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Description

LCROSS

NASA's LCROSS mission was a robotic spacecraft that was designed to search for and detect water under the surface of the Moon. A small launch vehicle was smashed into a crater on the Moon's polar region, sending a plume of dust and ice into the air, which was then analyzed by the spacecraft.

This is my rendition of what it might have looked like to be there. There are a few artistic liberties taken, such as the vibrancy of the Milky Way, the sizing of the Sun, Earth and Mars, the lighting (since the polar region's craters are constantly shadowed, it wouldn't be as light as depicted), and the dust plume has already mostly cleared to allow the celestial sphere to be seen.

You can see the Sun, the Earth, Mars (it's small, but it's there ), part of the spiral arms of the Milky Way, the large and small Magellanic clouds, and a ton of stars. One of the small, reddish stars and yellowish stars might be Jupiter and Saturn if you choose.

Tools Used

Photoshop CS5

Apophysis, Apophysis 3D Hack

e-on Vue 8 xStream

3D Studio Max

The Moon's surface is a procedural terrain based on a terrain fractal from e-on Vue with a crater-based fractal layered on top. The Milky Way is around 100 different Apophysis fractals blended together. To get the shape, I started with a NASA image of the Milky Way, then I began to layer the fractals on top until I had the overall shape, then I removed the NASA image and began to develop the structure. I then added some gas and dust around, and then used a few tricks to get the depth. The Earth was rendered in 3D, using a planetary map and a clouds map blended with a photo of the Earth to get the proper depth.

Credits

Earth texture from NASA's Blue Marble

Rocket model from Wiki Commons

for answering some material scale questions for Vue.
whose Vue procedural terrains video is awesome.
for initial feedback on the terrain.
for being awesome.

No critiques on this one please.

Edits
7/7/2010 - Sun removed

Description

LCROSS

NASA's LCROSS mission was a robotic spacecraft that was designed to search for and detect water under the surface of the Moon. A small launch vehicle was smashed into a crater on the Moon's polar region, sending a plume of dust and ice into the air, which was then analyzed by the spacecraft.

This is my rendition of what it might have looked like to be there. There are a few artistic liberties taken, such as the vibrancy of the Milky Way, the sizing of the Sun, Earth and Mars, the lighting (since the polar region's craters are constantly shadowed, it wouldn't be as light as depicted), and the dust plume has already mostly cleared to allow the celestial sphere to be seen.

You can see the Sun, the Earth, Mars (it's small, but it's there ), part of the spiral arms of the Milky Way, the large and small Magellanic clouds, and a ton of stars. One of the small, reddish stars and yellowish stars might be Jupiter and Saturn if you choose.

Tools Used

Photoshop CS5

Apophysis, Apophysis 3D Hack

e-on Vue 8 xStream

3D Studio Max

The Moon's surface is a procedural terrain based on a terrain fractal from e-on Vue with a crater-based fractal layered on top. The Milky Way is around 100 different Apophysis fractals blended together. To get the shape, I started with a NASA image of the Milky Way, then I began to layer the fractals on top until I had the overall shape, then I removed the NASA image and began to develop the structure. I then added some gas and dust around, and then used a few tricks to get the depth. The Earth was rendered in 3D, using a planetary map and a clouds map blended with a photo of the Earth to get the proper depth.

Credits

Earth texture from NASA's Blue Marble

Rocket model from Wiki Commons

for answering some material scale questions for Vue.
whose Vue procedural terrains video is awesome.
for initial feedback on the terrain.
for being awesome.

No critiques on this one please.

Edits
7/7/2010 - Sun removed