[3,14]

I haven't done this myself for some time now, the images I posted are two or three years old, I'd have to familiarize with the matter again if I were to make something like these now. But as I learned of the freespace modding community (and especially of 'Fate of the Galaxy') I thought maybe someone could use them.

[Nyctaeus]

Good backgrounds are always welcome

[Molaris]

wow, is there any way I can download any of these!?

[3,14]

Well, I lost the Blender-Files for the two planets so you'd have to take the images as they are. Concernig the sun, I'm just rerendering the image sequence, the animation is now looping, probably better suited for an animated texture. 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)? 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.

[Enioch]

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.

Nope. First things first: image dimensions need to be in powers of 2 (512x512, 1024x1024, 2048x2048 etc). Secondly, I believe that 1132 frames' worth of memory would kill most low-end rigs, and probably some of the higher-end ones. Not sure about that though - ask around.

[3,14]

OK, so I'll have to shorten it a bit and rerender once again. That could take some time though, as there are a lot of parameters to adjust and I don't know how much time I'll have to spend in the next weeks and months. I'll try to work on it but I can't promise anything.

[3,14]

OK, so I shortened the animation to 500 frames (even shorter and it would get completely uninteresting I think). The image size is now 512x512 pixels and I rendered them with an alpha channel.
Here you are (if there is interest I can also render a longer and bigger version, like here: http://vimeo.com/38826513 ):
http://www.filehosting.at/file/details/327076/Sun.zip
I think it looks best when viewed around 10 frames a second.
Concerning the planets, as I said, the Blend-files are lost but I think it can't be too difficult for anyone to cut or resize them and add an alpha channel.

[BlasterNT]

Here's another planet (this time a ecumenopolis):


click for full 4000x4000 glory. 

planning on adding more tile variations and brighter nightlighting as well as a central traffic network

here are the existing tiles:

day:


night:

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Hmm, the tiling is quite noticeable, and you have some weird artifacts around the terminator (especially near the south pole). But the overall colours and mood are very well chosen No rivers/lakes/oceans anywhere?

[BlasterNT]

Thanks!

Yeah, my plan is eventually to be able to make every tile unique, this was more of a test to see if the overall effect works.  Should be relatively quick after I get a couple of photoshop actions set up, and the tiles are noisy enough that they appear seamless without any special work.  When I get to it, a unified transit network should break up the tiling as well. 

Not sure what is causing the artifacts, I'll look into that some more. 

Rivers and lakes are present, just all underground.  Perhaps a surface lake here or there, but I'll get to that.  Planning on adding some polar caps as well. 

[watsisname]

For a proof-of-concept that's pretty dang nice.  The points I would have brought up have already been discussed, though I do want to add that the atmosphere and lighting are excellent.

[Droid803]

maybe you could paint some larger arcs of lights over top (ie coruscant) to "hide" the tiling? (then again I'm just a sucker for giant circles).

[BlasterNT]

That's basically what I meant as "transit system".  But I'm also trying to rationalize those circles in a way that makes sense, and I can't think of a way to do so such that they'd contrast/be thick enough to really stand out--I mean, courscant style, you'd basically have almost dark regions to WTFBRIGHT areas, which doesn't really make sense, except as dedicated all daylight zones or something. 

In any case, I think I'm going to go for a more river/circulatory system style of branches of light. 

[BlasterNT]

A gas giant!

[Nyctaeus]

A-WE-SOME! I'll use it in my Ultima Cena project.

[BlasterNT]

Here's the dds.  It's rotated a little oddly, but shouldn't be a problem to correct. 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/215663/EMP%20Transfer/Planets/Jolan.dds

[Retsof]

OOOh.  What program did you use?  How much of this is the magic of solid-noise and layer filters?

[BlasterNT]

I used max, and followed hoevelkamp's outstanding tutorial here: http://hoevelkamp.deviantart.com/art/3ds-Max-Planet-Tutorial-127582479. 

Only two maps and 4 materials actually.  A base map, which you can get by taking a 1 pixel slice of any old photo (rocks work the best), and stretching it (and I used liquefy and procedural clouds to add a bit of variance), and the NASA blue marble cloud map. 

As for the materials, there's a base, which is just the base map, and two cloudmaps which you can create by setting the base as the diffuse color, and a tiled and stretched cloudmap as the opacity (and bump).  And then just apply the materials to several concentric layers of rotating spheres. 

[watsisname]

Very nice gas giant!  Love the color and banding.

[Antares_Z13]

Your gas giant looks stellar BlasterNT. I sent you a couple of PMs. Can't stop looking at your gas giant though...