That’s the weird version of MetaLines_00!!! #EmbraceTheWeird
…also the colors are animated along the normal angles, always in a cyclic manner….. Weird trippy style!
A looping micro animation, something looking a bit alien, but organic…
This time I used two sets of metaballs, animating rotation and scale on the geometries they follow.
Also the shader is animated, with one of the colors oscillating along the ramp that defines the circles thickness. It’s a ramp linked to the geometry normal and the viewing angle, so surfaces perpendicular to the viewing plane are opaque and white, while those “more parallel” are transparent/blaack.
Animation are all controlled sine and cosine trigonometric functions to keep everything perfectly looping and harmonic.
If you want more details let me know in the comments, and if you like my works you can help me create more through my Patreon page!
Looping animation: MetaLines_00
Another looping animation, this time I went for an hypnotic movement that makes the viewer dizzy 
I created the animation by distributing circles on the surface of a rotating sphere, then scaling them down according to their distance from the vertical plane cutting the sphere perpendicularly to the viewer.
There’s also a light (around 30°) rotation on the horizontal axis parallel to the viewing plane, interpolated and with its apex at half the total running time (150 frames).
Don’t stare too long, someone is really reporting dizziness after a minute or so…..
If you like my works you can help me create more through my Patreon page!
Looping animation: HypnoCircles_00
MatericLook: Fountain00, photo equipment talk
Oropa Sanctuary, Italy, view
A nice place near the sanctuary, one of the chapels from the “Sacro Monte” at the top. The typical stone fountain is wrapped by curvy paths and on the left it’s possible to see a glimpse of the monumental cemetery.
Photo equipment:
Someone asked about my photo equipment, camera and in general about the stuff I use, while I was wandering around with my tripod…
Let’s say I focus on the functional, I started my digital photography journey with a Nikon D80 I still use sometimes, the lenses I use are mainly three: a general-purpose zoom (18-70mm), a wide angle (10-20mm) and my personal favourite: a fixed 50mm F1.4 FX format lens.
The last one is a terrific value for your money, even for a small-format DX camera, has extreme DOF capabilities and allows for shooting in condition otherwise impossible without a tripod or flash. The sensor will also get a lot more light than with DX lenses, with obvious advantages.
Just keep in mind that if you’re using it in a smaller sensor camera (DX) it will have the field of a 80mm lens, more or less. If you have some dubts or don’t really grasp the whole sensors/lens relation, a hands-on approach it’s here: http://bit.ly/24wTvIB
It will give you direct control on experimenting cameras and bodies characteristics…. The whole theory is a bit more complex that that, but we’ll keep that for a specific talk about lenses, where I’ll give some more specific suggestions 
Regarding the camera body I’m using now… we can say I’m still trying to make art my primary source of income, so I couldn’t spend a lot, I opted for a D3200, cheap and somewhat crippled compared to the D80, but the sensor is waaay better in terms of sensitivity and resolution.
The choice comes from reading a lot of photography blogs and asking around, every photographer will tell you that it’s better to spend on lenses than on bodies… lenses last longer and let you use the camera in more ways and wider conditions, generally they have a much larger impact on your creations.
Other equipment I use are some few fast SD cards (if you’re shooting also videos or fast sequences), a remote trigger (IR or cord) for long exposures and multiple shots without vibrations, and some tripods… I have a few but lately I settled for a small low-end Manfrotto that is cheap, light, and small enough to fit in a backpack or hand luggage when flying.
Depending on your needs there are also very small but sturdy tripods that can easily fit in a medium-sized camera bag. Just choose one that is solid enough to not tip over when supporting your camera and lens – this seems banal, but it’s difficult to find such a thing if you really want the freedom to orient your camera as with a “real” tripod (always talking of not-too-long lenses).
Another useful option I have in all my lenses is a neutral filter for protection. In this way you can clean the filter, less sensitive and cheaper than the lens itself, it also offers a barrier against accidental impacts.
I also have a flash and a few other lens addons, we’ll talk about those in the future, when I’ll write about set-photography or taking pictures inside… I’m currently building an automatic turntable for product photography and the results are promising!
I hope to have given some useful infos, if you want some more details just ask in the comments.
If you’ve find this useful or you want to build some good karma and spread happiness, you can help me through my Patreon page (also by sharing it!)
Thank you!
-Francesco
Looping animation: Another small and playful one as a GIF…
I like the unstable look given by the flickering and the “2D or 3D?” impression.
It’s very simple, I just deformed a geometry with a moving 3D noise field, the only other animated parameter being the deformation scale:
I started with a basic solid, a buckyball (combination of hexagons and pentagons, the name comes from Buckminster Fuller, that could be another subject for a talk on geodesic structures…), then mapped the vertexes positions to a noise field, moving across 1 axis with a 50 frames period (so each 50 frames the field is in the same exact position).
The same scaling is then multiplied by an animated value going from 0 to 9 across 24 frames at the start, the opposite at the end of the animation (149 frames total), so it will smooth out and make the animation looping. Animations are interpolated for smoother transitions.
I used a black and white not interpolated ramp, mapped to the surface normal angle, as shader color and opacity. It’s a simple black ramp, (0) getting totally white (1) at around 95%.
If you like my works you can help me create more through my Patreon page!
Another looping micro-animation: Geoloop_00
MatericLook: Old Heater, A short story & Remains00
Remains00
Old Heater:
“The only entry could be through a broken and very small horizontal window panel… the lowest one has some dangerous shards that it’s better to remove before crawling inside. It’s also good practice to take a look inside before just falling in…. and that’s a good idea, the floor is near and it’s a lot better to push myself in facing upwards, to not get stuck or hit with my legs the other glass panels.
There’s barely the space to push my torso in…. …holding my breath!…
In a few seconds I pass through, the room is huge, should have been a workshop or something similar. near the other end the darkness is almost complete, let’s go check it out…
The floor is almost empty, almost nothing has been left behind when the building was abandoned, only dust, dirt and the occasional rubble pile. The dark zone hides the remains of a demolished brick wall, behind that an innatural blackness surrounds everything, the light from my torch doesn’t penetrate… what?
Approaching the darkness I understand what’s going on: the whole area is covered in a thick layer of black dust, coal, probably… There are a pair of giant holes in the walls, it seems were furnaces. However the floor isn’t really visible, there are broken bricks covered by the black powder and I can clearly see at least a large hole that could be dangerous. In any case it doesn’t seem an area particularly interesting, I think it was carefully emptied years ago.
I go back near the entry point and explore the area there. There’s a wooden panel separating this from another section, it’s possible to push a kind of door, some nailed boards mounted on hinges, and pass through.
The other side is more “lively”, also abandoned, but probably less years have passed since someone was there. Other panels divide smaller sections, workbenches here and there, nothing else left behind except for a zone near a corner.
An old heater’s there, probably left after the plant was closed, and some kind of filter and regulator for an air compressor or some other type of gas tank.
Looking around is possible to see various other tubes and filters, near the abandoned sideboards lay some old hand tools.
Maybe the heater has been used by the person that lived in this space not so many years ago. It’s not electric, so he/she could have used it to protect himself from the freezing winters, common in this region. Under one of the workbenches thare’s a large shelf for tools, large enough to sleep on it… there are some shredded clothes stuffed inside… a sort of nest.”
If you like my works you can help me create more and get something in return through my Patreon page!
Another one of the small animations found in my Patreon page…
If you like this or some other works I’ve done, please consider supporting me on Patreon!