POLAR · the station under the aurora
A station through the polar night. The ice is a grid lifted by a radial function: the station ring is flattened, ridges rise outward, and it all falls back to zero near the edge so the horizon does not curl up at the border of the grid. The aurora is a hand-laid curtain whose every point takes its position and brightness from the same function — several horizontal frequencies weave the vertical striping, and a sine envelope softens both edges, so the whole thing drifts rather than hanging there like a painted board. Snow keeps falling, stars only fill the upper hemisphere, and the lamps on the modules are the only warm thing in a very cold scene. The ice, the curtain, every flake and every star are computed at runtime — no models, no textures.
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The station ring is flattened so the modules sit on solid ground; the outer edge returns to zero so the border of the grid does not curl. Both seams land exactly on a constant — miss by a little and a step shows up on the horizon.
The curtain is not a texture but a mesh: several horizontal frequencies weave the vertical striping, a sine envelope softens both edges, and every point’s brightness is multiplied by that envelope. A texture would give itself away the moment it moves — a texture can only slide as one piece.
With reduced motion preferred, the aurora freezes at one frame and the snow hangs still; what remains is still a station you can drag and zoom.
