This collection was born after an in-depth study on "Perlin Noise", I previously used it in other projects for simple functions, but it was never the main trait; in "Stratificazioni" I wanted most aspects of the project to be dictated by it.

At the end of the project any minuscule choice taken to generate the final piece is decided through various functions based on noise, the only parts decided by randomness (fxrand) will be the choice of features and perlin noise seed.

First explorations.

After exploring which patterns I could create in the first few days, 4 ideas on developing a whole collection stuck with me:

- Pseudo geographical maps;

- Artworks inspired by marble, rocks and their veins;

- Artworks inspired by the organic patterns that we see in cells;

- Abstract artworks inspired by Rorschach tests.

After exploring all the different possibilities that came into my mind, I decided to go through with the rock patterns, since recreating the mineral stratifications (which translates to Stratificazioni in Italian) of sedimentary rock was particularly inspiring to me.

First row: pseudo geographical map & marble. Second row: organic & Rorschach test.

In order to obtain a pleasing result, I spent a long time perfecting parameters that are processed by the different functions that make use of noise, functions whose main goal is to pick a color through hue, saturation and brightness.

Even though the pattern was getting close to what I envisioned, the various iterations were lacking depth, a quality necessary to really display the different rocky layers. The necessary breakthrough came when I tried adding more layers with different alphas in order to get a more realistic result.

Two images generated by the same seed. On the left without layering on the right with layering.

Features

Palette

In "Stratificazioni" the palette isn't simply a set of colors, every single color is made up of different parameters that specify the minimum and maximum for hue, saturation and brightness, with an additional parameter indicating its frequency in the composition.

The various colors together and the order in which they are rendered, make the palette unique, not just for the colors but also for resulting patterns; some palettes will generate patterns resembling marble layers, others granite ones, others the mineral veins inside rock layers. Twenty-two palettes are available in total.

Texture

Texture is very significant on the patterns followed by the various colors in the composition. There are 4 possibilites:

- Standard: the most common one, generating an output that resembles a simple rocky stratification;

- Wooden: stratification colors are less various and are not constant on both axes, generating patterns that are vaguely resembling of wooden veins;

- Dappled: stratification colors are more various, generating spotted patterns;

- Extreme: range of values given by the noise functions is expanded, output is very different from the standard in various ways that are dependant on seed; we could obtain extremely saturated results or monochrome ones, results where the veins are more frequent than the standard and much smaller as well or, on the contrary, less frequent and bigger.

Top row left to right: standard, wooden, dappled. Bottom row: 3 extreme iterations.

Erosion

Type of erosion impacts the curvatures of veins in the composition, the values available are: Smooth, Average and Rough.

From top left smooth, average and rough erosion with same seed.

Persistent

Outputs that get this value as True will show pattern consistency through their various layers.

Two images generated by same seed. On the left persistent is false on the right is true.

Margin

Margin dimension.

Interactions

By clicking some buttons you can interact with the artwork:

- Press [s] to save the output in .png format;

- Press [g] to show or hide the grid that divides composition in quadrants;

- Pressing [0] to [9] shows different views of the same artwork, ordering the various quadrants in a different way;

- Press [r] to reset the configuration values to default ones.

Four views of same artwork (with active grid).