Following aszazeroth's tutorial

[Lt. Cannonfodder]

Wasn't sure if I should put this in 2d or 3d wips, but here it goes. I'm following aszazeroth's ongoing planet tutorial here (http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/member-tutorials/6099-interactive-planet-creation-tutorial.html), and to avoid cluttering the tutorial thread I'll be posting my progress on this thread. Anyone following the tutorial is free to post their work here too, so we can see how everyone is progressing :)

Anyway, here's where I'm currently at. I'm having real trouble getting the base continent colors to look like they do on aszazeroth's planet. I blame my sucky painting skills :p There's also something odd going on with the continent borders, as you can see on the second image.

[Ozylot]

Off to a good start. I should really try one of these too. ;)

[aszazeroth]

Off to a great start.... You are going for a more M-class world here I presume. You will need some more contrasting colors for the base to be more pronounced like my example, but I rather like the way you have nice open grass like fields and the smoothness. Something that can be explored maybe...

Great start !

[Lt. Cannonfodder]

Problem with greater contrast areas is that it brings out my sucky brushing even more. Maybe having a tablet would help, but I'll see what I can do.

[aszazeroth]

Well, you should look into custom PS brushes, they work wonders with tablet less situations, but I have to admit... I use my tablet extensively, makes for more control and faster creations.

[backstept]

i've got a tablet, but it's not hooked up at the moment

heres what I've got so far
still refining the atmosphere falloff
you can't see it in these pics, but I've got a nasty seam in the texture . . . not sure how to get rid of it

and thanks, Asz, for showing us your technique
I've made some nice planets using Greg Martin's methods, but having an actual ball to work with will be great :D

[Lt. Cannonfodder]

@aszazeroth: Yea, I think I'll try some different custom brushes. That's how I detailed some areas of the seas.

@backstept: Nice continents! I envy your brushing skills. As for the seam, you can fix that by using the offset filter in PS (Filter>Other>Offset) and brushing/cloning away the problem.

[backstept]

I used a odd shaped brush from the natural brushes list and set it with a high jitter on everything in the shape dynamics and scatter menus :D

[Lt. Cannonfodder]

Thanks for the tip backstept, I redid all my continent base colors. Still not looking even remotely like aszazeroth's version, but I think I'm close enough.

The dark area crossing two continents is supposed to be a huge mountain range. Yea, I know, it doesn't look even close to a mountain range :D You can also see some glimmer of ice up north.

[Berticus]

Oooh... pretty... I haven't tried one of these... Maybe I should... (perhaps I could use it for the upcoming contest? (or better yet, the skills learned from it))

-albert

[aszazeroth]

Nice progress !!!

Hmm, a mountain range ;) Even I have not started those details yet :D

@Berticus... will there be a planet making contest ?! sounds very interesting ;)

@LT and Backsept... you guys are doing great ! You have choosen a different palette than I did, which is great. Our paths will have to diverge at the lower levels of detail, but I can still help you out perhaps (Done a few of the green ones) with some pointers. One major difference will be that you will have to paint and work with vegetation, which I cannot due to the oxidizing nature of my planet. I will have some algae fields instead maybe.

Most important: Have fun doing the details ... it will show later.

[Lt. Cannonfodder]

More work on the seas. I really hate that fractal artificial look I've got on both continents and on the seas, but I guess that comes from the combination of Lunarcell, custom brushes and zero painting skills :flippy:

[aszazeroth]

Getting there ... I usually try to "overlay" several continents generated by LC ontop of each other to build other, less fractal ones at stage one of the tutorial. I think also that the nature of the fractal-ness of the ocean color is that it reminds too much about a PS cloud and are "too" even maybe. Try perhaps to use a HUGE smudge brush and break the uniformity some !?

Cheers
//Asz

[Ozylot]

Here is my weak attempt.

Im still trying to figure out that atmosphere effect. Right now its messing up the dark side of the planet.

My trial of LunarCell has expired, so I painted most of this by hand and mouse.

Ive also used half the resolution that asz did, as my computer was having major lag issues with such a large file.

[aszazeroth]

Looks cool, Ozylot. You are not required to use LC ... I just did to be quick about it. There are many more gen-programs around and for most planet-types one have to resort to da hand-painting.

[backstept]

I've gone sepia!
I don't know the possible scientific reasons for this sort of color palette, but I think it's cool. :D

[Ozylot]

Looks cool, Ozylot. You are not required to use LC ... I just did to be quick about it. There are many more gen-programs around and for most planet-types one have to resort to da hand-painting.

I see. What I am really curious about is mountain ranges. Are they done with a bump map or is there actual stuff to be painted on the land masses?

(different settings, different angle)

[Ozylot]

I've gone sepia!
I don't know the possible scientific reasons for this sort of color palette, but I think it's cool. :D

Sweet! its like a toxic ocean.

[aszazeroth]

I've gone sepia!
I don't know the possible scientific reasons for this sort of color palette, but I think it's cool. :D

-We are the Borg- :D

[Lt. Cannonfodder]

Any chance of a bigger image backstept? Those continents look nice.

I'm seriously considering redoing the whole planet, as I've already learned a few things and think I could do better work the second time around. Or maybe I should just stick with this version and call it the experimental one?

[backstept]

still experimenting with the color

[Lt. Cannonfodder]

Lovely, if somewhat toxic.

