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Description
The environmentalists lost. While man turned his head toward the stars, he didn't notice the ground rotting beneath his feet.

War. Overpopulation. Pollution. The last three centuries were particularly destructive to the planet. The Earth was cut, again and again, and its resources plundered to fuel the New Space Race - itself a desperate effort to abandon our dying home. By the time we had found new homes on Mars, and the further colonies on the moons of Jupiter, there was precious little left except waste. The ice caps melted as the deserts grew, and the people left behind were forced into the already crowded cities. Crime rates, and the sales of filter masks, skyrocketed.

No one knows where the Omega-Thirteen "Ultraflu" came from - or at least, no one's willing to say for sure. Some blame terrorists. Others, God. Many believe it was released by the now-independent and prolific Mars Federation to assert power over its former handlers on Earth. Fire and radioactive cobalt dust contained the plague. Barely. The world's population hasn't numbered in the billions since.

Today, in 2275, the planet remains under quarantine, enforced by thousands of drone fighters stationed on orbital buoys, and the disheveled Lunar-Terran Federation remains effectively a third-world nation, economically dwarfed by the Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn Federations. At a time, some believed only the best of humanity escaped Earth to colonize the Solar System, while the rest were left to rot. Maybe being a bounty hunter has made me bitter, but as I look around me, it seems increasingly evident that rot at the core invariably spreads outward.

-Journal of a bounty hunter

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This piece (and the accompanying story) was inspired by the fantastic sci-fi series Starhunter. In particular, the episode "The Divinity Cluster" depicts Earth as a restricted area due to plague and pollution, forgotten by the rest of humanity.

The planet's surface is a high-res satellite image of the Earth, doctored in Photoshop to look polluted and "darker". The planet itself, and the buoy and drones were modeled in 3DS Max. All other textures made from scratch in Photoshop.

Total time to make, not including procrastination, would be about seven hours. You can see the base colour map for the future earth here: [link]

Made for a weekly contest for #3d-asaurus' .

[edit May 16/2010] Lightened the overall scene, making it more visible on all monitors.

Description
The environmentalists lost. While man turned his head toward the stars, he didn't notice the ground rotting beneath his feet.

War. Overpopulation. Pollution. The last three centuries were particularly destructive to the planet. The Earth was cut, again and again, and its resources plundered to fuel the New Space Race - itself a desperate effort to abandon our dying home. By the time we had found new homes on Mars, and the further colonies on the moons of Jupiter, there was precious little left except waste. The ice caps melted as the deserts grew, and the people left behind were forced into the already crowded cities. Crime rates, and the sales of filter masks, skyrocketed.

No one knows where the Omega-Thirteen "Ultraflu" came from - or at least, no one's willing to say for sure. Some blame terrorists. Others, God. Many believe it was released by the now-independent and prolific Mars Federation to assert power over its former handlers on Earth. Fire and radioactive cobalt dust contained the plague. Barely. The world's population hasn't numbered in the billions since.

Today, in 2275, the planet remains under quarantine, enforced by thousands of drone fighters stationed on orbital buoys, and the disheveled Lunar-Terran Federation remains effectively a third-world nation, economically dwarfed by the Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn Federations. At a time, some believed only the best of humanity escaped Earth to colonize the Solar System, while the rest were left to rot. Maybe being a bounty hunter has made me bitter, but as I look around me, it seems increasingly evident that rot at the core invariably spreads outward.

-Journal of a bounty hunter

----------------------------------------------

This piece (and the accompanying story) was inspired by the fantastic sci-fi series Starhunter. In particular, the episode "The Divinity Cluster" depicts Earth as a restricted area due to plague and pollution, forgotten by the rest of humanity.

The planet's surface is a high-res satellite image of the Earth, doctored in Photoshop to look polluted and "darker". The planet itself, and the buoy and drones were modeled in 3DS Max. All other textures made from scratch in Photoshop.

Total time to make, not including procrastination, would be about seven hours. You can see the base colour map for the future earth here: [link]

Made for a weekly contest for #3d-asaurus' .

[edit May 16/2010] Lightened the overall scene, making it more visible on all monitors.