battle1Eng

Battle for Mars 1

'Space Opera'

If I had to choose between all Science fiction subgenres, I'd select, with any kind of doubt, Space Opera. It is the most spectacular and epic of them all and, nevertheless the less putted to use by the film industry. STAR WARS and DUNE are some of the most representative examples , but unfortunately, if we compare with films about enormous beings destroying the Earth, demi-human robots and time travels, the result is quite dispiriting.

The picture has been performed in Max 2 with a 350 Mhz CPU.

Fighters are relatively simple. Each one have about 50.000 faces, except for the farest ones, which are rather optimised and have only 15.300 faces. Apart of the classic meshed objects I have also used NURB surfaces for the pilot's cockpit and the keel.

Design is wholly inspired in naval shapes and recalls the Roman Trirreme because of the keel and the spur.
Hull's textures are made exclusively with Painter 3.5, a very proper tool to simulate dirty, rust and waste surfaces.

To achieve the form of Mars terraformed I had to generate oceans following an altitude map which indicated me the most probable zones where water could be settled. The planet atmosphere is resolved by an omnidirectional light focus with an effect of attenuate volumetrical light.

Drawing Sketch

Mars altitude map