size! *** Maybe some of the viewers will critique this image for not having a clear focus. True, it doesn't. I normally follow that "rule" but not this time, not with this image. This time, I do want the eyes of the viewer to wander in the image, to jump from detail to detail, to "dive" into the scene. I hope I was successful in not following rules. :-) Note: all the spheres have different vegetation. This image came to my mind because of the failure in doing another one. I first had the idea of a "river in space". Outer space, I mean. I imagined planets made only of water with rivers between them, linking them, maybe even boats sailing across those rivers. I thought it was a cool concept. I was trying to do that but I discovered that water in the black space is completely uninteresting because it's also... black, of course, because it refracts and reflects just the black around it. I did try to put some suns around but still it didn't have the feeling I was after. I could cheat and break some laws of physics but I didn't want that. But I really liked the idea of a river in space... So, ok, let's make a river floating inside the atmosphere, that should give the water the right colors. What's around a river? Plants. What's around a floating river? Floating plants. Why not a garden? Why not also a kind of river of clouds and some people enjoying this garden? That was how this scene was born. In the process, interestingly, the river became a not so important part of it. Tech stuff: Vegetation is mainly Linda Daireaux's, ecosystems by me. Of course, I had to paint them manually on the various sides of the spheres. The torus is indeed two half-torus (that was the only way to paint the inside). The "rivers" are cylinders manually modelled in Zbrush. Dress is a freebie from Kobamax. Clouds in foreground are metaclouds. There's only one light source, the sun. Rendered in AO in about two hours, with user settings. Minimum postwork (blur, some water ripples, frame). Thanks for watching!

Comments (25)

)

adorety

12:33PM | Mon, 13 August 2007

Very cool and creative image. In zero gravity water forms into spheres and globules. Maybe you could make watery spheres conected with gravity tubes filled with water? Great image.

)

VBacci

12:44PM | Mon, 13 August 2007

fantastic! It reminds me of several science fiction stories I have read (Niven, Hamilton...) the details are great!

)

JOELGLAINE

12:46PM | Mon, 13 August 2007

Looks like a scene from Larry Niven's novel, Ring of Smoke. It postulates a vast ring of atmosphere around a star with planetismals and life among them, human colony ship crashes there and humans colonize the infinite sky. VERY cool stuff!

)

ArtPearl

12:49PM | Mon, 13 August 2007

This image has the most wonderful feel to it - the familiar laws of gravity do not seem to apply, but in addition there is an internal, spiritual weightlessness. The water is sparkling, the vegetation is lush and the people seem as care free as the birds...What can be better? It's true there is no single focal point, but there are strategically put items of interest and a well thought out rhythm in the connections between them. Really pleasant and effortless for the eye to move around and explore. Great work!

)

chrispoole

12:54PM | Mon, 13 August 2007

I don't believe there are any hard and fast rules with art, I think it looks superb.

)

Geophree

1:07PM | Mon, 13 August 2007

Fantastic depiction of a great idea.

)

SoCalRoberta

1:21PM | Mon, 13 August 2007

I really like all the green tones against the sky.

)

AwarenessLogic

1:39PM | Mon, 13 August 2007

Nice touch of sureal realism.

)

Darthmagus

2:02PM | Mon, 13 August 2007

Very imaginative work!

)

kobaltkween

2:19PM | Mon, 13 August 2007

it makes sense - if there's water, there could be clouds and sky. and if there's water and clouds and scattered light, there could be plants. the river seems a little cylindrical and regular, i think it might contrast with the spheres more if it had a flatter and more irregular shape. the birds in the distance are a nice touch.

)