Remarkable how different planets come out from different people, eh?I actually use Lightwave to render the planets, so ours are not directly comparable. I've done some PS planets though, and my general feeling is that using pure 2d results in more "artistic" looking planets. If you want realism, 3d is the easiest way.
Did you use actual Earth world map in that High Orbit picture? I'm having some difficulty finding a high-res picture of earth. Of course, I could use whatever kind of surface map.8k color, 8k spec, 8k bump and 16k clouds, plus some additions procedural textures on the clouds and spec layer. I would have used 16k for all, but LW crashes when I try that :)
Oh, and would you want to reveal how you make that nice blue atmospheric diffuse light that strengthens in the distance? It looks so real that I almost fear my screen will break and the air in my room be gushed into vacuum... well, not really, but almost. :cool:As it's done in LW, I can't help you much with GIMP.
AFAIK they use similar (almost) textures than the models and effects, and textures can be practically as good as you can make them, for example 32-bit DDS (or are they actually 24-bit...?) or TGA pictures.Never ever use 256-color pcx images as backgrounds again. Use 24bit dds for nebulas, 32bit dds for planets. You need the alpha channel in planets or you'll get an ugly black box. 1024x1024 is good resolution most of the time.
Anyway, skyboxes are quite a lot better in most regards as backgrounds than traditional background images, as far as I know. I'll have to check the wiki if there's a skybox howto/description...Normal backgrounds are still very good if done right. Skyboxes are good for special cases, like a mission taking place very near a planet. Here's how I did the big gas giant skybox for the BtRL:
http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/topic/A-Better-Planet-Tutorial-5221-1.html
Read the first post :P
Just use the skybox technique, Its still wrapped around a ball, Just the inside of the ball.
http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/topic/A-Better-Planet-Tutorial-5221-1.html
Read the first post :P
http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/topic/A-Better-Planet-Tutorial-5221-1.html
Read the first post :P
Have you guys even read this link??? It's all about creating realistic textures for planets?????
Well, it *works* until you want to take a look at the poles. With the tutorial, there will be some nasty things going on around the poles.
Surely it depends where, the texture meets though, Ditortion only really applies to the poles, Which are often in the case of M-class (i hate trek) are snowy, gas goants are normally uniform swirl, and rocky ones are just rocky.......
This is one to add to the K-Faq once we master it..........
Ah, I didn't realize you were manually putting the big stars in. I'd been to focused on using finding settings/tools to do it to think of that. ;)
I used noise/hurl because it was the first decent-looking tool that I came across. Works pretty much the same as default noise.
Another cool thing to try with bright stars it to use the sparkle effect (under filters > light effects). It can add some pretty nice eye candy to a starfield or small cluster of bright stars.
I've checked the guide Lt.Canonfodder posted, and (at least at a quick scim-through), looks very useful. Some of the planets the author created are very impressive, too. Definitely worth checking out. :)
Yes... unfortunately that, too, requires some basic skills in editing existing textures. It doesn't tell you how to make a planet texture from scratch.
Herra, thanks for the tips on making gas giants. Seeing all of the fantastic pieces of work you all have made is making me realize something. There is so much talent on this thread, yet the planets of FS are in dire need of variety, higher resolution, and imagination. The planets used in the main FS2 campaign look great, don't get me wrong. They are marvelous improvements over the retail planets, but it gets frustrating when you see these planets being used in other campaigns in completely different systems. I have seen a red Venus-like planet, a red Jupiter, satellites Callisto and Europa with various colors, and Mars being used repeatedly. With all of the various campaigns that have been created, I think it would be nice to enhance the scenery and provide some variety with these planets.
Right now I am working on a set of 8+ planets for Warzone, and I am sure there are plenty of other campaigns which need some high resolution planets, whether they are low-orbit or high-orbit views. If it is all possible, I think it would be great if we could collaborate with one another and provide a form of package or .vp which includes plenty of high resolution planets that can be used for FS. It might be a slow project since making planets is not on everyone's high priority list, but I think it would be worth the wait. What do you all think?
(...)
Then I came here looking for a nice thread featuring planets and stuff, but I didn't really find one! All were like year or two old and had mostly dead links and some people who I've never before seen here, so I decided it was time to make a new topic for planetary art that HLP user pool spews at random intervals. I'll start with two of my planets I made yesterday and today.
(...)
So, what do you think? Also, feel free to post your own planetary creations and stuff. After all, I personally think there's a little too few planets around in Freespace...
there's a little too few planets around in Freespace...QFT :nod:
How do you make rings?
EDIT:
(http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/7415/42592020lx3.png)
I made this one with what I could remember from the turtorial when my internet went down.
and: How do you make good rings?
Here is the satellite, Lava1:
(http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r21/m22587a/Freespace%20SCP/Lava1.jpg)
If this looks like a good substitute, I'll provide a link to the TGA in the other thread.
*snip*
no 3d rendering whatsoever.
Thanks, :).
Turnsky, your planets are beautiful. Do you use GIMP?
Ah, now I see it; still, the high parts seem too narrow.
Idea> instead of drawing up new phases for each planet, why not make a selection of masks to put over them in the background editor? :nervous: If it's feasible. Either the same colour as the default starfield.pof textured or some kind of freaky alpha map using SCPower to "erase/hide" a portion of the image file using layering maybe? :nervousagain: ;)
Assuming you can stack planet textures on top of each other and that it works well too. I don't know if that's even possible, but assuming it is...
I thought of that as well, but the problem is that in a full-lit version you would have the atmosphere surrounding the whole planet with a rather prominent glow. Now, if you would stack a shadow mask over it, you would need to stretch the shadow mask over the atmospheric glow of the underlying fully lit planet.
This would undoubtedly work pretty well, as long as the background doesn't have any nebulae on it. If it had any nebula behind the planet, the stretched shadow layer would visibly show up against the nebula, or at the very least it would be visibly larger than the lit side of the planet.
A possible solution would be to use a base texture of the planet without any atmospheric glow whatsoever, and overlay that with appropriate shadow/atmo-glow hybrid layer. But that would require the mission designer to stack the two planets on the correct positions, then rotate the shadow/glow layer to correct position, and on the user end it would end up using twice as much VRAM as simple baked-in shadow/glow planet image would. I have no idea how much of the actual rendering performance goes to the background and how much the performance would be hit, but every unnecessary bit is too much in my opinion...
Another thing is that with some planets (especially those that are on skybox use and thus are very high resolution) the direction from which the light supposedly comes from can pronounce terrain elevation (mountains) and it could look fairly stupid to have mountains on the surface of a planet and notice that they look more like canyons judging by the supposed lighting. :p
What happened last time when somebody tried to use actual modeled planets?
That would take care of the lighting and shadow - the only problematic area I see is the air coronas. Putting them into the skybox would also solve the scaling issues and make them render after everything else.
What happened last time when somebody tried to use actual modeled planets?
That would take care of the lighting and shadow - the only problematic area I see is the air coronas. Putting them into the skybox would also solve the scaling issues and make them render after everything else.
It wouldn't take care of shadow as FSO has no shadows (yet). Only lighting. Atmosphere could be a problem, but there's also the fact that unless you make the model really high-poly, it is easy to see the edges and know that it is not round (just look at the Earth model from inferno in the last mission :rolleyes: ). There's also the fact that with a skybox, you couldn't scale the planet and you would be stuck with whatever size it was.
Sooo, is that a model or a normal background?That must be taken in game, you can see the FPS!v :nervous:
miniature planets look a bit stupid IMHO, and can't be considered any more realistic than background images.It's what killed freelancer.
Thanks for clearing that up Herra!
It does have promise, but it isn't up to reproducing the same detail a background image can store.
However I think, some sort of hybrid would be needed for low-orbit situations.
Namely, in BTRL when you're close to the planet and have this huge bitmap below you - the lack of geometry and the rendering distortions when you change your bearing inevitably give it away, and it looks - FLAT.
Any idea how one could combine both techniques (high quality pre-baked bitmaps and models) into a good low-orbit planet?
(http://i25.tinypic.com/2yjtx8w.png)
Ditto.
Thanks for clearing that up Herra!
It does have promise, but it isn't up to reproducing the same detail a background image can store.
However I think, some sort of hybrid would be needed for low-orbit situations.
Namely, in BTRL when you're close to the planet and have this huge bitmap below you - the lack of geometry and the rendering distortions when you change your bearing inevitably give it away, and it looks - FLAT.
The modeled planet would look just as flat for the most of time... you can count how long it would take at 200 m/s to change the view point sufficiently for the planet's appearance to change notably (200 m/s = 720 km/h, whoop de doo...). In fact, a model would appear even more flat because you wouldn't be able to cram as much detail (cloud shadows, terrain elevation effects on lighting etc.) onto the model... without inordinate amount of time, or autogen script for planets, and quite frankly there are a few more important things to use the resources on IMHO...
Besides, effectively the only difference you could see would be rotation of the planet, since FreeSpace_Open doesn't (yet!) support orbital mechanics and if it would it would be a nightmare to fly... if you want to try that, load and install Orbiter, start a scenario docked with ISS, then head a dozen klicks away and try docking with the station again... then try to think what it would be like to try and actually hit enemies with primary weapons. :p
Also, if the (habitable-looking) planets are anything like Earth, it would have ~20-30 hour rotation time - not exactly what you would notice very much in a typical mission completion time in FS2/BtRL... in half an hour, Earth rotates a whopping 7.5 degrees.
It would be almost like demanding that the grass needs to grow in a first person shooter game for it to be realistic. No one will spend time watching the grass grow... or planet to rotate. And since orbital mechanics will hardly appear in the game any time soon, if ever, that's the only change you would be able to see anyway.QuoteAny idea how one could combine both techniques (high quality pre-baked bitmaps and models) into a good low-orbit planet?
No, but in this case, pursuing realism is not worth the advantages. If you're a physics accuracist like me, you'll just have to ignore the fact that there are no orbits or gravity in FS2_Open. :p
Let's just go with what looks cool, right.
Alright, I've made them all separate files - I can't make the moons any bigger because destructive changes have been applied. They are all in a 32 bit TGA transparent format that should work in-game :)
I'll make a test run in a min...
(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/2287/planetneozg2.th.jpg) (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=planetneozg2.jpg)
EDIT: Test is not so good with moons... They are too small
(http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/7337/moltenplanet1jm3.th.jpg) (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=moltenplanet1jm3.jpg)
(http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/7337/moltenplanet1jm3.th.jpg) (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=moltenplanet1jm3.jpg)
Easily my favourite............... A new homeworld possibly for my *censored by subconcious mind*
<sidenote> I'm sure that i'm starting to sound like Brian from Family Guy, going on about his novel for years and producing squat<sidenote/>
People, meet the current Ancient homeworld. I'll turn it into a skybox later today.By the time the GTVI get ahold of it, it's a mass of molten lava and glass.
This information has been classified level Omega, and is punishable by death if spread to unauthorised personell. Level Omega clearance is allowed only to selected people at special times.
@everyone: I'm working a desert planet now (VPrime?). Should there be an ocean? It looks odd on a desert planet, but on the other hand, life does require water...The surface water on VPrime is undrinkable even by Vasudan standards, water's most likely found underground, or possibly synthetically manufactured/filtered.
If I make it more beige (muddy), there won't be any difference left between the sea and the desert/clouds.The clouds shouldn't be beige, anyway. But if you make the ocean just one smooth sheet, it will look much different from the textured ground. A different shade of beige would work too.
@blowfish: Like in the one on the previous page?
These pics are excellent but the water effect in the first one isn't convincing...It could be reflecting a different colored sky.
I thought the sea should be yellowish.Agreed, but this looks pretty cool.
That planet looks....decidedly Shivan. Even though we all know Shivans don't land on planets...It looks decidedly Shivan-nuked.
Um... It's supposed to be like so ? 'It's' is correct. 'Its' is NOT correct.WRONG.
...SD Lucifer bombarded the planet with it's flux beam cannons...
I want. It's full size though, right ? It'd be good if it was 2048x2048, but oh well.
I'm a complete idiot, you know.Oh. Now you are the idiot :D
Anyhow, nice planet.
Oh. Now you are the idiot :DI've been an idiot all my life
I'm having some trouble with the sphere designer (that is how you get the terminator, right?). I cant get it to be completely dark on one side while still being light on the other.
*snip*
This planet is actually a render from 3ds Max. It has a radius of 6228.71 km, as scaled in the program (for those who are interested in knowing the dimensions). The planet found in the FS2 intro was a primary inspiration for this render. Compared to the other planets I have done, I would have to say this one is far more subtle in terms of color, even more so than the planet seen in the intro. I am content with the planet as it is, but if you all believe I should increase the saturation in order to make it look more like the planet in the cutscene, I'll make the changes and provide an update over the weekend.
Cool...is that just a part of the full object? :Pyeah, it's a full mars style planet, detail goes right down to individual mountains on the surface, (bout 10cm per pixel for heightmap as a guess) I can only render up to 800x600 because it's a free version of the software I use, allthough I could render a few different angles and stitch the images together if anyone wants it any higher...
...(bout 10cm per pixel for heightmap as a guess) I can only render up to 800x600 because it's a free version of the software I use, allthough I could render a few different angles and stitch the images together if anyone wants it any higher...
Are those... Green clouds? :wtf:[/stupid_question] :p
And are there blue clouds over the green clouds?:rolleyes: You're confused about the brown clouds, eh?
The lake in the middle just looks like a big blue cloud to me.
Getting better. But now it needs to have the brown part over the damaged one. :PBrown part? Damaged part? :confused:
...@TopAce: did you go through the tutorial (link in the very first post of this thread)? It's really good for getting the hang of basic planet-making...
Two things added, is it perfect now? :padd some deserts and shrink the glow on the cracks.
@TopAce: did you go through the tutorial (link in the very first post of this thread)? It's really good for getting the hang of basic planet-making.
It actually reminds me of Mustafar.Well, don't all lava planets?
Well, don't all lava planets?True. I suppose my brother's endless reruns of RoTS is starting to affect me greatly.
...But why does everyone feel the urge to do lava planets? :wtf:
I'm wondering how you all get "map to sphere" to work without horible stretching. :doubt:
How exactly did you do your nightside lava? It looks way better than my crap.To make the night-side emission I up the contrast a bit on the surface texture, and set the shadow layer to overlay, which increases the contrast further. Doing this makes the lightside look pretty crappy, so I fix that by adding new layers over it for color, saturation, and contrast correction. If you'd like I can send you the .xcf file so you can see exactly how that works.
I'm wondering how you all get "map to sphere" to work without horible stretching. :doubt:There's several ways of doing this, some are pretty sneaky. In addition to Herra's methods, you can use the "make seamless" tool to fix the edges, but you'll still have polar distortion. In my case I didn't make it seamless, but instead rotated the sphere so the seam is out of view. Then I paint some dark areas over the nightside which also help mask the polar distortion. :)
Also, what do you mean by "it looks off"? (The light is coming straight from the left here, dunno if that's got to do with it)
BTW, that last planet of yours is looks very convincing. I am impressed with the surface texture in particular.
Herra: I refer to the texture before being mapped-to-sphere being 2k. I'm not sure what "planet bitmap" means exactly, could you explain? The width of the planet itself after being mapped is 1448 pixels (1500 with atmosphere) if that's what you were looking for.
Also I think I'm letting my personal preference of having thick/obscuring atmospheres sneak in there again. I can make a brighter/clearer one as well.
*snip*that planet looks oddly familiar... :wtf:
that planet looks oddly familiar... :wtf:
- Should I keep doing the coastlines or not?
- watsisname, how did you do the polar icecaps?
The nebula is sweet.
Also the blue one (I think it's a1) is a recolored venus. (or it was in retail, before it got high-res-ified)I love those Nebulas. Do more, add alpha channel and release to the community to use along with Ligtspeed's ones :D
Also I made a nebula.
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Planets/AardNeb01.png)
I did a lot of tweaking, and for the most part I like the outcome, although there are still some bits that look a little off to me.
I love those Nebulas. Do more, add alpha channel and release to the community to use along with Ligtspeed's ones :D
What I do if I want a better starfeild effect is make the HSV noise but then go over it with the sparkle filter.
So I can simply copy that image convert to dds/tga and use in-game?I love those Nebulas. Do more, add alpha channel and release to the community to use along with Ligtspeed's ones :D
Nebulas don't have alpha channel, they use black as transparent (additive blending as opposed to alpha blending used on planets)...
This is now also a nebulae thread. :D
This is now also a nebulae thread. :D
I think the combination of Apophysis and GIMP is very useful for making nebula-ish images. And they dont always turn out looking the same in style, which is rather nice. Here are a few examples:
My first attempt: an emission nebula.
(http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/671/emissionneb1gbkc5.th.png) (http://img95.imageshack.us/my.php?image=emissionneb1gbkc5.png)
And here's something of a dark nebula... or maybe a supernova remnant?
(http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/9804/darkneb1gcjy3.th.png) (http://img95.imageshack.us/my.php?image=darkneb1gcjy3.png)
Lastly, a reflection nebula, including some stars.
(http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/8569/reflectneb2dus3.th.png) (http://img516.imageshack.us/my.php?image=reflectneb2dus3.png)
[...]
(http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/6522/aardwolfskybox2gd7.png)
[...]
But I like LightSpeed's planetc more than yours...
Could you tell how or why you like Europa better than my icy moon? :)Well yours looks like random scratches that would happen to a marble while LightSpeed's recoloured Europa seems to have actual trenches...
This time, with BlenderRender using GIMP-made textures. Seems to be a good alternative especially in cases with a lot of features that are dependant on accurate bump mapping...I make a lot of my planets like that. I use blender particles to make atmosphere. it looks okay, good if you want to make a strange effect.
Re: Mobius: I'm not focusing on making a set of nebulae at the moment, but maybe when I've completed a fair number of good quality ones I can release them as a pack. :)
Tonight, though, I worked on a new planet -- a glacial world, inspired by recently reading information on the "snowball earth" theory. Tried to capture that cold, desolate feeling.
*snip*
hit by a giant freeze ray.Oooooor it got pulled into a higher orbit by a rouge gas giant.
not bad. looks like a cartoon.Nah, looks like Doctor Who.
A new frozen planet, this time with more emphasis on variation between frozen oceans and landmass.
edit: changed the lighting
(http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/3119/glacialplanet2f1024wr4.png)
meh, i'm so very rusty at these.
*snip*
Gosh!! how did you got that atmosphere effect?? looks awesome!
Gosh!! how did you got that atmosphere effect?? looks awesome!
The atmosphere effect I used comes in two parts, both are actually quite simple.
To make the atmospheric "ring", use alpha-to-selection on the planet layer (after mapping it to sphere) to select it, then switch to the new layer, fill the selection with the desired atmosphere color, deselect and blur it a little bit. Then reselect the same region as before and erase, and you've got just the ring. You'll also need to erase the section over the darkside, unless the atmosphere has its own lighting effect in which case you can do something different for it.
not bad. looks like a cartoon.
also the atmosphere is the wrong colour.The atmosphere wouldn't be the same color as the oceans, idiot... :doubt::rolleyes:
Made a random space scene. Landscape was made in Terragen. Planet, moon, and stars made in Gimp. Except for the random asteroid thingy on the left. That's phobos. <_<
(http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/659/distantsanctuary3en7.jpg)
So i'm going to assume the land is Deimos or Mars. And in that case, earth/luna are way, way too close
Isn't there already this: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,41939.msg1057800.html#msg1057800 ?Ah, forgot about that. Yes, that'll do nicely.
Though the more the merrier.
(...) a square or sphere would need to be twice as tall as they are wide in order to appear as square or sphere... and then there's the matter of polar distortion. I've posted this image before, but it's a good example:How do you get polar distortion working that good? I'm having severe troubles with it. What I'm doing right now, is dividing my texture horizontally in two parts and polarizing them separately, but somehow the parts don't fit together anymore when I've done that.
(http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/Space/continents_sample.gif)
...looks like this in a "world map" ratio (2:1 instead of a square):
(http://i37.tinypic.com/2hnmmo6.gif)
...looks like this wrapped on sphere:
(http://i33.tinypic.com/2uggr3n.gif)
:blah: Oh well, never mind. I'll try and work my way around it.
I know the lighting on the next one isn't completely correct, but that has a reason ;)
(http://i38.tinypic.com/dmxkxd.png)
:blah: Oh well, never mind. I'll try and work my way around it.
I know the lighting on the next one isn't completely correct, but that has a reason ;)
(http://i38.tinypic.com/dmxkxd.png)
CAPELLA!
Actually, I like it :)
That's a GTA logo. Reminds me of the good ol' FS1 days.Congrats, you've won a cookie! Here it is: O :D
Please don't hit me if this has been posted already but I found this link: http://planetpixelemporium.com/planets.html (http://planetpixelemporium.com/planets.html). High-res versions don't come free though.
It might be of interest, there's some tutorial stuff too for Cinema 4D, Photoshop and Illustrator.
The planets are great! :yes:
Do you take requests? :D
canvas size is 3000x3000 but then I resize it to 2997x2997 so that it works in-game on dds format, for some strange reason, when GIMP compresses the file it doesn't show in game (that would cut the actual files from 35 M to a mere 8 M file).
I still can get a good surface effect, I bumped the earth but as you can see... I get elevation on the shores which does not look realistic.
2997^2 is not any more valid resolution for DDS files than 3000^2. If you need a massive texture, use 2048^2 or, if you need absolutely gargantuan texture, work in 4096^2 canvas size to begin with.
Most of the time 1024^2 is of sufficient resolution for the end result though. Skybox planets are the only thing where bigger planets are justifiable.
Those are very nice. :yes:
So I should use 1024x1024 or 2048x2048 and the planet will show in game even if it is compressed?... I remember having this problem even with namplates on the past and all of the times the smaller file was not working but the bigger one was showing ok.
So what is the correct .dds format to save?
I tried DXT3, DXT5 and 32bit ARGB and all still show the green background behind my planet. I even had generate MIP maps and no mip maps. Same thing. Box filter? Cubic? It works perfectly fine in the .pcx format.
I'm using PaintShop Pro 9 with the Nvidia plugin.
ok, made a new file with transparent raster background, copied my planet and pasted it in the new file, saved it as DXT5, no MIP maps and I still get a white background? Did I miss a step?
I recognize the Shu, and the Vasudan destroyer may be a Hedetet.
I tried making a solar system.
But then I exploded it.
*snip*
nice lighting effect on the planet's surface, what program did you use to do that?Looks like Terragen.
Anything wrong with the mediavp suns? :nervous:
the hole planet looks like an artist point of view... like a painting or something
Can has in ED?
THE SECOND ONE IS AMAZINGGood to hear my biggest critic say that :P
IT IS AMAZINGTHE SECOND ONE IS AMAZINGGood to hear my biggest critic say that :P
Where's the new stuff? :(
We can't use it, so anyone can have it.
Question for the planet artists here: has anyone seen this before, and more importantly, do you know how to fix it? (Effect slightly exaggerated.) Gaussian blur does nothing. I think it's caused by playing with the colour/brightness , but I can't work it away. Even when I down-scale the planet to 2048x2048, it's still visible. :mad:
(http://i43.tinypic.com/28162bc.png)
I suggest you up brightness and contrast a bit though, the ice is still a bit "dirty" now.
that's from another planet!It makes light bleed out of it's source; I.E. the effect you get when you look at the light at the end of the tunnel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_(shader_effect))
it looks really good... and again, wtf is bloom :confused:
ohh I see why I could not find that article in wikipedia, tnks haloAt least say thanks for providing the convieniance of not having to search it yourself :P
@Herra, I think it's something to do with the Shader Tree, I have a similar problem on Vue if I try to put a volumetric object inside a refractive one, such as putting a cloud inside a glass-sphere, the renderer simply cannot handle the kind of maths involved. It's fine as long as the volumetric object doesn't touch the sphere, but as soon as they intersect, graphics hell breaks loose.
I just felt a great disturbance in the Force. It was as though a billion nerds suddenly creamed their pants, and wept for joy.
:eek2: Really liking that. But, a suggestion: We know that Mars is, in terms of temperature, way colder than Earth. That would suggest to me that you would get substantial icecaps, which your terraformed Mars is missing.Artificially-induced global warming? You shovel enough greenhouse gases into Mars's atmosphere, and I'd imagine that you could at least partially overcome its distance from the Sun.
As for Mercury texture, if I recall correctly there is not yet a complete mapping of Mercury's surface (I recall a lot of the images I've seen of it have a big swath of empty space near the northern pole). Might have better data after Messenger enters orbit. =P But then of course I could just render from whatever side has nothing missing. <_< I'll take a look and see. :)The three fly-bys that Messenger has made as part of its complex multi-year orbital insertion have pushed the total mapped area to something like 98 percent (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/media/flyby_20091103_press.html), actually. I don't know how usable the images will be, since they might be a bit patchwork, but I'd imagine there's at least some shot out there that you could use for an in-game graphic.
Remember, only you can... Screw this, get me the heck outta here!
hell :yes:QFT
Clouds are very highNoticed that too, thanks, I'll modify that right away.
terrain very... bland somehow, de-saturated? Hard to tell landmasses from water.
The city lights are somehow strange too. Low resolution, too bright?The map is definitely too bright, also I think I'm using the wrong method to render it, will try to improve it.
Also, the Moon is lit incorrectly, giving an appearance of a very small satellite closer to the view point than Earth.
As far as starfield goes, there's a starfield skybox that uses the real stars as seen from Sol system or nearby space (shameless plug) so you might as well use that. It includes automagical milky way effect caused by dim stars. :pThanks! will check that one right away.
Might I make a request? I see a lot of excellent planets here which currently aren't getting the exposure and use in mods they should get. Would it be possible for the individuals who've made planets in this thread to maybe upload some proper TGAs or DDS files with the correct Transparencies to somewhere like FSMods? It'd mean a much more diverse planetary pallette for mods, and more people making use of your artwork.
Bump, but for good reasons, so don't kill me :P
Sharing this stuff, modeled in blender, origially to be featured in Syrk campaign so I need some feedback on the overall planet.
What do you think? what might need some more work?
(http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/7316/earthattempt4.jpg)
I know it's got no starry background, working on that right now... it's just too hard to find good images from the milky way to use.
nice, how did you make the atmosphere glow?
Just a thought (and maybe it already is)... shouldn't the cloud layer obscure the city lights somewhat?
Textures were from Blue Marble, and I used 21600x10800 resolution textures for this mainly because the higher ones caused Blender to just die in shock. On Linux, that is. On Windows XP using textures bigger than 8192^2 seems to trigger termination of the program.
Woah Rodo :eek2:
That is one fine Earth and moon you got there. The way the lighting, atmospheric glow and planatery lights in the shadow come together.......wowies!
Are you planning to turn this into a bitmap by chance?
Chances are he has at least OVER NINE THOUSAND megabytes of RAM.
The overall brightness was better in the first one, in my opinion.
Why is the haze circular-looking? Shouldn't it be an ellipsoid extending from pole to pole like the terminator is?My understanding is that the intensity of the haze is dependent on the amount of air that a ray passes through going from ground to the observer (same reason why distant mountains look bluish), so it's strongest at the limb and decreases toward the center of the disk, which would imply a circular effect if the planet is in full phase. (See image in orbiter below). But obviously if the planet is not full phase, then the haze intensity would also depend on how strongly lit each portion of the surface is, being strongest at the sub-solar point and weaker near the terminator.
Also, Jupiter should have no atmospheric glow around it as seen from distance like that. Just clear transition from space to planet.
With Jupiter, there is a haze layer at 0km altitude (0.1 atm pressure), with cloud layers appearing about 30km below this point. Pressure drops off to 10-3 millibars at 320km altitude so let's consider this to be the boundary of the visible atmosphere, thus the visible depth of the atmosphere is approximately 350 kilometers (obviously this is a very wish-washy figure since it's hard to say how high up the upper boundary of the visible atmosphere is, but probably 300 to 400km is a reasonable estimate).
Jupiter's equitorial radius is 71492km, so using the 350km estimate of visible thickness, then the ratio of atmosphere to planet radius is 350:71492, or 1:204. You could consider this to mean that a Jupiter planet bitmap of 2048 pixels radius should have an atmospheric halo effect of only 10 pixels thickness.
Doing the same calculation with Earth, we can estimate the ratio to be about 100:6371, or 1:64, which is about three times more prominent than Jupiter's. :)
Something's wrong with the edge of the shadow.
and 2.
(http://casofwar.hard-light.net/images/planet2f.jpg)
I concur. The texture looks pretty stretched on the larger render, but the small one looks great. :yes:
(http://casofwar.hard-light.net/images/planet2ss.jpg)
Good Good, atmosphere is a little glowy on the dark part, but overall it looks amazing, good app you got there mate :yes:
There's some funky green dots in the first one, and some funky purple things on the second...
Yeah, that's looking good. And if you play with curves a bit on that noise layer, you can turn it into a mask that makes it look as if there's water in the lower valleys. It's how I did this (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=41939.msg1201053#msg1201053), a long time ago.
(http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/3793/topacerockyplanet1.png)
I see, so you mapped a sphere with two versions of the same image to get it done.. nice!
I used the same image a while back to make the a sol skybox, but I left the image as it was and it looked cool, but too bright to be realistic I'm afraid.
This is gonna be used on BP and MVP's a presume right?
Another thing, so you resized the original image... how so? I mean, when you resize an image the result will be... well awkward, and the sizes you are talking about seem astronomic.
I guess you had an already big BIG base image to work on right?, (being best to shrink than to enlarge) IIRC the one I used was 6000 x something.
Wait, is that Australia?
Very nice. What textures did you use?
The best moon I've ever ever seen :) . I'll use it in my mods.
[...] that first planet is really alien looking top work
I love your use of a galaxy image to create the rings for the molten planet; it works surprisingly well and was a very clever idea.
your red/purple alien is great too but has a bit of aliasing.
Made what? :nervous:
Got a version without stars?
Got a version without stars?
That I do. When I removed the starfield I noticed some slight errors with the planet edges, but since the defects wouldn't be noticeable in-game I don't think I'll take the time to correct these. I believe I know what I did wrong though so hopefully future works won't have these issues. :)
(http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5081/5219026212_e9f4ed0ea5_b.jpg)
Why is it not on black background?
Actually screw that, why isn't it alpha channeled...? :nervous:
ohh :yes:
good work man, looks really good.
Simple, but very nice :yes: .
Why don't you make the BG transparent? (Alpha Channel)
The planet itself looks good. How long did it take? :)
Well I tried hard to create exactly that thicknes (in photoshops limited 3D engine) so that it looks more 3Dish and not like a simple disk :nervous:Planet disks almost always turn out weird if you do them in 3D. Maybe you should try a 2D one...
I've been messing around with Max and PS.
(http://thumbnails23.imagebam.com/11226/bdd3d4112250084.jpg) (http://www.imagebam.com/image/bdd3d4112250084)
It's still a little too marble like but I still really like it.
(http://thumbnails25.imagebam.com/11388/87f613113870866.jpg)Hmmm... Too much Star Wars, or Mimas images :P.
@T-LoW: HOLY **** that's an awesome galaxy!
I like you red giant. Blue nice to, but is cutted from one side and badly centered :(.
Wow ... that's great. Although I'm not quite sure what circumstances could lead a planet to be dark in the middle and lit around the edges...Perhaps an eclipse by something very big and/or close.
Wow ... that's great. Although I'm not quite sure what circumstances could lead a planet to be dark in the middle and lit around the edges...Perhaps an eclipse by something very big and/or close.
Hey, does anybody have any idea how to make mountains/mountain ranges in GIMP/Photoshop?
I was quite happy with my first planet, except that the mountains were rubbish.
(watch out for thresher maws, they nest on flat areas)
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af356/Retsof90/Gas%20Giant%20tut/8.png)Well, I haven't made a tutorial, but here's the xcf file if you think that'll help.
I found a relatively easy way to make Gas Giants in GIMP. I will post a tutorial shortly.
EDIT: Maybe not so shortly, but I will eventually.
You exit a previously unexplored subspace node in your scout vessel. The following starfield is ahead of you. What do you do?Find a hole in the event horizon!
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/8496/starfieldsm.jpg
Did you use fractal flames for the flares?Yes. :)
That's a hot planet eh? :DVery yes. :D
There is a way to smooth up the corona gradient (by applying gaussian blur to RGB and Alpha mask separately), but since the flares are integrated to the same layer this will ruin them, for obvious reasons.
This is awesome piece of work! You will see your pretty skybox in 13rd mission of Shadow Genesis :).
didnt know the nebula worked with skyboxes
I tested skybox in the mission. It looks nice, but I think the cloulds should be more sharper and the fragment of clear sky above us looks like a sphere.
Yes, so unless the ships used are very small (smaller than a deimos), I don't think this effect is very neat. At least with current fog stats.
Yeah well I'm just sayin. Other people could have other ideas and instead of treating your skybox like a giant gas planet, they could interpret it as inside a nebula and try to make capship fights within it.THAT is exactly one reason why I want to use this skybox....some epic fighting in the middle of a big nebula.
EDIT: I understand how my comments are getting through, look I think the skybox is amazing and that's why I went to test it ;).
Something is wrong with rar with the civilized planet. There is a star bitmap with table, not the planet.
:jaw:
Definitely great work mate; I dont currently have Photoshop sadly, think you could make it ready for use in FRED2? I'd love to make good use of it. =)
Thanks for the reference FSF, it's a great resource to the visitors of this thread. Also, outstanding planet Antares. One of the best I've seen in this thread.
That looks quite awesome!
I don't think I can provide any constructive criticism, since I already believe it's good enough.
Apophysis is indeed awesome, one of my favorite art-related programs. Nice to see another user. :)
Best way to improve is simply to play around in it as much as you can, as sometimes awesome results just sort of pop out of nowhere. Also, try tutorials. Lots and lots of tutorials. There's a few on the main site, and many more on DeviantArt which can be really good.
Your fractal flame there looks like it could be a great start for a nebula. With a few modifications to the transforms (generally I have good luck with the sphericals) and gradient, I think it could be made into a really epic nebula. :yes:
<Flames name="Neb1b">
<flame name="Apophysis-120130-45" version="Apophysis 2.09" size="2048 2048" center="-1.718638474729 1.85283552135807" scale="143.36" rotate="24.47" zoom="0.299" oversample="1" filter="0.2" quality="5" background="0 0 0" brightness="4" gamma="4" gamma_threshold="0.04" >
<xform weight="0.6" color="0.482031613355502" symmetry="-0.574" spherical="1" coefs="0.814588 -0.060332 -0.115277 0.878437 -0.70926 0.789208" />
<xform weight="0.5" color="0.581689505837858" symmetry="0.521" spherical="1" coefs="0.944852 -0.315919 0.068442 -0.889938 -0.695017 0.216552" />
<xform weight="0.5" color="0.0628655210603029" symmetry="0.176" spherical="1" coefs="0.417955 -0.020444 -0.055835 0.378172 0.115182 -0.533555" />
<xform weight="0.5" color="0.710570939350873" symmetry="0.44" spherical="1" coefs="0.155926 -0.423194 0.471974 0.1537 -0.165418 0.008333" />
<xform weight="0.1" color="0.0451876323204488" symmetry="0.128" spherical="0.1" coefs="0.913293 0.042802 -0.036555 0.831232 -0.123252 -0.016151" />
<palette count="256" format="RGB">
795698835AA38B5FAD9464B89C69C2A56DCDAE72D6B576DE
B879E5BC7BEABF7DEDBF7EF0BF7FF0BD7FEFBA7FEDB57DE9
AE7CE3A67ADCA078D59877CD8E72C5866EBD7D6AB57466AE
6C63A664609F5D5F995B629458648E56668954668451667F
4F677B4D67774B687649667447657144636E425E69405A65
3E56603C535C3A4F58384A5336474F34424A323F462F3A41
2D373D2E363B30393D353F423F4B524859624F616E556B7A
5B73865E76866580946C8AA07091AA7293B07093B36A89A8
63809D5C7691556D864E647B475B6F405064394859323E4E
2B3443242C381E242F1A1D2816182213141E11131B0F1119
0F10180F101A10121C121521161A27191F2D1D2433202939
242E3F2732462B374C2E3D53324259354660394C663D516C
405572435877475A7D4B5D824F5F8953628F5763945B649A
6065A06466A66B69AC746DB37D72BA8476C18D7BC89580CF
9F86D6AA8CDDB291E3B994E8BE97EDC198F0C499F1C598F2
C597F0C495ECC193E8BC8FE2B68ADAAD84D1A47CC79A75BB
8F6EB08566A47B5F9871578D6750815D497552426A483B5E
403453362D482E273F262137211D301D1A2A161624141420
12121D11121A10121A11121A12131A12141B13141B13161B
14171C14171C15181D16191D161A1E171A1E171B1E171B1E
171B1E171B1E171C1E171B1D161B1D151A1C141A1B131719
1116181014160F14150D11130C11120A0F10090E0F080D0C
070C0B060A09040907030806020605020504010403000302
000201000100000100000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000002010203030306050609070A0C0A0C10
0D111511151A1519201920261E252C232B332731392C3740
313E4636434C3B4B53404F59445660485B654C5F694E626D
50646F52657053667153657153657051626E4F5F6B4D5C67
4A586348545F45515B424C564049523D454E3A414A383D46
35394333363F31333D30313C2F2F3D31303F343142393346
3C354B433852493B5A503F6358436E614778694C8371518D
</palette>
</flame>
</Flames>
Apophysis-120130-45 {
gradient:
title="Apophysis-120130-45" smooth=no
index=0 color=9983609
index=2 color=10705539
index=3 color=11362187
index=5 color=12084372
index=6 color=12741020
index=8 color=13462949
index=9 color=14054062
index=11 color=14579381
index=13 color=15038904
index=14 color=15367100
index=16 color=15564223
index=17 color=15761087
index=19 color=15761343
index=20 color=15695805
index=22 color=15564730
index=23 color=15302069
index=25 color=14908590
index=27 color=14449318
index=28 color=13990048
index=30 color=13465496
index=31 color=12939918
index=33 color=12414598
index=34 color=11889277
index=36 color=11429492
index=38 color=10904428
index=39 color=10444900
index=41 color=10051421
index=42 color=9724507
index=44 color=9331800
index=45 color=9004630
index=47 color=8676948
index=49 color=8349265
index=50 color=8087375
index=52 color=7825229
index=53 color=7759947
index=55 color=7628361
index=56 color=7431495
index=58 color=7234372
index=59 color=6905410
index=61 color=6642240
index=63 color=6313534
index=64 color=6050620
index=66 color=5787450
index=67 color=5458488
index=69 color=5195574
index=70 color=4866612
index=72 color=4603698
index=74 color=4274735
index=75 color=4011821
index=77 color=3880494
index=78 color=4012336
index=80 color=4341557
index=81 color=5393215
index=83 color=6445384
index=84 color=7233871
index=86 color=8022869
index=88 color=8811355
index=89 color=8812126
index=91 color=9732197
index=92 color=10521196
index=94 color=11178352
index=95 color=11572082
index=97 color=11768688
index=99 color=11045226
index=100 color=10322019
index=102 color=9533020
index=103 color=8809813
index=105 color=8086606
index=106 color=7297863
index=108 color=6574144
index=110 color=5851193
index=111 color=5127730
index=113 color=4404267
index=114 color=3681316
index=116 color=3089438
index=117 color=2628890
index=119 color=2234390
index=120 color=1971219
index=122 color=1774353
index=124 color=1642767
index=125 color=1576975
index=127 color=1708047
index=128 color=1839632
index=130 color=2168082
index=131 color=2562582
index=133 color=2957081
index=135 color=3351581
index=136 color=3746080
index=138 color=4140580
index=139 color=4600359
index=141 color=4994859
index=142 color=5455150
index=144 color=5849650
index=146 color=6309429
index=147 color=6704185
index=149 color=7098685
index=150 color=7492928
index=152 color=7821379
index=153 color=8215111
index=155 color=8543563
index=156 color=9002831
index=158 color=9396819
index=160 color=9724759
index=161 color=10118235
index=163 color=10511712
index=164 color=10905188
index=166 color=11299179
index=167 color=11758964
index=169 color=12219005
index=171 color=12678788
index=172 color=13138829
index=174 color=13598869
index=175 color=14059167
index=177 color=14519466
index=178 color=14913970
index=180 color=15242425
index=182 color=15570878
index=183 color=15767745
index=185 color=15833540
index=186 color=15898821
index=188 color=15767493
index=189 color=15504836
index=191 color=15242177
index=192 color=14847932
index=194 color=14322358
index=196 color=13730989
index=197 color=13073572
index=199 color=12285338
index=200 color=11562639
index=202 color=10774149
index=203 color=9985915
index=205 color=9262961
index=207 color=8474727
index=208 color=7686493
index=210 color=6963794
index=211 color=6175560
index=213 color=5452864
index=214 color=4730166
index=216 color=4138798
index=217 color=3612966
index=219 color=3153185
index=221 color=2759197
index=222 color=2364950
index=224 color=2102292
index=225 color=1905170
index=227 color=1708561
index=228 color=1708560
index=230 color=1708561
index=232 color=1708818
index=233 color=1774610
index=235 color=1774611
index=236 color=1775123
index=238 color=1840916
index=239 color=1840916
index=241 color=1906709
index=243 color=1906966
index=244 color=1972758
index=246 color=1972759
index=247 color=1973015
index=249 color=1973015
index=250 color=1973015
index=252 color=1973015
index=253 color=1973271
index=255 color=1907479
index=257 color=1907478
index=258 color=1841685
index=260 color=1776148
index=261 color=1644307
index=263 color=1578513
index=264 color=1446928
index=266 color=1381391
index=268 color=1249549
index=269 color=1184012
index=271 color=1052426
index=272 color=986633
index=274 color=789768
index=275 color=723975
index=277 color=592390
index=279 color=461060
index=280 color=395267
index=282 color=329218
index=283 color=263426
index=285 color=197633
index=286 color=131840
index=288 color=66048
index=289 color=256
index=291 color=256
index=293 color=0
index=294 color=0
index=296 color=0
index=297 color=0
index=299 color=0
index=300 color=0
index=302 color=0
index=304 color=0
index=305 color=0
index=307 color=0
index=308 color=0
index=310 color=0
index=311 color=0
index=313 color=0
index=315 color=0
index=316 color=131072
index=318 color=197121
index=319 color=393987
index=321 color=591365
index=322 color=788999
index=324 color=1051658
index=325 color=1380621
index=327 color=1709329
index=329 color=2103573
index=330 color=2498585
index=332 color=2893086
index=333 color=3353379
index=335 color=3748135
index=336 color=4208428
index=338 color=4603441
index=340 color=4997942
index=341 color=5458747
index=343 color=5852992
index=344 color=6313540
index=346 color=6642504
index=347 color=6905676
index=349 color=7168590
index=350 color=7300176
index=352 color=7365970
index=354 color=7431763
index=355 color=7431507
index=357 color=7365971
index=358 color=7234129
index=360 color=7036751
index=361 color=6773837
index=363 color=6510666
index=365 color=6247496
index=366 color=5984581
index=368 color=5655618
index=369 color=5392704
index=371 color=5129533
index=372 color=4866362
index=374 color=4603192
index=376 color=4405557
index=377 color=4142643
index=379 color=4010801
index=380 color=3944752
index=382 color=4009775
index=383 color=4141105
index=385 color=4337972
index=386 color=4600633
index=388 color=4928828
index=390 color=5388355
index=391 color=5913417
index=393 color=6504272
index=394 color=7226200
index=396 color=7882593
index=397 color=8604777
index=399 color=9261425
}
To me it looks less like "a" nebula, and more like something you'd chop up for individual nebulae. Still awesome though.
I just don't know, should I render them with an alpha channel and translucent background or with a black background (as it is now)?Alpha Channel, please.
Also, is the Freespace-Engine capable to use this animation? It consists of 1132 frames, each 750x750 pixels. When the image sequence is useful as an texture I will upload it to a file hosting service.
But for the second, the long lines on the surface kind of defy any logical explanation and are distracting.
Europa features long lines on the surface, if you mean straight lines then we might be on an agreement, but there's nothing impossible about a moon surface with long lines.
I would like to rectify my previous sayings about the rings though, now they look amazing... must be the change of background.I discarded the nebula setting and added one similar to the standard starfield backdrop, it seemed to give the setting a little more balance. Also, thx; glad to know it's acceptable. :D
what do you use to render these?It's essentially a mash-up of various tools; the primary one being a Russian space-based engine/simulator which does most of the rendering, with the addition of Nasa's huge maps of various whatnot, with final (and unfortunately, essential) touchups being done by hand in Photoshop.
DO WANT.Un-fixable seam issues caused by initial render; don't want. :nono: For some reason each render is several dozen pixels off amongst other things (lighting issues, degrading distance quality, bla bla etc...)
I was fiddling around with planet rings and decided to try for some ring shadows against the planet. Also, per JCDNWarrior's request, I've uploaded the second skybox (no planets) for public use. It comes with the lossless TGA files and the compressed DDS files (both are at 6*4096x4096 resolution.) Feel free to use as you please; the link is below, instructions are included in the rar file.
Dropbox - MilkyWaySkybox.rar (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/109384068/Skyboxes/MilkyWay2.rar)
You are quite welcome and thank-you; hope it works well in your future endeavors. :yes: It's unlikely that I'll find much time for doing this in the upcoming week, so here's one final one I've finished up (no seam issues finally.) I still liked the other one more, but beggars (such as myself) can't be choosers. :pI was fiddling around with planet rings and decided to try for some ring shadows against the planet. Also, per JCDNWarrior's request, I've uploaded the second skybox (no planets) for public use. It comes with the lossless TGA files and the compressed DDS files (both are at 6*4096x4096 resolution.) Feel free to use as you please; the link is below, instructions are included in the rar file.
Dropbox - MilkyWaySkybox.rar (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/109384068/Skyboxes/MilkyWay2.rar)
Thank you very much, ForeignAnomaly! It looks great - hope to make good use of it in the coming time :) Your most recent update looks incredible as well, and I hope a method could be found to fix the seam issues you mentioned, keep up the good work either way!
I have to admit as well, that is quite spectacular(I wonder if I could get you to do some stuff for my starfox mod)Thanks. As for the mod, I'd be happy to lend a hand; give me a shout via PM and we'll go from there. :yes:
For those curious, I recognize the work of Space Engine (http://en.spaceengine.org/) (HLP thread) (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=76388.0) as the main renderer. You need a very good machine to run it though.Indeed. The main issue is you have to fiddle and patch things up via PS (or an equivalent editor) in order for them to get in-game nicely.
I'm figuring out more and more about Freespace and now I'm at this point; If there is, where do you download planets to use in Fred, and also how do you install them?
then create a empty textfile, paste the relevant entries from here, and save as Stars_add.tbm.
Alternatively, extract the Stars_adv tbm from the mediavps, and add the new entries there.
Just make sure you use your own modfolder as described above, and not the FS2 data folder.
Quotethen create a empty textfile, paste the relevant entries from here, and save as Stars_add.tbm.
Alternatively, extract the Stars_adv tbm from the mediavps, and add the new entries there.
Just make sure you use your own modfolder as described above, and not the FS2 data folder.
thats were i get confused.
skyboxes 'n stuff
I haven't noticed it before. They're cool! Can we have dds or tga files in full resolution?