My animation is about a small village on Mars. The climate is arid and the landscape is like desert. The village has population of 30 – 40, and has 10 houses like pillboxes, 3 warehouses, and a heliport with 2 gas tanks. The flying vehicle is for transporting both people and daily necessaries. The main street is planted with giant succulents, and some cuctasi are around the village. When I was creating this animation, an image of an oasis village in desert was there in my head. 

These are some nice pictures I found on Internet.

This collage shows the appearance of a small community on Mars. Residential buildings are short and with small windows and thick wall like a pillbox. Greenhouses supply vegetable. Most of the plants still can’t live outside, and only some species of lichen that have strong tolerance of the harsh condition start spreading on the martian surface. Factories and storehouses provide materials like steel, brick, chemical substances, and so on.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars

• Mars’ rotational period and seasonal cycle are similar to those of Earth.
• The gravity is 40% of that on Earth.
• No magnetic field
• Fe2O3 or hematite or rust makes Mars look reddish orange.
• The surface material is basalt.
• The surface pressure is less than 1% of Earth. Since the atmosphere is thin, heat transfer is little and insulation is poor.
• The temperature is lower than that of Earth, ranging from -140 C to 20 C.
• Water exists as either gas or ice and can’t exist as liquid. Large portion of surface ice is two polar caps.
• The composition of the atmosphere is 95% of CO2, 3% of N2, and 3% of Ar. This is quite different from that of Earth; 78% of N2, 20.9% of O2, 0.9% of Ar, and 0.04% of CO2.
• Little amount of methane has been detected.
• The dust storm both over a small area or the whole planet

My animation is going to depict the situation several decades after the beginning of terraforming. People have built inhabitable environment somewhat, but it has just begun, and far from a matured city. The features of the martian environment I mentioned above have following influence on the martian human life.

• The existance of iron is good for making steel, thus good for various industries including architecture and civil engineering.
• 42-52% of the weight of basalt is SiO2. Large amount of glass and brick can be made out of basalt, as described in Red Mars.
• In order to stand the dust storm, the buildings should be short and thier windows should be small, like a pillbox. Since the outside is under low air pressure and cold, the wall shoud be thick for the sake of insulation.
• Since the air is really thin, wing and propeller of airplane don’t work. Because of the lack of O2, jet engine doesn’t work, too. Rocket engine is the only option available.
• Fossil fuel is not available on Mars. Available energy sources are solar electricity, atomic power, and possibly methane gas.

My animation is the takeoff of the airship. Inserting a transitional movement between 2 linear movements makes the animation look natural. I used a geosphere to represent the mountains and the sky. Rendering the frames took so long, and after finishing that, I noticed the sub engines rotating in a wierd way. I felt like screaming ‘Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!’ I hope that is not so conspicuous.

I think the Martian climate is similar to alpine or desert climate, and I refered to succulents when I was making the models. The plants mutate form the succulents into primitive shapes that resemble the plants on the Earth a long time ago. I first planned to scatter red spikes on the leaves of the weed, but even the computer in CADGIS froze when I did that, so I had to remove the spikes. But the file size itself was not so big, it was about 4 MB, so I guess there were some ways to make the load on RAM smaller.

The features of the environment of Mars is cold, a lack of water, strong sunlight, low gravity, and high wind. I think alpine climate is similar to Martian climate. I searched for some images of alpine plants. Succulents such as Agave americana are on alpine area, and they look martian somewhat. And their fiber can be used for making fabric and their sap can be a material for alcohol. So they can be useful for people terraforming Mars. I’m going to make models of Martian plants from these plants.

I did the tutorial for making a tree. The twigs scattered on main branches look a little wierd. And so do the twigs of the sample, too. I wonder if there is a way to specify the angle between twigs and main branches radiationally.