Great Valley Picture, what is the distance?

[Malte279]

In the context of the map work of the game I would be very interested in your estimation of the length of the Valley in the above section. What do you think is the rough distance between Littlefoot and the mountains at the opposite end of the Valley?

[DarkHououmon]

I don't know how long 1 kilometer is, so I wouldn't know.

[The Chronicler]

You do know how long 1 mile is, right? 1 kilometer is equal to about 0.621 miles.

But if you're not some math genius with a calculator (like me), you could just say 1 mile is similar to 1 kilometer.

[DarkHououmon]

Nope I don't know. I hate math, actually. It was my worst subject in school and I nearly didn't graduate because of math. I know some basic math, but once I get into algebra, then things go downhill for me. As for conversions, I often look it up online because, other than knowing 12 inches equals 1 foot, I don't know measurement conversions that well.

[JitteryDragon]

*Warning, incoming maths person*

Okay, if we assume the mountains at the end are the actual end of the valley. Judging by the size difference between them and the mid-point mountains on the left (which we can assume, from Littlefoots placement, are at least 2 kilometres high), there is about twice that between those two points (I'd guess about 5 or 6 kilometres).

From Littlefoot to the mountains right at the end, I'd total about 8 or 9 kilometres in length (which is roughly 5 to 5 and a half miles). Maybe more...

It sounds like alot, but a kilometre isn't much (1000 metres, Littlefoot would be close to 1 metre in length... so we really should be measuring in Littlefeet )

[Serris]

I know for a fact that in a place roughly that high in clear weather you can see for roughly 10-20 miles (16.09 km - 32.19 km).

[Mumbling]

Whew, that's a hard one... I'm never really good at measuring things, but seeing how small littlefoot is and how far below the valley must be I'd almost say over 5km.

[SouthPawRacer]

I estimated for my fanfic a while ago that Littlefoot, or any longneck his size, when on all fours, stands a bit shorter than the height of an average-sized man (size-wise that makes the most sense to me, but we'll never know, so feel free to disregard...)

Anyway, I reckon that Iris is about right... from the size of Littlefoot and the trees, anywhere from 5 to 8km is in the ballpark.

[landbeforetimelover]

Sorry Malte, but those are pretty bad poll choices.  In order to support all those dinosaurs, it'd have to be at least 20 kilometers in diameter.  Dinosaurs are HUGE creatures that require a lot of food and space to roam.  If the Great Valley has mountains and such in it, it should be even larger than 20km.  Since a mile is only 5,280 feet and a kilometer is even less than a mile, an answer of 1km was just ridiculous.  

If we think of how the Great Valley could have been created, it might help.  Maybe an asteroid collision?  Some of those create craters that are HUNDREDS of kilometers in diameter.  Perhaps a shift in tectonic plates under the earth pushed up great mountains that just happened to form in a circle/square all around the great valley?  If that's the case, the mountains would be VERY far apart.  Now I know the walls of the great valley don't look like mountains, but during the shift they could have easily crumbled and collapsed under the enormous shaking.  

I'm going to guess and say 50 kilometers.  I hate to put such a small number to it because of so many other facts that we hear of in the movies such as "There's plenty of room"(referring to the great valley).  It's probably larger than this, but I can understand how a field of 50km might be a problem in a game.  You'll probably have to scale it to 5km anyway.

Just look at how much space giraffes need:

Giraffes live in herds of up to twenty animals. Herds can be all-female, all-male, mixed, or female with young. Home ranges vary from 2 to 252 square miles (5 to 654 square kilometers), depending on food and water availability.

[Malte279]

Sorry Malte, but those are pretty bad poll choices.

I would a 100% agree with you Austin if I was thinking of that picture showing the entire Great Valley
The map of the game however will be based on the assumption that what is shown in the original movie was only a small section of the Great Valley as otherwise many of the landmarks of the sequels (a volcano to begin with) would not really fit into that image from the original movie.
Currently I am trying to fit the Great Valley onto a map that would measure 15km x 15km = 225 square kilometers.
I have devided that map into 25 "sectors" each of which would be 3km x 3km.
What I am mainly trying to figure out is how many sectors would be covered by the section of the Great Valley in the original movie. My original plan was to fit that entire section in one sector, but I have come to realize that this might be rather narrow and also might distort things as the valley section we see in the original movie is clearly longer than wide, in any case not a square-like shape.

The size of 50 kilometers would on the one hand be cool, but on the other hand it would be quite a burden on the performance of the program with the resources we have. Moreover we have the characters cross very large parts of the Valley in an entire day in several movies. Therefore the distance probably can't be quite as large as 50 kilometers square. At a trot of 20 km/h it would still take about an hour to walk from one end of the map to the other (since you won't be able to walk as the Pterosaur flyes (unless you happen to be one ) on the map which will include many obstacles be taken into account.

My apologies for the metric system to those of you who are not used to it. But not only am I personally used to that system but also it is just a LOT easier to work with such a simple decimal based system (1kilometer 1000meter = 10 000 decimeter = 100 000 centimeter) than it is with the not so regular system of miles, yards, feet, and inches. Especially when working with different scales the later system is really a pain in the... especially for someone like me who is not good at mathematics

[Malte279]

PS: Another thing that may depend on the outcome of this pol (again it is NOT about deciding the size of the entire Great Valley) is whether or not the "Sharptooth Lake" of the original movie is to be included on the rim of the Great Valley map or if that would eat up too much space of the Valley so it would have to be dealt with separately once we start working with sections of the mysterious beyond (remember the game is not meant to be limited to the Great Valley so those 225 square kilometers will be only the beginning).

[Malte279]

PPS: For reference 225 square kilometers would be a little less than the roughly 232 square kilometers covered by the City (not metropolitan area) of Boston.

[DarkHououmon]

Dinosaurs are HUGE creatures that require a lot of food and space to roam.

Not all dinosaurs are large. In fact, most species were roughly the size of a horse or something, if I remember correctly. But yeah the valley does need to be rather large to support the larger species of dinosaurs, such as the sauropods (longnecks), which are the biggest dinosaurs (some grew over 100 ft long I think).

[Malte279]

Judging by the size difference between them and the mid-point mountains on the left (which we can assume, from Littlefoots placement, are at least 2 kilometres high), there is about twice that between those two points (I'd guess about 5 or 6 kilometres).

As for the height of the mountains, I would not consider them quite as high. The view of the Valley reminds me a bit of this location in Yosemite National Park:

But unless I am misinformed (which I may be) those rocks tower something between 900 and 1500 meters above the surrounding ground (which would be higher than sea level so the peaks of the mountains to may be higher if measure above sea level rather than above the surrounding ground). A kilometer is not quite so short if it comes vertically.

[Coyote_A]

10 people think it's more than 5 kilometers... Who am i to disagree?

[Kor]

Why not do like the writers did, it's as big as the story needs it to be, with the fact it can get larger later on.

[metadude1234]

i reckon it would be about 15-18 km

[Noname]

That sounds about right, metadude. Maybe 20km for the farthest ones in the distance.

[Alex]

Well @OMGFacts tweeted a few days ago that a sunset's horizon is about 3 miles from where you stand...theoretical physics and all that...more than 5 kilometers.

[Kor]

3 miles? Interesting.  It could be larger since that is real world physics.  But we are working with cartoon physics here which are very plastic and pliable.