One terrain, moving light. A 24-second study of a fixed terrain and viewpoint, with light direction making one complete circuit at 30° elevation. Actual CDW-generated linework, assembled offline; the direction sphere is composited from the app’s control.
The orbit and tilt controls let me look around a terrain. I also wanted a clearer way to move the light while leaving that view alone.
The question started with hatching: if we know where the light is coming from, can the drawing put more line density into the shaded parts of the surface? That was part of the terrain work before the new light control appeared. The newer addition is a sphere that makes the direction visible, alongside the cube used for orbit and tilt. The numeric controls are still there for setting the angles precisely.
Moving the camera changes which faces of the terrain I can see. Moving the light changes how those faces are described. The hills can stay in the same place on the page while the balance of the linework changes around them.
For this study, the camera and terrain stay fixed while the light makes one complete circuit. The light stays at the same height, so there is only one changing variable to watch. The hatching shifts across the same peaks, making it easier to compare the different readings of the surface.
Black paper and pale ink make this especially interesting. The paper supplies the dark ground, and the pen gives the terrain its visible structure. Where lines gather, separate or fall away becomes part of how the surface reads. The earlier single-pen plot in my black sketchbook was a physical test of that idea; this animation gives me a way to look through more lighting choices before selecting a drawing to plot.
Each frame uses CDW’s generated linework. The sequence was assembled offline, with the app’s light sphere placed beside it as a direction indicator. It is not a recording of the application responding in real time. The lighting describes the surface through linework; it does not simulate one mountain casting a shadow over another.
The full movement helps show the range of possible drawings. The work on paper will still be a choice within that range: where the terrain reads clearly, where a denser passage helps, and where the black of the paper can do the work.
