I just started reading "Stories of Your Life and Others (https://amzn.to/3hoJmas)", a book of short stories by Ted Chiang (the title entry of which is what the movie Arrival was based on). The first story has some amazing visual concepts in it, and I realized that Terragen would be the perfect tool to quickly "sketch" what it might look like in reality. So this is the first draft. Can anyone guess what it depicts? (especially if you haven't read the book 😄)
top-of-tower3_extreme-pt-full1_highlight-clip-brightness.jpg
I'm not sure if I'll do more with this, but it was really cool to be able to put it together fairly quickly and see how Terragen handled it! Still no better tool for things at this scale...
- Oshyan
I've seen the movie but not read the book. It's an interesting concept, assuming the streak is the vehicle entering the atmosphere on the night side.
Ah, I should clarify. The first story in the book is not "Stories of Your Life" (i.e. the Arrival source material). I didn't name what it actually is because it gives away what the image depicts. ;D So it's not the ship "arriving", though it's a good guess!
- Oshyan
Looks like something blasting out of the atmosphere at extremely fast speeds to be leaving such a long trail of heated gasses. I do like the simplicity of it, I can almost imagine it animated, that is if it is anything like what I'm imagining.
Hey Oshyan, nice to read you here again :)
Good that I read your second post before I comment :). In Germany Ted Chiangs book is devided and rearranged into two separate books (I guess with some additional stories). I will need some time untill I've the time and patience to buy and read. But knowning now that "Arrival" based on a story by him, I assume there must be more very interesting stuff by him :)
And besides all that a very cool "sketch" as you call it :)
For Merry Christmas it's some hours too late but I wish you a great helthy and successful 2021.
Good to see you posting here, Oshyan. Very nice sketch indeed, colors and concept reminded me of the Pink Floyd 'Dark side of the moon' cover. I don't know the story, but I would think it's something shooting off as well; rocket man or so.
Hi Oshyan, great to hear from you!!! I haven't read the story as well, but the first thing that came into my mind is an idea that was used in several scifi stories and is also considered in science as far as I know: some sort of space elevator. A very thin tape or whatever it's called made out of a very durable material with the end somehow driven by some device, so that it always stays in the same position relative to the earth.
Maybe this is completely wrong, but it sounds interesting... :)
Hi Oshyan,
Great to see you back! With a render!!
Similar to others I haven't read the book(s), but my guess it's a kind of beam-based beacon?
Oshyan is back. :)
Very nice render. The atmospheric effects and the "shadow of the day" are just perfect.
If I were to guess, I'd say this is a space elevator.
A beam, exhaust of a rocket, or a planetary ring seen from the side.
Hello Oshyan, I haven't read the book ... I would say the thin line is a syringe needle in which the Covid 19 vaccine will be delivered.
;D ;D ;D ;D
Ah ok, so there is nothing metaphorical about this. So I would go with the most logical and intelligent answer there is:
I haven't read the story as well, but the first thing that came into my mind is an idea that was used in several scifi stories and is also considered in science as far as I know: some sort of space elevator. A very thin tape or whatever it's called made out of a very durable material with the end somehow driven by some device, so that it always stays in the same position relative to the earth.
Maybe this is completely wrong, but it sounds interesting... :P
Ah, great guesses everyone! (well played
@Jo Kariboo 😄) I'll get to the answer in a moment, but first...
Ted Chiang has two collections of short stories. The first I read is actually his second, and much more recent (2019), called "Exhalation: Stories". I quite enjoyed that one, so now I'm reading the earlier collection from 2002, "Stories of Your Life and Others", and already I can see that it is in keeping with what I liked about his other collection. In general I find him to have a tremendous and lively imagination, with a gift for evocative but simple story telling, and ideas that are at times somewhat mind-bending, and often seem to lend themselves to potentially unique visualizations. This is not the first time Terragen came to mind when reading one of his stories, it's just the first time I acted on it. ;) So if you like good short-form science fiction with explorations of challenging ideas, I highly recommend his work! (that's for you
@DocCharly65 :D )
This particular story is called "The Tower of Babylon", and I am both pleased and perhaps just slightly disappointed that no one quite guessed it. Pleased because it means the result is sufficiently abstract to be something you can map your own ideas and expectations to, which I sometimes enjoy in art. But disappointed because it means perhaps that my depiction is not as accurate or evocative of the idea as I hoped. Then again it's not something anyone would
ever expect to see, so it's reasonable not to guess it...
