New Art, new Website...

[Thomas Helzle]

Dear Ambient Online fellow sound lovers,

my main work is in 3D graphics and visual media, although I have a very wide range of interests and especially love to combine them.
So I thought some of you might enjoy a glimpse at my new website that I uploaded last night.
It's very special to me, since I show a bit more of myself than I used to...

Here's a link:
http://www.screendream.de

SpiralGalaxySphereWide.jpg

SpiralGalaxySphereDark.jpg

Digital_Nature.jpg

Cheers,

Tom

[ian]

these are some impressive designs! what do you use to make this stuff?

[Maharg]

Nice work.

[Thomas Helzle]

these are some impressive designs! what do you use to make this stuff?

Thanks guys! :-)

The structures above are created in Grasshopper, a plugin for Rhino 3D that is basically a node-based programming environment that I use to create semi-natural things I find beautiful.
The first two images are 3D renderings I created from such a structure with Thea Render, my favourite render engine that is physically simulating real light and materials (copper in this case) and is a real joy to work with. Afterwards I did some post work in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.
The third image is a structure I first created in Grasshopper and then exported as spline curves to Illustrator and later to Photoshop for treatment to the final look.

But I also do photography and use many other tools for my work.

This is from a series of extreme macro images I took of a plum-wine-bottle:
http://www.screendream.de/photography/the-bottle/

Bottle0.jpg

And this a part of the outlet of the "Geysir" in Iceland, mother of all geysers:
(not yet up on the website, the "Iceland" topic is still in the works).

Geysir_Iceland.jpg

I also love fractals, this one is crated in Aphophysis and then further treated in Photoshop:
http://www.screendream.de/design/fractals/

EternalEther.jpg


Cheers,

Tom

[windspace]

I enjoyed browsing your website. Impressive work!

[Thomas Helzle]

Thanks a lot Windspace! After months of coding, creating and writing, it's wonderful to see people enjoying it :-)

Cheers,

Tom

[aoVI]

a really intriguing site, wonderful artwork.

[MaximumMovementTheatre]

lovely work Thomas, what lens did you use for the macro work?

[Thomas Helzle]

Thanks guys! bowdown.gif

For the extreme macros I use a simple "70-300 Sigma DG Macro" with a special ad-on lens from Raynox "DCR 250" which makes it into a magnifying lens.
I once tried a special Canon MP-E magnifying lens costing over 1000.- Euro but didn't find it enough of an improvement to start saving money for it.
My solution is rather versatile, especially outdoors: you can simply take off the clip-on-lens and make normal pictures.
For less extreme magnification I love my Sigma 18-50mm EX DC Macro or my ages old Ixus 75, which somehow still does amazing stuff like the butterfly on my website under "Lifeforms".
I like wideangle Macro a lot and you can't do that with big lenses:

Schmetterling.jpg

My main camera is a Canon EOS 7D though.

Cheers,

Tom

[Thomas Helzle]

Created some more artwork for my fractals gallery that should gel well with ambient:
http://www.screendream.de/design/fractals

ColdEnergy.jpg

Fragments.jpg

The forum scales them down, so I recommend the website and a large monitor for full detail :-)

Cheers,

Tom

[BLOODKRY]

Wonderful art around here!

[stargazer]

Love your macro photography.

[Thomas Helzle]

Hah! Yeah, love it too.
Superfly :-)

Thanks and Cheers!

Tom

[synkrotron]

Fascinating...

I love messing with fractals so I've downloaded Apophysis to try out for myself

Not as easy as it looks haha!

[Thomas Helzle]

Hey synkrotron,

yeah, love it too :-)

Not sure which one you got, this one is what I use (more current than the original one):
https://sourceforge.net/projects/apophysis7x/

You can start out easy by letting it generate a batch of random fractals and then go through them and render the ones you like in high quality, then check out the other tools over time... :-)

If you want real crazy check out Mandelbulb and JWildfire...

Cheers,

Tom