TITLE: Valles Marineris
NAME: Chris Holtorf
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: lholtorf@nwlink.com
TOPIC: Epic Proportions
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: vallesma.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Terragen

RENDER TIME: 
    67 minutes

HARDWARE USED: 
    2.4 ghz P4 with 1 gig. RAM

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

   Known as the "Grand Canyon" of Mars, Valles Marineris is the largest known
canyon in the solar system. Almost 4,000km long, 600km wide and as deep as
10km, it dwarfs the Grand Canyon in Arizon. 
   My scene is an effort to depict what an astronaut might see at sunrise while
viewing a very small portion of Valles Marineris. 
   The warming sun is creating dust clouds that are obscuring the Sun. The
ground, sky and cloud colors come from a variety of different Mars probe
images. The frost on the ground is an idea taken from an early Viking lander
image. 
   I know its all pure speculation, but it's fun to try and guess what it would
be like trying to take in the immense size of this canyon.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

   I used Terragen to create this scene. I created the ground file and
manipulated it until I got the shape I wanted. I generated my own terrain since
th MOLA data files don't have a fine enough resolution. I then ran through
several view point renders to find a goos spot to look at the scenery from.
Finally, I ran through a number of texture and atmosphere changes before
picking this one to enter. 
   The ground and atmosphere files are available on request (They aren't very
large).