[TopAce]

I made some random background bitmaps (in red and blue colors) and I wanted to use them in the final release of Descendants of Sol, but as I browsed through the Celebration of FreeSpace thread and the Wiki's featured screenshots, I realized everyone's using Lightspeed's nebulae (yes, they're excellent). So I figured I would eventually switch to LS's nebulae at some point.

However, I haven't received much feedback about the nebula pack that I made. There was one guy at ModDB who said "it looked weird," and nothing else. I figured I would request your input, too.

[Nyctaeus]

I don't like it. Too smudgy and unshapely. Looks like a retail FS2 nebulas.

[Shade]

I'd say it needs to fade out more at the edges as it seems to cut off rather suddenly, and the central areas need to be brighter and probably more yellow-ish than they are now to properly convey that those are in fact really dense star clusters.

[Scourge of Ages]

It's hard to tell without more screenshots, but from that one the nebula does look weird. I'd call it blobby, and fractal-y. Like you took one big nebula and rotated/scaled it to make all the nebulous details. But what do I know.

[Qent]

It reminds me of retail too, but in a good way.

[Shivan Hunter]

just going by that one screenshot, I'd say you're varying the size too much. If you've got nebulae with noticeably similar features, you should try to keep the bitmaps the same size (that is, don't vary by more than ~20%). Thing is, I can tell by looking at the screenshot that those are four seperate bitmaps, and I can differentiate them- I shouldn't be able to. The two on the bottom are alright, since they seem to be roughly the same size.

About the nebulae themselves- can't say I don't like them. Maybe you should make them a bit lighter in the middle, maybe give it some kind of effect so it looks like a 3d cloud.

Lightspeed's nebulae are great, but they shouldn't be the only ones people use. Look at the Earth Defense ones for example (at least, I think they're the ones using fractals)- those are really good.

[Scourge of Ages]

What Sivan Hunter just said.

Yes! That's what I meant.

[TopAce]

Lightspeed's nebulae are great, but they shouldn't be the only ones people use. Look at the Earth Defense ones for example (at least, I think they're the ones using fractals)- those are really good.

That's why I drew these nebulae.

[Rodo]

needs sharpness, might work if you mix with another layer with some fire or fractal effects.

[Whitelight]

(1) It is different, but its hard to make a good assumption off just one picture.

(2) Are all of them of the same variety, shape?

Looking at it from the minds eye, it does look sweet. 
But you must also have to know, that i`m easy to please. 

[TopAce]

(2) Are all of them of the same variety, shape?

There are 9 bitmaps altogether. I don't know how many of them are in the picture. They're the same size (512x512), but the mission varies its scale from 3:3 till 5:5.

[Aardwolf]

I don't know how you did it, but you've somehow managed to be both "too noisy" and "too fuzzy" at the same time. Just IMHO.

[Cobra]

I like it.

[Sushi]

They need some work, IMO, but not so much that they aren't worth keeping. The ones on the bottom definitely look better than the ones on the top.

[Spoon]

It kinda looks like they are in the foreground instead of the background, like some giant plant like monster attempting to grab the levy/fenrir out of the sky... erh... space... something.
The one in the right bottom corner looks the best out of the bunch imo

[Wobble73]

A foreground, the outer edges of a more denser nebula. That's how I'd see it, if you could get wisps of cloud against fighters and bigger ships.