What you're seeing is essentially a 100km tall "tower" (in this case just a simple, elongated cube). In the book its construction is described in surprising detail, and I may try to replicate some more detail in it (it's all made out of bricks, laid individually, for centuries). But from this distance it was clear the specifics would not really matter. In any case they are building a tower literally up to the "vault of heaven", with the intent to try to enter into it through sheer manpower and effort! The tower is a mere ~30 meters square, but rises up above the mountains and clouds to 100km in height! (my estimate of how far one could walk in 2 days, as the book estimates its height)
The book doesn't make clear exactly how tall it is, so this is just a quick visualization. But the key scene that made me want to try rendering it was a description of the view from the tower itself, looking down as you watch the sunset rushing up the sides of it - literally watching the shadow of the Earth move up it! This would of course happen surprisingly quickly at this altitude due to the distance between the source of the shadow and where it is cast (on the tower). The view I got from the tower itself wasn't as interesting as I hoped (see below), so I tried the distant shot and liked what I saw.
@WAS, I did consider animating it, and may still do so, but it may go quite quickly in real-time! That itself might be interesting to see...
view-from-the-top_texture2_full_43m4s.jpg
A space elevator would indeed be cool to make one day. Also just a "very thin line", but at least with something traveling up/down it. ;)
Happy New Year to you all!
P.S. There was a part of me that wanted my return here to be some hyper-realistic, detailed real-world scene. But if I'd kept that goal for myself I might never have posted. So I'm glad I did, and I hope you enjoyed the little guessing game as well. Perhaps I'll be back again some time. For now, back into rendering obscurity!
@Jo Kariboo: ;-) ;-) ;-)
Well, Oshyan, this is probably something hard to guess I think, because it doesn't sound physically possible. I haven't read the books with the stories, but I watched Arrival, so I expected something ficticious but at the same time leaving the impression of something realistic.
Anyway, I was happy to hear from you. I hope there will be more to see.
All the best and happy (and better!!!) new year!!!
Late to the party, as usual! ;D Sorry I missed participating in your visual game, Oshyan. I have read Stories of Your Life and mind-bending is certainly a good word to describe many of Ted Chiang's ideas. Highly recommended.
Anyway, lovely render and great to hear from you. Please don't fade back into obscurity completely. And best wishes for 2021.
Nice to see you here at the TG Forum, and with a render and a challenge! You always have a knack for stimulating discussion! Like some others my first thought was that it was what's commonly called a "Beanstalk", a familiar Science Fiction trope; the 'beanstalk' actually 'hangs' from a geo-synchronous station in low Earth orbit, and is 'tethered' to a fixed point below. To build one up from the ground, block by block, seems only to invite the inevitable Biblical consequence... My other thought was that it was similar to Niven's "Ringworld": an enormous ring section of a Dyson sphere seen edge-on from high orbit. Even with TG's planetary scale possibilities it's hard to portray scenes like this without the image becoming an abstraction. I tried something similar a number of years ago:
planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,15507.msg150686.html#msg150686
I think a couple of folks have attempted such scenes here in the past, but the objects are so vast that it's hard to reference the scale in relation to normal human experience. As an image I do like the cleaness and simplicity of the composition and lighting. Overall a stunning image to return with! Hopefully this is a start for more to come! :)
Ah ha. Well explained Oshyan. But unless constructed almost exactly on the equator of a planet which has a rotation as our own (or probably no Moon) and with materials such as nanotechnology that are at our grasp, mere bricks would never work. But you can always dream!
I forgot to say- Welcome back!
Quote from: Hannes on December 29, 2020, 04:17:27 AMWell, Oshyan, this is probably something hard to guess I think, because it doesn't sound physically possible. I haven't read the books with the stories, but I watched Arrival, so I expected something ficticious but at the same time leaving the impression of something realistic.
Mmm, yes that's fair. I had read his other book and know that while he is generally a sci-fi author, he plays with themes of fantasy, even faith and religion, etc. as well.
Quote from: zaxxon on December 29, 2020, 12:15:41 PMplanetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,15507.msg150686.html#msg150686
I think a couple of folks have attempted such scenes here in the past, but the objects are so vast that it's hard to reference the scale in relation to normal human experience. As an image I do like the cleaness and simplicity of the composition and lighting. Overall a stunning image to return with! Hopefully this is a start for more to come! :)
Thanks! Yeah, I originally intended to visualize it as if I were *on* the tower and thought it might be more interesting. But since it wasn't, I found this view and it was precisely because it was so abstract that I found it interesting (to my surprise). :)
Anyway, thanks for guessing and commenting everyone! Nice to dip my toe in a little. I don't know when I'll be back again, but I'll drop in to at least check-in on things from time to time...
Happy New Year to all!
- Oshyan
I know this one! 😁
It's from the book "The Tower of Babylon" (by Ted Chiang).
It's the tower the guy watches at sunrise that's 100s of kilometers tall and stretches up to "heaven". Terragen is the perfect tool for the job! Nice work.