Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => Arts & Talents => Topic started by: DamoclesX on December 13, 2004, 06:07:03 am

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: DamoclesX on December 13, 2004, 06:07:03 am

Does anybody know of a good way to generate real looking planet textures.

So far the only way I know of is using a photoshop plugin, and I"d like to maby kick it up a notch for the galactica mod

this is the best I have done with that plugin

http://starshattercentral.com/Core/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&album=3&pos=4

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: aldo_14 on December 13, 2004, 06:40:43 am

All I can think of is getting ultra high-resolution earth / solar system photos and manipulating them, but I think that would be a pain in the arse to do.....

Maybe if you take that plugin (I presume you're generating a map and then cylindrical  /speherical uv-ing it on, yeah?), buy do it in greyscale or something, then use that as a mask to blend in craters, trees, etc (terrain stuff) taken from said real life planets.  could probably just use hi-res earth images, now I think of it; just need to sneakily recolour 'em.

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: CmdKewin on December 13, 2004, 11:11:05 am

Well... Are these enough Hi-Res for you?



(http://mypage.bluewin.ch/p98/Screen1.jpg)


Look here: http://www.space-graphics.com

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: DamoclesX on December 13, 2004, 01:13:59 pm

Those are good, but, they are off earth:) I can make/find earth planet maps/cloudes and stuff easy enough. the problem is with new planets.

IE the 12 colonys.

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: DamoclesX on December 13, 2004, 01:31:57 pm

for a better idea of what i"m trying for, check the neb/planet pics here, I have no idea how those were done

http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/expansions_screens_archive_1.jsp

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Lt.Cannonfodder on December 13, 2004, 11:34:32 pm

I've yet to find a planet map generator that offers decent results. They can act as a base, but to archieve good results you really need to do it by hand.

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Getter Robo G on December 14, 2004, 12:10:20 pm

Hy guys I DL'ed that 2048 Earth cause I like the detail, but when I tried it in game it looks good BUT you got the black square around it

So I figure ok try copy and pasting the new Earth over the OLD Earth's pcx image and the transparency is already coded... Wrongo... I reduced it to 8bit pcx again but the Earth shows up with the green all around it! It's not transparent anymore??

What is the proceedure for making a planet from scratch or like what I did, use a pre-existing planet image but hot to get it in game? I searched the wiki but no info, just about background editor, nothing about actually MAKING backgrounds...

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: aldo_14 on December 14, 2004, 12:38:16 pm

Check the green bg is proper true green (0,255,0), sometimes when you colour reduce an image with lots of other green in it, you end up losing that exact shade

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Kail on December 15, 2004, 04:22:16 pm

Have you tried LunarCell by flamingpear.com? It's not expensive at all and gives you GREAT results!

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Deepblue on December 15, 2004, 04:28:41 pm

3d planet maps, not 2d.

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: DamoclesX on December 15, 2004, 05:21:27 pm

Here
I took the time to learn how to do them by hand.

http://members.shaw.ca/DamoclesX/4.jpg


Now onto improving my nebulas!

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Lt.Cannonfodder on December 16, 2004, 12:37:05 am

Couldn't resist :D It's an A+ map, nicely detailed

(http://img154.exs.cx/img154/766/damoclesplanet00008ye.th.jpg) (http://img154.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img154&image=damoclesplanet00008ye.jpg)

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Kail on December 16, 2004, 07:09:06 am

You can make those in LunarCell extremely easily, they also have SolarCell for stars and Glitterato for nebulas and starfields. I got the whole pack of them. :)

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Lt.Cannonfodder on December 16, 2004, 08:00:06 am

Quote

Originally posted by Kail
You can make those in LunarCell extremely easily, they also have SolarCell for stars and Glitterato for nebulas and starfields. I got the whole pack of them. :)

Lunarcell should really be used only if you need tens or hundreds of planets with decent amount of time. The problem with all map generators is just that; they look like computer generated. Fractal continents and colors don't look neither realistic nor good. In my opinion, of course :)

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Kail on December 16, 2004, 10:02:12 am

Well, the planet above could just as well have been made using LC, IMO. :)

Title: Hmmm
Post by: Getter Robo G on December 16, 2004, 10:27:00 am

I'll monkey around a bit more but I am sure I don't know what I am doing with Photoshop 7. It's like giving a Ferrari to a kid who rides a big wheel... a BAD idea ;)

I made sure to change color from index to RGB so I could select green slot and make it 255 and the red blue entries 0... Too many other numbers for color I didn't undestand otherwise...

I then tried using a circle copy and paste over the game pcx but it still changed the transparency to normal visible green... Wierd... That part  should not have been afected at al besides beign changed to 24bit from being altered (I noticed no matter what you edit pics tend to do that so you have to always check before saving to reduce color depth to 8 bit...

