The terrain object was then manipulated in the terrain editor (fig. 2) using the paint tools to produce a crater effect which was then copied and pasted a couple of times. Other terrains were added, resized, stretched and repositioned in to various locations within the scene. These included the mountain ranges which you can see above in the distance (fig. 1)

The standard material preset ‘First Snow’ (which can be found in the Planes and Terrains option in the edit menu) was used to add the desired texture and a custom sky preset was added to get a sense of colour and lighting into the scene.

The next step was to add the ringed planet which is visible beyond the horizon.

The planet was created by selecting a sphere and a torus ring which was then selected and flattened using the ‘y’ control point of the torus object. By aligning the sphere and torus together in top view of the control palette, the objects could then be grouped together using the ‘g’ option and then moved into the preferred position.

The material ‘Jupiter’ from the complex fx option in the edit menu was chosen for the two combined objects. The sky was then ‘tweaked’ using the cloud controls in the sky & fog palette to get a more graduated effect.

Tip: On some monitors it may be difficult to get the full wireframe image and rendered image visible within the confines of the screen. To get around this simply click on the zoom out option in the advanced palette menu then zoom back in when you want to start your finished render.

During the design stages you can also do a ‘quick render’ to see how things are progressing by changing the document setup from 1:1 to 1:50

Go to part 2 of CREATING AN ALIEN LANDSCAPE