Today, the idea of humans living on Mars is looking less like a sci-fi fantasy, and more like an eventuality. Elon Musk’s SpaceX mission has just sent a car to the red planet, and movie The Martian has given us an idea of how mankind can survive there. Now, HP and NVIDIA have set their “Mars Home Planet” challenge, which invites artists, designers, architects and engineers to use VR to envisage an extraterrestrial colony.

The project’s second phase, 3D Modeling, is just about to finish, with around 72,000 students and professionals taking part. Soon, the third and final stage - rendering - will blast off, and this is where Chaos Group comes in. We’ve become a partner for this process, and we’ll offer out of this world prizes for the best submissions rendered with V-Ray. Stay tuned for more details.

Learn more about Project Mars Home Planet
Find out more about V-Ray and download a free 30-day trial