Moving rock............

[yossam]

Death Valley inhabitant. Suggestions, comments, criticisms, and anything else you can think of, are welcome.

[inkydigit]

cool idea!

maybe a longer trail?
some extra detail on the desert surface too?
I like the background terrain as well!

[Zairyn Arsyn]

let the rock race begin... 

maybe make trail longer and more stright.

cool idea.

[:)]

nice. I like this much. not worry about straighter lines, many lines are not straight there (playa racetrack, death valley) just make cracked mud more flat.

[Dune]

Great idea, indeed. If you make it turtles, it has a little more reality, but then again, fun is gone 

[TheBadger]

You could make a great movie out of this idea, just aim it at stoners. One time I watched bubbles rise in a class of something for like 3 hours. That was a long time ago though. The movie could be as long as 80 min, with only 4 or 5 edits. People would watch it and say..."wow man, this is some deep shit."

[yossam]

Made a few changes from the suggestions. I think it looks better.................thanks for the feedback.

[:)]

better: make movie from single frame, so must wait to see if moves, but never will...

[dandelO]

Apparently, there have been numerous scientific attempts over years to try and measure their movement, however small, but none has ever been able to be recorded. A curious phenomenon, considering the length of some of the tracks.

Nice render of a weird subject, I think the cells are just a bit too perfectly edged, some small warping of the noise would be nice.

[:)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=u1hoiHvOeGc

also read this from same page as video: "Seems pretty easy to figure out... get a strong wind that moves the water in a thin layer across the plain, then a quick temperature drop... ICE! then just a brief gust of high wind to get the rock to start moving, and even a lighter wind will keep it going, till the sun rises and the ice thaws again, then the rock seems to have mysteriously moved. It's all just a matter of reducing the frictional coefficient to a low enough point and the rest is easy. It might take a while for these factors to all line up at the same time, so the rocks move only at certain times, over years. And btw  kate, the name death valley is due to a party of pioneers that took a short cut across the valley and got trapped, the rest of that group that stayed on the Old Spanish Trail made it ok. Two men, Lewis Manly and John Rogers went to get help and went back in and saved the families that had been trapped. As they left the area, a woman looked back and said "Goodbye death valley!" not because they all died, but because they had thought they might. Only one member of that group did in fact end up dying after they had left the area."

[ra]

Great idea to give this strange phenomenon a project. The fake stones shaders should be improved, the rest of the image looks good to me.

[fleetwood]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=u1hoiHvOeGc

also read this from same page as video: "Seems pretty easy to figure out... get a strong wind that moves the water in a thin layer across the plain, then a quick temperature drop... ICE! then just a brief gust of high wind to get the rock to start moving, and even a lighter wind will keep it going, till the sun rises and the ice thaws again, then the rock seems to have mysteriously moved. It's all just a matter of reducing the frictional coefficient to a low enough point and the rest is easy. It might take a while for these factors to all line up at the same time, so the rocks move only at certain times, over years.

Here is another factor to consider.
Somehow the rock has to become unfrozen from the ground yet  there must still be unmelted ice around it for it to slide on.
Ice, as long as it stays ice, makes quite good glue (think of trying to pull apart two pieces of frozen food from your freezer)
so a surface rock would at many times be well frozen in place.

Possibly the rock could become free due to the sun heating the darker rock faster than the lighter dirt .