The Planet X Files #15

In Commemoration of NASA’s latest Mars Landing Attempt. (I just couldn't resist this!) Title: Splashdown Mars All colors used in this picture were extracted from photos released by NASA and the Hubbell Space Telescope. (Believe it or not!) Environmental conditions are based on what we currently know about the Martian atmosphere. The terrain model is from the survey of the southern polar region, in the area of the landing site, on Mars, taken by the Viking Orbiter. The sky and land portions were rendered with Terragen separately. The land being rendered twice: first with the snow, water and vegetation: second without The moon and the grass used in the foreground were created in 3D StudioMAX. All post processing was done with Adobe PhotoShop 5.02. Post processing and composition:

a.. I laid a black background, created a star field and placed the satellite into position.

b.. The sky, from Terragen, was layered on top making it 20% transparent to allow the moon and a slight hint of the stars to show through. The layers were collapsed.

c.. The WATER (from the first rendering of the terrain) was moved to it’s own layer and made 25% transparent.

d.. The area covered by the water (from the second terrain) was moved to it’s own layer. The rest was discarded.

e.. The two terrain layers were combined showing snow and vegetation above the water line and only rocks and sand below.

f.. The Viking Lander was bent, battered, broken, bruised, shadowed, sunk, reflected and placed center stage. The lower portion (below the water) was placed behind the Water layer. All layers were collapsed.

g.. The "Martian" (going to inspect the Lander) was rendered in PhotoShop (using colors from NASA photos!) and placed into the foreground.

h.. Grass (created in 3D StudioMAX) was placed in front of, and behind the "Martian" allowing the terrain generated by Terragen to show through in the foreground. The entire scene was collapsed to a single layer.

i.. Final processing consisted of applying a guassian blur and unsharp filters to give the appearance of a photograph. No color correction was done.

Note: The Terragen output was converted to 30"w x 22"h x 300 dpi for post processing and required over 2.6 Gigabytes of my hard drive to complete! Unfortunately the subtle indications of the stars, Viking Lander and land below the water do not show up in the 640 x 480 version but show nicely in the full size print (if you look real close).

"They were all so wonderful.I found it difficult to pick the top three."

"liked the martian!"

"wonderful creativity"

15

Splashdown Mars	Thomas W. VanSant
In Commemoration of NASA’s latest Mars Landing Attempt. (I just couldn't resist this!) Title: Splashdown Mars All colors used in this picture were extracted from photos released by NASA and the Hubbell Space Telescope. (Believe it or not!) Environmental conditions are based on what we currently know about the Martian atmosphere. The terrain model is from the survey of the southern polar region, in the area of the landing site, on Mars, taken by the Viking Orbiter. The sky and land portions were rendered with Terragen separately. The land being rendered twice: first with the snow, water and vegetation: second without The moon and the grass used in the foreground were created in 3D StudioMAX. All post processing was done with Adobe PhotoShop 5.02. Post processing and composition: a.. I laid a black background, created a star field and placed the satellite into position. b.. The sky, from Terragen, was layered on top making it 20% transparent to allow the moon and a slight hint of the stars to show through. The layers were collapsed. c.. The WATER (from the first rendering of the terrain) was moved to it’s own layer and made 25% transparent. d.. The area covered by the water (from the second terrain) was moved to it’s own layer. The rest was discarded. e.. The two terrain layers were combined showing snow and vegetation above the water line and only rocks and sand below. f.. The Viking Lander was bent, battered, broken, bruised, shadowed, sunk, reflected and placed center stage. The lower portion (below the water) was placed behind the Water layer. All layers were collapsed. g.. The "Martian" (going to inspect the Lander) was rendered in PhotoShop (using colors from NASA photos!) and placed into the foreground. h.. Grass (created in 3D StudioMAX) was placed in front of, and behind the "Martian" allowing the terrain generated by Terragen to show through in the foreground. The entire scene was collapsed to a single layer. i.. Final processing consisted of applying a guassian blur and unsharp filters to give the appearance of a photograph. No color correction was done. Note: The Terragen output was converted to 30"w x 22"h x 300 dpi for post processing and required over 2.6 Gigabytes of my hard drive to complete! Unfortunately the subtle indications of the stars, Viking Lander and land below the water do not show up in the 640 x 480 version but show nicely in the full size print (if you look real close). "They were all so wonderful.I found it difficult to pick the top three." "liked the martian!" "wonderful creativity"