Visualization of Riemann Surfaces

This animation depicts a disk of the complex plane as it is acted upon by a range of polynomial equations. For the most part, f(z) = z*(z^k - 1) for k=1 to 6. A blend of three different functions is used to control the height coordinate. Spherical shapes are generated using stereographic projection. I wrote custom scripts to model and animate the geometry. For presentation I used a dielectric glass material and a ’final gather’ lighting setup.