Thats just disgusting. seriously, I can make better planets than that, and i'm terrible at it.
* Herra Tohtori facepalms
Do you have something more recent than
this to back your claim of being able to make better planets than the orange one in the skybox?
Not that it matters, because your ability (or, apparently, inability) to make better planets than the one in question here is completely irrelevant to the topic and just adds a layer of jackassery that too easily incensed forumites will readily ignite into full-fledged flamewar. I'm not in a position of authority here but common sense should be enough for most to know that criticism is not shouting U NOOB I HAS BETTER SKILLZ LULZ.
On the topic... it doesn't look too bad to be honest. The biggest flaw is that I don't really know what I'm looking at - which, in fact, can be useful in some occasions. It could be a planet that has liquid orange surface with island network or shallower regions showing as different colour; it could be a planet with thick cloud layer, or it could be a solid surface filled with bioluminous algae or other organic material.
Perhaps adding some noise to the surface of the planet (if it's solid) and then blurring it slightly would add kind of pseudo-detail. Or, if the darker areas are some kind of canyons or gaps between clouds or in any way have different elevation than the brighter areas, some form of shadowing/bumpmapping could be useful to make the height difference apparent. Also, if it's a cloud layer, it could benefit from some wispyness that shows it's clouds in atmosphere. On the other hand if it's just differently coloured terrain, stressing the elevation difference isn't necessary (duh
). But I would like to see some more detail in general. If it's a desert planet, the glowiness is perhaps a bit excessive. If you would add some cloud layers I could imagine it to be a planet not unlike Venus. The atmosphere isn't bad at all, but it automatically makes the planet uninhabitable (for humans and terran life anyway) being orange instead of bluish.
