[BlasterNT]

Thanks!

Heh.  Celestial objects.  "Stellar"

[mandobardanjusik]

ok I am issuing a Challenge, if we still have people working on random and general celestial objects and starscapes, I have a gauntlet for you.
I am developing a Starfox mod, so I have an interesting dilemna, I am setting up both retro style levels and modern(64) levels, so one of the biggest tricks in the general starscapes, and appropoate celestial objects, so I was hoping I might have someone interested at having a go at it? so I was wondering if you could have a go at a go at making the props for Retro feeling levels, and modern feeling levels

for the retro I am hoping for you to draw directly from the original SF backgrounds, here is a good site for reference http://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/starfox/index.html, mainly space, but I do have the slight challenge of seeing if you can do a starscape based off the venom background that is as if you are in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant(thus still space dynamics), ok so I hope you are willing to go at it, so goodluck, tell me what you think and I do hope I can get a bit more interest in this thread, and get some interesting results you object makers, so farewell, I do hope for some results

oh and SF64 themed levels are welcomed as well, and modernized versions of classic ones as well

[Herra Tohtori]

Something I'm working on... sort of.

[headdie]

interesting, you using a smudge script on the moon? the shape of the "swirl" is very unnatural

[Rodo]

mmm, probably a noise / cloud or plasma texture with somekind of effect applied to it from Gimp, though I cannot identify the filter.
Is it gonna be the base for a cloud or terrain texture Herra?

[Herra Tohtori]

That's no moon...


What I'm aiming for is not unlike this:



This is, basically, just a "base detail" texture. I will apply it to a coloured cloud layer, then add banding with smaller turbulent details as well as storm systems on top of that.

The swirls on the texture are made with IWarp filter.

[Rodo]

I see, post some pics of the results later on if you can.

[watsisname]

Looking forward to your results, Herra.   I kind of want to give gas giants a try again, maybe planetary rings too.  It's been a while since I've tried that stuff.

[mandobardanjusik]

guess I didnt get much interest in my challenge?

[Shivan Hunter]

I was bored yesterday, so I took some base textures and made them into three mostly-featureless muns. The first two are only 512^2 and are really only good as muns- the third has an atmosphere and is 1024^2 so it can be used as a planet.

I used this metal texture from google (and another I can't find again), and this texture from here. These kinds of textures can be made into muns/planets very easily- if anyone wants, I'll put up a tutorial.

Each mun/planet has four phases.

















Note: Imgur converted these to .jpg since they're relatively large, and thus lost the damn alpha channel- for the full set in png format click here.

[Rodo]

Personally I think it would be better to have the shadowed part completely or almost completely black, unless there's plans to add two light sources on the scene from which one would provide the lesser lighting on the dark side.
Aside from that, you kinda nailed it with the textures for the moons.. specially with the first one. The planet looks ok as well, but probably not that interesting because of the repeating pattern on the surface and monochromatic color.

[Scourge of Ages]

Hey very nice looking planets there, Shivan Hunter!
I think though, that the two moons need a bit more variation in the texture. For the first one, it could be explained by some really stupid huge asteroids just streaking across the surface leaving gouges. But for the second, the long lines on the surface kind of defy any logical explanation and are distracting.

The tutorial I found for these suggested duplicating the base texture a few times, rotating, and then merging them all together again. It breaks up any uniformity and makes 'em look a little more natural.

The planet looks really nice, though I think the perspective/spherize effect could be a little stronger as it currently looks a little too flat along the edges.

EDIT: Hey again mando, check these out:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=41939.msg1482836#msg1482836
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=41939.msg1359533#msg1359533
And guess what they're intended as...

[Rodo]

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.

[Scourge of Ages]

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.

Huh, so it does. Cool. Still, the ones on Europa aren't quite so uniform.

[ForeignAnomaly]

With Rodo's help I've been fiddling around with seamless Skybox's as of lately. I'm aware of the minor tear in the upper right corner; a quick cover up in PS (as seen in the second pic) should solve that. Opinions?

[Rodo]

Nah, it's not like I've done that much, and as I said the product you've got there is amazing.

I would like to rectify my previous sayings about the rings though, now they look amazing... must be the change of background.

[ForeignAnomaly]

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. 

[ForeignAnomaly]

No planet this time around, instead I patched up the seam issue.

[JCDNWarrior]

Excellent work. I'd certainly enjoy to have such high quality skyboxes available for my own use. Great pictures as well; keep up the good work.

[ForeignAnomaly]

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