Well I saw this monolith in the news about a month ago. Basically, all the news networks and late night shows reported that a “mysterious” monolith suddenly appeared in many locations around US and later the world just to disappear a few days later. I thought this was a very lame idea so I wanted to make fun on it and at the same time sharpen my 3D skills using Gaea from Quadspinner.

Here is the base model terrain. Gaea allows you to create any type of terrain using nodes so you can make randomized variations with a few simple clicks. Also, you can apply satelital textures to the geometry and play around with the results, like add snow, water, erosion, etc.

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After basic terrain modeling, I did a few experiments exporting the mesh to 3Ds Max and refining textures in photoshop changing things like gamma or contrast so I could obtain better results in max with these changes on the bitmaps.

Finally, I used Forest Pack Pro to scatter vegetation and rocks around the site. Rendering was made in Vray using atmospheric perspective and some Color Correction in the frame buffer, also little bit of Photoshop for final touches.

Enjoy, send me a chat for any further questions!