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: DamoclesX on December 16, 2004, 12:23:22 pm

lol

luna cell is a hacke program

you couldnt even get close to the texture I made:)

Thats a nice map, but I need to make textures without any lighting on them that are used in the game lol, if I was just making skyboxes then ya, I could make some wickedly amazing maps, but... has to be 3d(damn)

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Kail on December 16, 2004, 12:33:00 pm

Actually, you could, play around with the params some and you'll see.

I see no need to make it more complicated that it has to be. Waste of time using UV texture/material wrapping on a sphere in 3DSMAX or Maya and then render it as a bitmap, you'll get the same results anyway.

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Lt.Cannonfodder on December 16, 2004, 12:54:14 pm

I disagree. You can't beat handmade textures with any texture generator. You can prove me wrong, but I doubt it.

Using a 3d prog to render the bitmap is a personal preference. I can easily change almost everything I want, starting from the huge variety of lightning controls and surface properties. And it really does not take that much time.

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Kail on December 16, 2004, 01:07:14 pm

Wasn't going to argue the point of handmade textures but rather final result. I think LC saves a lot of time, happy?

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Lt.Cannonfodder on December 16, 2004, 01:11:31 pm

Yeah, but if you are a perfectionist like me you'll never be satisfied with the results ;)

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: DamoclesX on December 16, 2004, 01:18:05 pm

Well, I cant use max see im  creating a map that would be wrapped around an in game object

The only reason to render from max would be for a static background.... like a skybox.

and luncell, no its crap.. its only good for VERY VERY distance shots and a lot of by hand messing around, otherwise anybody who takes a second look will go bbaaarrrfff on it lol.

actually, I got something from lunacell

its from the old b5 mod

http://starshattercentral.com/Core/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&album=3&pos=12

Thats pretty much the best luna does.. I could spend a while tweaking it, but its not really worth it.

I did these in half the time it takes to mess with luna
http://members.shaw.ca/DamoclesX/A1.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/DamoclesX/3.jpg

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Kail on December 16, 2004, 01:29:47 pm

Yeah well but in that example you wrapped that texture around a polysphere, ofc it looks like crap, but LC renders bitmaps amazingly well, if you didn't know.

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: DamoclesX on December 16, 2004, 06:17:20 pm

but

it HAS to be wrapped, -I- didnt wrap it the game engine needs a flat 1/2powered texture to work

you cant render/bake a bunch of lighting crap onto a texture, then let the engine wrap it onto the planet that it will use and THEN have the engines own effects and lights added on top of that.

thats only good for freespace 2, where you have a skybox.

this is a real 3d planet you can fly right up to, and its all textured via the game engine

LC is not that impressive, I dunno why people are so amazed with it. ITs like cheap texture generation for the lazy lol

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Kail on December 16, 2004, 06:33:15 pm

Well, I was talking about skyboxes. Duh! :P

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: DamoclesX on December 16, 2004, 06:37:09 pm

Ya, I wish sometimes ss was like that, skyboxes make a lot of things easyer, and you can really goto town with photoshop and what not..

some awsome ones for freespace 2

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Kail on December 17, 2004, 08:03:58 am

SS? Not Serious Sam I guess?

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Deepblue on December 17, 2004, 12:45:37 pm

Starshatter.

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Kail on December 17, 2004, 02:04:52 pm

Aha, I know about it. Didn't seem that good. Interesting fact I noted was that it was made by one single person. Hmm.

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Carl on December 18, 2004, 01:05:39 am

a good way to make planet sextures is to just mess around with clouds and brushes in PS. eventually you'll get something cool.

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Ace on December 23, 2004, 05:48:53 pm

Here's my experiment with making earth like planets:
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet_bgnew.jpg)

Yes... yes... the shadow of the moon shouldn't hit the gas giant like that :p

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: DamoclesX on December 23, 2004, 08:07:19 pm

Quote

Originally posted by Carl
a good way to make planet sextures is to just mess around with clouds and brushes in PS. eventually you'll get something cool.

a better way would be to use different materials blend them together and use said brushes to form different planet features:)

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: jdjtcagle on December 23, 2004, 08:19:06 pm

Here's mine

Download this  (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/11885274/)

(http://img135.exs.cx/img135/8259/bigplanet8fg.jpg)

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: aldo_14 on December 24, 2004, 03:20:56 am

Quote

Originally posted by Ace
Here's my experiment with making earth like planets:
http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet_bgnew.jpg
 

2D / 3D?

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: Ace on December 24, 2004, 05:32:48 am

Quote

Originally posted by aldo_14


2D / 3D?

Pure PSP8 :)

Title: Planet Textures
Post by: aldo_14 on December 24, 2004, 06:48:41 am

Very nice.

Although i had been hoping I could steal textures off you if it had been 3d..........