[themodman101]

I guess i could, if you guys wanna learn! lol

[Herra Tohtori]

By the way there's a long thread about planets et al, right here.

Topic merge?

[Hellstryker]

Nah, that seems to be primarily about planets made only in GIMP or PS. This is different.

[Droid803]

Its not that different, actually - both have pretty looking planets and backgrounds. I do believe some in the Celestial Objects thread are made by mapping stuff to spheres in 3d programs and the like.

[themodman101]

One of the guys in there kinda sorta uses the same techniques as i do. I like to have a perfect balence in programs and source imagery that i use. Only my textures and explosions are done in photoshop. The rest is extreme tweaking in 3dsmx and a TG program.

[Rodo]

Thanks for your kind words, and i wish you the best of luck with your work. if you want any help i'm availible 

well now that you mention it.. I would really like to know how you get the cloud effect so real.. you use a real earth cloud map? and how do you get the shadow to project over the surface of the planet correctly? particulary this last one seems to be way out of my league..and would add a incredibly realistic touch to my work.

[themodman101]

Haha, okay sure.. I use these:
http://www.shadedrelief.com/natural3/pages/clouds.html

I edit them in photoshop to sharpen them up, add and delete cloud formations using the heal brush.

Maybe i should write a tutorial style thing, but ive never done that sort of thing before. I guess there is a first time for everything... 

[Rodo]

I recognized those cloud formations... I used those maps too in the past and they are great.

If you want to write a tut that's nice, lot of people here will get involved about it and the more the better, I currently use GIMP but I can find the equilvalent for the processes you do on photoshop (or most of them) if I look for it.

tnks for the tip!

[Polpolion]

Cool stuff, bro. I'll have to get back to try and GIMPing planets sometime. I remember I made a pretty kickass gas giant a while back, but I think I lost it...

[themodman101]

Okay, i'll start working on it soon. and thanks

[themodman101]

Ive been trying to perfect my techneque before i make a tutorial type thing...

The detail i'm going into is insane now. Please welcome a planet with a 16,000 X 8,000 Texture and a cloud map made from almost completly scratch..

[tinfoil]

that's really cool. the way you used the sunspots to give it that depth works out perfectly 

[Dilmah G]

AWESOME 

[Rodo]

ohh now I see... so you get the shadow effect with 3ds or some other modeling tool right?

[Angelus]

That's truly AWESOME!

[FreeSpaceFreak]

16 000 x 8000 ?!? Nice one!

[themodman101]

@Rodo:
Yeah, i use the IES sun in 3dsmax to project a shadow map onto the planet. It's a ray traced shadow map, so the details could go on forever. The only limit for me right now is my PC.

@ FreeSpaceFreak:
Haha, yeah well technicly. I split the texture in mozaic tiles, so technicly it's 32,000 X 16,000. I can zoom WAY into the planet and you can see cities and streets.

Out of curiosity, do you think it would be worth packaging a planet+Textures into a Zip file? That way you could look and see exactly what you want to do as far as layers go and stuff??

[Angelus]

...
Out of curiosity, do you think it would be worth packaging a planet+Textures into a Zip file? That way you could look and see exactly what you want to do as far as layers go and stuff??

me thinks, yes!

[themodman101]

Okay, will do. You know what??.. I had no idea how complicated the process is that i use to make these 

It's incredible..... 

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Well, the results are definitely worth it.