[watsisname]

I don't think I've seen it... do you have a link to it by any chance?

Also, I've been working on a desert-planet, like Mars.  Suggestions are welcome.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

I'm looking for a place that doesn't resize my new wallpaper, 1680 x 1050, about 1.5MB

[FreeSpaceFreak]

I like the shadow on the other one better, and I think there should be a southern polar icecap as well. After that, it would be nice in-game.

[Colonol Dekker]

Woot Kharak

[Topgun]

it looks too washed out imo, try lowering the overlay opacity.

[watsisname]

Hmm, now that you mention that, I agree.  I think the haze effect was too strong.  Reduced that, plus a small change to the surface colors, plus the polar ice.  I'm still undecided on whether or not I like the icecaps there, if you all like 'em then I'll keep them on.

[qazwsx]

I think the haze effect was fine, just the wrong colour, a muddy-orange, like mars' atmosphere (due to dust storms) would probably work better.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

New computer -> new wallpaper. Slightly cropped to fit within tinypic's limits. The planet is full size, the moon is about 1000 x 1000.

[Retsof]

That. Is. AMASING !

[Herra Tohtori]

Just for kicks - try and duplicate the cloud layer on that planet, then reduce the size of the lower layer by perhaps 0.2-0.5% (finding a good value is determined by testing); then use that layer to act as shadows cast to the surface of the planet, darkening the surface under the clouds. It creates a pretty convincing effect of the clouds having altitude without much of fancy tricks by lighting. And it looks off, move it a pixel or few to some direction depending on where the light is coming from.

Also you could try bumpmapping the cloud layer with itself, it tends to add some depth to the clouds in my opinion. It's only noticeable in high resolution, but IMHO it's worth it anyway.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

@Retsof: Thanks

@Herra: I did the shadow layer and the bumpmapping, but somehow they have no noticeable effect. I probably pulled up reflectivity and intensity too much for mapping, I think I'll redo the whole cloud layer.
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)

[Herra Tohtori]

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)

I mean that when you just put the clouds' shadows to the surface of the planet, they are directly "under" the clouds themselves. If the light comes from left, moving the shadow layer a few pixels to the right could make a difference regarding the perceived altitude and direction of the shadow of the cloud. In some occasions the shadows could look off without this adjustment; sometimes not. It's pretty much case-by-case basis to get it look good.

This is a good sample of how the clouds look on high resolution; the planet is BrandX's Corellia and it's originally lower resolution, so the planet might look a bit off, but it's still a good showing of the clouds themselves:

[watsisname]

Wow, that's beautiful.  The surface texture is top-notch.
Regarding clouds though, maybe it's my personal preference but I don't feel they should be brighter than icecaps.  (If we are dealing with water-clouds and water-ice, anyway).  Taking earth for example, the albedo of clouds compared to ice is actually very close:
http://www.endeavours.org/sec/main_images/fullsize/apollo17_earth.jpg

Regarding old Marsy, I've made some considerable changes to it, especially with the surface.  It's a very powerful technique, I think, to add several different layers with various modes together to make one surface texture.

[TopAce]

The surface is good, but it needs more clouds.

[M87]

@Herra Tohtori:

Thanks for the tips. When I was talking about saturation, I was not referring to the color of the planet's atmosphere. That is primarily effected by the effective temperature of the parent star and the composition and density of the planet's atmosphere. I was referring to the saturation of the surface texture. Take a look at any image of Earth taken from space and you won't see neon green vegetation. I know this slightly deviates from canon, but I wanted to make something convincing and subtle. Obviously the planet I'm working on is not Earth, but I wanted to make it Earth-like... with a thicker atmosphere with higher concentrations of methane and airborne chlorophyll.

I also had the clouds on a separate mesh, but I forgot to increase its height. The bump map is also present, but the image of the last version of the planet was taken at a far distance from its surface. Such details like mountainous terrain would not be distinguishable from these large distances. Take a look here for instance: http://www.endeavours.org/sec/main_images/fullsize/apollo17_earth.jpg
However, I have to admit that the bump and surface texture are horrible as they are. I still have much to do to improve the appearance of this planet, but here you can see how far I have gotten:





Credit for the cloud texture goes to NASA. BTW, that last planet of yours is looks very convincing. I am impressed with the surface texture in particular.

@watsisname and FreeSpaceFreak:

Your planets are coming out great. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work.

[Herra Tohtori]

BTW, that last planet of yours is looks very convincing. I am impressed with the surface texture in particular.

The planet itself is actually made by BrandX; I only did the clouds (which I did mention but probably should've emphasized...) and posted the image pretty much because it was the best example that I could find that used the cloud shadowing thing I mentioned... And the planet is, AFAIK, actually drawn and not a texture mapped to sphere.


Your planet looks pretty awesome. As to what comes to mountainous terrain not being visible from long distances, you're absolutely right - but it's still worth it having it on teh high-resolution textures, because then you can use the same planet texture for faraway shots (mipmapping/resizing takes care of mountains becoming indistinguishable except by terrain colour) as well as skybox material - from low to medium orbits the mountains would definitely be visible. Probably even from high orbit. But not really from, say, Moon distance from Earth.

The stuff about atmosphere colour and surface colour saturation is pretty fascinationg.

[watsisname]

M87:  That is coming along very nicely.   I especially like the low-orbit view.  Would make an excellent rendition of the planet in the FS2 intro, in my opinion.
Good discussion on the atmo colors as well.  I'm curious about what colors could arise from various compositions.  Our solar system has quite some variety in colors, especially Earth's which includes nearly every color in the rainbow depending on how sunlight passes through it.  Or consider Titan with its orange fog below a blueish/violet haze.
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn8395/dn8395-1_550.jpg

[shiv]

M87, could you upload this green planet in higher resolution with alpha channel?
Modders would love to use this planet in their mods

[Aardwolf]

I think M79's planet is being worked on in 3d still... so a mesh and textures might be available at some point when he feels it is sufficiently done 

[Herra Tohtori]

watsisname and M87:

As you may know, I've been working sporadically on planets that could be used to renew the planets that show up in FreeSpace campaign, mainly because many of them are just copies of images from solar system moons and planets, and some just don't match the quality of many planets in this thread.

These two planets of yours could very well be used to replace the following retail planets:

planete.*

planetf.*

The reason these planets would work so well is that they very closely resemble the originals, but aren't quite the same; especially the re-hued Mars copy needs a planet that has similar features to Mars, but isn't quite the same. The green-ish planet works almost as it is, since the lighting matches almost one to one the positioning of the retail planet. Watsisname's planet can likewise be tilted about -130 degrees to match the direction of the sun approximately.

If you want, watsisname, you could also re-colour the red planet's surface to closer match the brown/tan surface of the retail re-coloured Mars - that would kinda be icing on the cake.

If you're willing, could you post versions of these planets with the lighting direction fixed, as well as your "final touch" on them, so to speak? The format for the planets should be at least 1024^2 resolution, preferably 2048^2 (since current mediaVP versions of these planets are actually 2048^2) with blending to transparency (not black) on edges. I can deal with the conversion to DDS, if you just send me the TGA's or other uncompressed source files (TGA's just tend to be the best for that purpose).

Also, if you are willing to participate further, you could post versions of these planets in various phases, likewise to what I've posted. These could be included in the aforementioned background planet package so that different positions in solar systems could be used by mission designers. But that has no deadline whereas mediaVP content has... though no one quite knows when that is.