Mankind has been making preparations for space travels -- possibly leading to ordinary men wandering in terrestrial worlds in the future -- just as they have wandered on Earth. While we are not yet there, a new short film created by an animator and digital artist from Sweden could give us a glimpse of what it could be like for man to explore other destinations in the Solar System.
"Wanderers" is a depiction of man's space exploration. The video is basically a short science fiction film with impressive and photo-realistic graphics and effects, all of the locations that were shown in the video are not fanatical at all. They were not a brainchild of an imaginative mind because these are creative expansions of worlds that do exist.
Erik Wernquist, the creator of the film, said that the interplanetary scenes depicted in his film were created using photos and textures from scientific institutions such as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is responsible for operating the U.S. space agency's Deep Space Network, and the European Space Agency (ESA).
"Although admittedly speculative, the visuals in the film are all based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens," Wernquist said. "All the locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available."
A scene showing a group of people waiting for the arrival of dirigibles depicts the edge of the Martian Victoria Crater. The actual landscape had been photographed by robotic rovers Spirit and Opportunity in their exploration of planet Mars. Wernquist said that with a photo captured by Opportunity, he was able to map the landscape into a three dimensional model.
"With this picture, taken by Opportunity in 2006, I could map the landscape onto a 3D-model I built to match the terrain and create a very accurate tracking shot of the place, and then add a few human elements to make the scene alive," Wernquist said.
Wernquist wrote on his website that his short film, which featured the voice of the late Carl Sagan, is a vision of humanity's future expansion into the Solar System. As to what motivated him to make the film, Wernquist said that he hopes that mankind will someday populate the moons and planets that he digitally made.
Watch this short science fiction movie here:
