[jdjtcagle]

What dps (pps) is recommended on planets?  Without running into performance issues?

[ShadowGorrath]

Looks much better. The green parts look undamaged though, and the impact part looks as if nothing really happened ( though I think that's because the picture is uploaded in such a small size here ). Other than that, great. 

[Snail]

Are those... Green clouds?

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Are those... Green clouds?

[/stupid_question]

[Snail]

Again, green clouds

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Usually land is green, clouds are white. I just decided to have a lot of clouds on this one because, well, I'm still not pleased with the surface.

[Snail]

And are there blue clouds over the green clouds?

[haloboy100]

It reminds me of a ying and yang...

[FreeSpaceFreak]

And are there blue clouds over the green clouds?

You're confused about the brown clouds, eh?

YES I'M WORKING ON IT !!!

[FreeSpaceFreak]

*double post to get your attention*

Getting better?

[attachment deleted by admin]

[ShadowGorrath]

Getting better. But now it needs to have the brown part over the damaged one.

I was away from the PC so couldn't view it.

[haloboy100]

The lake in the middle just looks like a big blue cloud to me.

[Droid803]

The lake in the middle just looks like a big blue cloud to me.

Ditto.
Very nice though.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Getting better. But now it needs to have the brown part over the damaged one.

Brown part? Damaged part?

And OK, I'll see what I can do about the lake.

[TopAce]

So, I downloaded GIMP and gave a try to this planet-making business. Unfortunately, gimptalk.com seems to be down, so I couldn't get my hands on any relevant tutorials. So I was left on my own to discover all the tools. But that's not my biggest problem with planet making yet. It's about getting my atmosphere right.

My first planet looks like this:



I tried Herra's way (posted on the 1st page), but for some odd reason it doesn't work. Either I did something wrong, or simply misunderstood something. I did the following: Drew a black background with the Bucket Tool, and assigned it to Layer 1. Draw the planet (no clouds; Layer 2). Did the third layer: a gray circle 10pxs thicker than the planet's surface, set its opacity to 82%, and pulled it one level down in the layer hierarchy to be below the surface layer. What have I done wrong?

Well, the clouds are weird, too. If you can give me some advice on making clouds, please do so.

Thanks.

[EDIT]I found a tutorial. It works. The clouds are gone, because I forgot to make that layer visible when saving. I don't really mind. Look:

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Not bad at all. The atmosphere in the second one is a bit too thick however, it should be more like in the first one.

And yes, creating good clouds is (IMO) the most difficult part of planet-making. Personally, I use layer masks, but I'd recommend you to experiment and find a way yourself. That way you'll get to know the GIMP better. Oh, and do some of these tutorials as well: especially the two floating logos have helped me a lot.

[blowfish]

Looks like the surface needs to be sphereized...

[Herra Tohtori]

I basically make textures for planets but haven't learned to use a full fledged 3D rendering program to utilize them to fullest, so I use GIMP's map to object (sphere) function and let that take care of shadows and lighting... for the most part. Getting aquainted with some rendering program is on my to-do list... probably Blender.

Clouds... make some Plasma, greyscale, then IWarp and adjust brightness/contrast with good taste to create swirly and stretched and different cloud patterns. I can post some shots of the phases later today. Perhaps. If I can bother. Also, Polar Distortion function is very great in making textures that don't have any polar distortion when mapped to sphere, but getting it to work correctly is a bit time-consuming since fitting the northern and southern part of the polar distorted texture together is not very easy and requires some creative thought...

[FreeSpaceFreak]

@ SG - Is this what you meant? The dust clouds over the lava? Or was it something else?

@ everyone: Removed the lake. Better now? Please comment.

[ShadowGorrath]

Now if only I could see it