Semi-OT: making planets.

[Timstone]

Okay, okay, I'll rename it to a Ice Oxygen. Sigh...

[Timstone]

I've been experimenting with the atmosphere thingie all day long. Almost made forget an appointment at work.
Good thing a collegue called me about that.

Okay, I've done things diffirent now. I've seperated the clouds from the land (Jippie, cloud shadows!) and I've added a transparent atmosphere.
On the previous images you looked at an illusion (duh, it's a computer-generated image), the atmosphere wasn't truly transparent. As soon as you set a light on it, it went dull and you couldn't see a thing. This time it's fully transparent. Just look at this marvel!
Feel free to complain.

[Timstone]

Another planet, this time with a methane atmosphere.

[XenoTheMorph]

Hmmm nice new cloud syle!

Seriously very nice. Much kudos.

[geoschmo]

Those are very cool. The landscape effects and clouds give it almost a 3d effect.

One thing, the lighting angle looks very neat for pictures, but if your intention is to use these in the game you may want to reconsider. It's been done before and the look is a little odd in the game. Because your lighting could end up on the wrong side depending on where the game sticks the planet in the system map.

Unless you are planning on only using that light angle for the large images that show up on the planetary detail screen. If you used a straight on lighting angle for the small pics that go in the big planet.bmp file then this could work. But that means you have to make two renderings for each planet, instead of just resizing. But if your software is fairly user friendly maybe that's not such a problem.

[Timstone]

Geo:
First of all, these are true 3D images. I just took a snapshot of it.
The atmosphere is a bit too thick, I agree. I'll fix that, that's a minor thing.
My goal is to be able to make nice 3D planets for use in SE V. So the lighting I used in this pic is only to show you guys and girls the planets themselfs. I just hope the planets can be used in SE V.
So things to do:
- reduce atmosphere
- make atmosphere a bit more glossy

The next thing I'll try to make are suns.
That should be pretty easy to do.
Thanks for the comment guys! Like Xeno said: Much kudos!

[Kamog]

Those planets look good!

[TerranC]

I like the planets, but the atmosphere on those two planets seem a little too thick to me.