2004: Here I present the Ocean that rules the humans on the Solaris station as I imagine it. When I read the book last I made notes on all descriptions Lem gives on the scenery. Here’s in short what I found:

  • There are two suns, red and blue. Following that there are a red and a blue day.
  • The Ocean is black.
  • Sometimes the Ocean is covered by a sticky yellow fog.
  • In the vastness of Solaris just a few islands exist. They are the only land the astronauts could set foot on.
  • The Ocean creates shapes of various kind, called Mimoids and Symmetriades.

The software I used to create these images is Bryce 5. Bryce allows a very natural treatment of the elements of our visible environment with regard to lighting effects. A problem that arises out of this is that under red or blue sunlight there can IMHO not be any yellow fog because it is impossible to mix yellow from red or blue. All three are the basic colours from the primary colour wheel. I chose cinemascope as aspect ratio because is best reflects the vastness of the seascape.

My view on Solaris is definitely not influenced by the 1972 or 2002 movies. The latter being a visual catastrophe. Somebody called it a psychedelic screensaver but to me it’s even worse than that.