HomeGallery

These landscapes were rendered in Terragen from heightfield maps derived from photos of places in outer space. The photos were converted to gray scale and imported into Terragen as heightfields as both positive and negative versions. For the Omega Nebula, the stars were edited out prior to importing to avoid towering spikes in the landscapes. The positive heightfield produced narrow, towering ridges, while the negative produced deep canyons. The positive image of the sunspots was used to create lakes, while the negative image yieled table lands.

Omega Nebula Grayscale Positive Grayscale Negative

Omega (or Swan) Nebula
(Hubble Space Telescope)
Barren Gorge
Barren Gorge The Sentinel The Guano Fields Stairs to Despair Hullbreach Harbor Sinking Causeway

Sunspots Grayscale Positive Grayscale Negative

Sunspots
(1-meter Solar Telescope, La Palma, Canary Islands)
The Rift Dragon's Roost Ashen Lakes
The Rift Dragon's Roost Table Top Greater Lake
of the Sun		 Lesser Lake
of the Sun		 The Cliffs Ashen Lakes
Animation:
Solscape (31 MB)
 Solscape

© Robin C. Chapman 2006