Breeding Grounds
Social Networks. Molecular Clouds. Neuronal Circuitries. Quantum Mechanical Structures.
Blurring Boundaries. Infinite Self-Similarities.
Total. Mess.
Perfect. Order.
Breeding Grounds is inspired by the assumption that both the brain and the cosmic web are very similar in structural design. This can also be found in many other subsystems of the universe, such as Social Networks or molecular clouds. Thereby either biological or physical factors play a role and influence these systems in a certain way which leads to these similarities. Breeding Grounds should not be another fractal algorithm, but more an abstract idea of the topic. Especially since a distinction must be made between fractal systems (self-similar) and those described above (not self-similar). Fractal systems are an important component of the Universe, therefore I didn't want to leave them unmentioned at least in a lyrical way.
Palettes
dissolve-in-fog
reduced
Each palette (with three exceptions) comes with a reduced version (only the core colors are used) to achieve different effects. With the full palette you sometimes get very washed out, with the reduced version somewhat more defined outputs. Note: the background colors in the following are included in the respective palettes, but not in the "swatch" overview.
reduced
shimmering echo trail
reduced
sundial visitors
reduced
stellar parallax
reduced
thinking about the fireworks
reduced
dream after dream
reduced
time intervals for sushi
reduced
gradation between gathering
reduced
slumbering biome
reduced
collapse into the roof
reduced
motion sickness of gravity
reduced
floating sunset radiance
new-born roots
All color palettes at once
nothing but everlasting white
Other Features
Painting Ground
linen canvas
bamboo
flax canvas
handmade washi
light wrapping paper
window in a ship
To clearly see the differences, it's best to look at the tokens in live view and/or download a png by pressing "s". All textures are generative.
Preliminary Drawing
cope without it (no grid)
need a little help (very light drawn grid)
accidentally grabbed the sharpie (the grid is fully shown)
The Preliminary Drawing is the actual subdivided grid on which all elements in the artwork are based. This feature tells if and how much this grid is visible.
Trails
confused particles (no trails)
light
medium
heavy
deep connection (very thick trails)
Determines the thickness of the particle trails emanating from the cores. The first time I experimented with the stroke weight and changed it to 4 px (deep connection), I was blown away by the complexity of the outputs and the change in the overall appearance.
Connections
The number of polygons that make up the cores. The cores are the main actors of Breeding Grounds and everything revolves around them. They are made up of polygons. The higher the number, the fuller the cores appear. I added circles to the corners of the polygons to illustrate the idea of nodes connected in a network.
1
42
166
PoV
distant
fly-by
trapped in the network
Inner Connections
If the cores consist of less than 20 polygons (see above), we can catch a glimpse of the inner architecture of the cores.
visible
invisible
Symmetry
aligned
chaos
Indicates whether the cores are aligned to the grid or rotated randomly.
Color Distribution
macro
micro
The respective color palette can be distributed either per core or per polygon. This leads to interesting and sometimes very blurry results.
First of all, thank you for making it this far. Breeding Grounds has become like a good friend to me, and seeing it come to fruition has made me really proud and sentimental at the same time. And I still am.
Aside from the whole brain-universe comparison, one of the more technical approaches of Breeding Grounds was to take beautiful and innocent color palettes and mess them up by mixing and layering colors a thousand times. Similar to how gas and matter in molecular clouds are clumped together and formed into something larger. This often creates a depth effect reminiscent of volumetrics. However, in the HQ outputs, it becomes clear that these "volumetrics" are made up of thousands of razor-thin lines that only blend together at the right viewing distance/zoom level.
An important aspect of Breeding Grounds is that it’s also intended to exist in the physical world. I therefore offer to anyone who wants to make a print of their iteration to export an HQ version of it. I didn't want to just make this available as a direct export from the code, because it's always nicer to talk to each other in person and possibly customize the output. Just send me a DM via Twitter (@pxlshrd) or Discord (pxlshrd #8590).
nostalgia emphasis chamber
Our position as an observer.
To express more precisely what I feel for and about Breeding Grounds, Sermin (who is responsible for the names of the palettes) and I have created an accompanying playlist. Here is the link to it.
Thank you!