Pursuit Over Xanadu by geirla
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Description
This is another attempt to get the colors right for Titan. I don't know if the terrain is anywhere near correct, but it looks like the fjords of my old homeland. The image is mostly Bryce -- I did the lighter rim around the fjord with a second set of terrains, limited by an intersecting cube and very slightly raised. The Saturn is the same as my last image, but layered and twisted in Photoshop. The smoke over the ridge is Ron's fog brushes and I did some postwork: blurring for the Marauder's engines and brushwork to dim and blend in Saturn. Ships are my constructions in Bryce.
Again, thanks for viewing and commenting.
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Gunships and fighters can't stand on the line of battle. Get within a light-second of a real combatant and we're pretty much toast, pummeled by x-ray lasers. But drop us into an atmosphere and the rules change. Those fancy one nanometer lasers can't penetrate the soup and drone missiles start to break up past about fifty kps. That’s when guns and light missiles can start to matter again.
The Martians took Phoebe and Janus on their sweep into Saturn, but those of us that got out had two places to break. For the inner bases, it was Saturn and its rings. For us, with Phoebe under bombardment, Titan was our best hope to hide and fight back.
Five gunships made it into the sheltering smog. The Red Marines came in after us, and then it became a game of cat and mouse: ambush and run, close terrain flying, bad visibility and gun battles over the fjords and valleys over northern Xanadu.
Yes, it was terrible and terrifying. Yes, we lost in the end, most of us killed, the rest captured or smuggled from one resistance cell to another for long cold years. But I have to admit, I miss those days, the duels in the valleys under orange skies and the great ringed world.
-Lt. Cmdr. Karla Vorno, Commander, VS106 Avenging Angels
Comments (5)
e-brink
Great palette again for an alien world. Very alien atmosphere. NIce action.
grafikeer
Nicely done...like your colour schame and POV...nice effects with fog brushes!
clam73
nice atmos and scene....good!!
kjer_99
A fine action render! I read somewhere that the highest elevation on Titan is 300 meters, but have always wondered if I misread that. If it was a realistic Titan Saturn would be a bright blob of light at best from what I understand. However, I'd do as you did and try to put it in the sky. One thing, though, the rings look off-centered. I suspect--knowing you--that this is not carelessness nor accidental. Explanation? Good writing as ever.
geirla
Jeremy (and other how might care): I'm not going to claim to be an expert on Titan's geology, but the radar images Cassini has take give some regions the look of rugged topography, especially in the norther lakes region. As far as elevation, I find a Wikipedia reference to mountain ranges up to 1.5 km high, which would not be out of line for my image. Personally, I doubt the mountains would be that steep, but as I say, I'm not sure. As for Saturn, yeah, I doubt it could be seen from the surface unless you could see in the infrared. The rings are almost straight on, but the shadow is what you see draped over the planet's surface.