this is Fleck, they are a madcom character that appeared into rainworld because of an anomaly
OMG HIIIIII LOOK AT THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOOK AT THEM OMG I LOVE THAT SM OMG EVERYONE LOOK AT THEM
wait omg you have requests um um
this guy and his scug named Ranger please... if not, then either one is just fine
Didn't mean to get this to you so late, i got busier than I thought I was gonna be :p
sometimes you feel lonely
I absolutely love how this went. First time I did hair and legs and liked it!!!
One thing Rain World does very well is portraying a sense of scale when it comes to iterators. They're massive superstructures large enough to have entire cities built on their roofs, and their processes are literally so powerful that they alter the natural environment around them.
I think in-game they're kind of meant to be unknowably huge, especially since the player character is literally a small animal who can't possibly fathom an iterator's entire extent. Despite this, I decided to try and figure out exactly how big they are.
Just a warning, this post is a bit long. I really fell down a rabbit hole here.
Five Pebbles and Looks to the Moon are the only iterators that the player can explore, but they're so huge that it's impossible to see exactly how big they are from so close. The only glimpse we get is from atop the big tree in Outer Expanse, where Five Pebbles' superstructure can be seen in the distance.
He's so big that his entire can doesn't even fit on the screen.
(Ditto, minus the clouds)
With nothing else close by to compare him to, it's almost impossible to tell exactly how big he is from this image.
However, we can see the entirety of other iterator cans in the distance from atop The Wall.
Here's what they look like not obscured by clouds:
I made some assumptions about iterators to make my calculations easier.
An iterator's can (the large rectangular section) is 2 times as wide as it is tall.
Their legs are 1/2 the height of their can.
Their can is half obscured by a relatively uniform cloud layer.
These assumptions might not be entirely accurate, but they make the math easier.
At first I was tempted to try and estimate iterator height based on the cloud layer surrounding them, but I made the mistake of assuming the cloud layer is made up of rain-bearing nimbostratus clouds (which can reach up to 5km in height). This would make them literally taller than Mt. Everest. Iterators are big, but I don't think they're that big. I think it's safer to assume that the cloud layer is made up of low-lying stratus clouds that form a thick fog.
The way iterator rain functions could be an entirely different discussion, but I personally think it's caused by a sudden expulsion of large quantities of hot water vapor which very quickly condenses into rain clouds. A topic for another time, maybe. The takeaway is that I think the weather created by iterators doesn't have a clear analogue to real life weather, and it's misguided to assume that they function the same way.
One thing that iterators have that can be compared to real life, however, is cities.
The largest buildings in these cities can be seen at a distance.
This in-game iterator sprite is 122 pixels tall, and the tallest building visible is 20 pixels tall. This means the top of this iterator's can is 5.6 times as tall as the tallest building on its roof.
We can compare these skyscrapers to the largest buildings on Earth. This requires some additional assumptions:
While the civilization that built the iterators is likely able to create skyscrapers much taller than the ones humans have created, I'm going to assume that the ones visible here are comparable in size.
I'm also going to assume that these skyscrapers are residential buildings, built to fit a high population density on top of an iterator. The tallest buildings on Earth tend to have very tall antenna spires which add to their overall height but are not inhabitable. Residential skyscrapers tend to be significantly shorter, so I'm going to use them as a comparison rather than the tallest skyscrapers on Earth in general.
According to Wikipedia, the current tallest residential skyscrapers range from about 300 meters to 475 meters tall. I'm going to assume the one in-game is 400 meters tall, as a nice even number.
5.6(400m) = 2240m
This would make an iterator's height, from ground level to the top of their can, about 2240 meters (2.24 kilometers, 1.4 miles).
Here's a diagram comparing that to the heights of some of the tallest free-standing manmade structures:
And here's a size comparison between a typical iterator can and Mount Everest:
Smaller than a mountain, but still huge.
Based on these estimates, I think typical iterator cans are about 2 kilometers (1.24 miles) in height.
This would make iterators significantly taller than anything created by humans, but I personally think an advanced society like the one that created the iterators would have no problem creating a structure this tall. (They canonically created thousands of iterators, after all.)
This estimate is also much shorter than my misguided original calculation, which made them taller than an entire mountain. While I do think iterators are meant to be unfathomably huge, I don't think there would be enough material on the planet to feasibly create thousands of identical mountain-sized superstructures. The player is also able to ascend from the ground to the top of Five Pebbles in just a few cycles (if they're quick), and I think it's much more feasible for an animal like a slugcat to be able to ascend a height of ~2km in a couple of days than to climb up an entire mountain. But again, this is pure speculation.
I made a ton of assumptions and rounded a bunch of numbers, so I could be completely wrong. There's probably other ways you could try to estimate an iterator's height that I haven't explored here. Let me know what you think; I love hearing about other people's ideas and theories.
Thank you for reading!
hell yeah
tumblr has given me too much power
Rain World Ostober 3 - Urban Jungle
little tiny disclaimer, there might be delays in posts as i have afterschool study hall like all week and some days next week. also i just generally dont know whenever i'll be able to get onto tumblr to post lol so theres that
anywho, theres not much to say. i was going to ramble abt outskirts a bit but im not quite in a rambling mood rn, maybe later. i'll just say thou that i love it lol. as always, i winged it with the background