[aszazeroth]

Very nice.... Backsept. Soon -you- will have to tech me some tricks

[backstept]

Very nice.... Backsept. Soon -you- will have to tech me some tricks

I'm not sure what you could possibly learn from me, but . . . :shiner:

I decided to make a new landmass thingymajig
totally befuddled when it comes to making the cloud layer, and whatever else a planet needs to look 'planety'

[mental|plate]

cool backstep, really love your planet!

[aszazeroth]

Cool planet Backsept... maybe a tad obvious cloning but damn nice colors.

Here is my W.I.P

http://pc213.astro.lu.se/~stefan/SFM/tut01/large_render_02.jpg

:devil: :D :cool:

Now about them cloudmaps... Try first using something already existing. Slap them on a sphere slightly larger than the surface, basically follow Deks' tut. Then make sure you make them really, really white, either by faking some using self-illumination (yeah I know it's cheating) or by carefully, carefully embed some specular into the cloudmap. The later can backfire if not taken care of properly resulting in more or less silverish clouds, cool, but not very realistic.

To liven up your already made world, you can play around with ocean specular and some small amount of irregular land-specular, especially for the desert regions. Also a more detailed gradient in the atmospheric falloff will help.

Hope I just did not confuse ya'll here. Questions !? just fire away

//Asz

[Tinukedaya]

So. As i promised i'm putting my WIP here. Still without cloudmaps. I had to lower the resolution of my map, so my PC (or more like my patience) can handle it, so it might be a little... uhm... not that good ... at some places.

[aszazeroth]

Cool stuff, keep up the work... something weird about that straight line in the ocean floor.

Keep up the work !

[aszazeroth]

Opps, occupational hazard maybe. I have been known to not explain things so well unless I am standing infront of a 30+ audience and talking physics.

I will post some cloud-methods as soon as my poor Kubuntu server is up and running again. It lost the system disc the day before yesterday.

Since it has been mentioned before... Why do your PC's choke on the large PS files ?! Do you keep a massive amount of layers ?! I believe I posted some about copy-merged and transfer of alpha-channel !? that has helped me gazillion of times, since my computers have not been of the über powerful sorts.

Anyways, I am rambling again it seems... Be Back Later with some cloud techniques and the last tweaks on my land/ocean maps.

Cheers
//Dr. Asz

[Tinukedaya]

Thanks Asz. Yeah I know about the straight line... The oceans still need a lot of work..

As for why my PC, ain't willing to take up the files... No idea. The file isn't even that big and I only have like 3 layers in it.. That PC of mine sure is few years old already, but it still is AMD Athlon XP 3000+, with 1 gig RAM. So not that bad. No idea.

[Jayden]

Looks good, ive been trial and erroring my own planet making techique which may or may not be 100 percent successful in the end.
Its using a 10'000 x 10'000px PS file as the base. devided up it actually all loaded into maya with only 1 "windows has run out of memory and will now hang like a bich" type error which thankfully never recured. Now im loading in more layers :D . Hey, if it dosnt crash and burn your not pushing it hard enough :P

[Zardoz]

Wow :thumb: . I saw the Tut of aszazeroth and I tried to make my own planet which the help of Lunar Cell, like you doing and aszazeroth (works without problems in Pain Shop Pro).

Instead of creating a M class planet. I created a desert like planet (less of 30% of water) which spots of green around the water zones (lakes and a bit small seas). The textures that i do, not are of a big resolution (1K x 2K, adequate for far view, but not for a Low Orbit image), and there a bit clouds generated which Lunar Cell. Not looks bad, i think :cool: .


Nice planet that you are creating !

[Tinukedaya]

Here goes my latest one. I really haven't done much on it.. somehow no time and not hte right mood for it... But I still do something from time to time.

So what you think?

[aszazeroth]

Nice work ! Might wanna wash that atmospheric falloff out just a tad in order to achieve more realism. To get more life in the land-map some bump and land-specular will help too.

Keep up the work !

[Elowan]

Looks well enough. Can judge better seeing entire sphere tho' methinks.

[backstept]

I cheated with the specularity on the surface, and the clouds need some tweaking, but as a mid to far range planet I think it works nicely :D

[Tovette]

I have a question- How are you creating the cloud textures?

[mental|plate]

i think it's the lunarcell plugin, right backstep?

[Elowan]

I cheated with the specularity on the surface, and the clouds need some tweaking, but as a mid to far range planet I think it works nicely :D

I agree. May I use it?

[backstept]

the cloud texture I got from Celestia Motherlode

. . . crap I should add credits :lol:

[aszazeroth]

Looking good there. Cloud textures can be tricky to create. I usually created them by "copy/clone/PS brush/more copy /more clone/more PS" brush methods. Beware, that some of the NASA ones (ie the ones on CM and asorted places) are not always flawless, especially around the poles, where satellite coverage is lesser.

I think if you tone down the shadow on those clouds Backsept, it would look better. Also perhaps take the cloudsphere in just a few percent. The atmospheric falloff could be less hazy too.

Keep up the work though! looking great

[MartinL]

Ok here is then my first try on the planet.
My texture for the planet isent finnish yet, but tought i still could post it, for c & c.
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/4677/planeteg1.jpg


My main problem is the atmosphere, i just cant get it right, i like the one aszazeroth did in this picture.

http://pc213.astro.lu.se/~stefan/SFM/tut01/render_07.jpg

But with 20+ test render of the atmosphere i gave up a bit, and this is what i then got.
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/4517/planet07uu1.jpg


And its a great tutorial :)

[aszazeroth]

Nice job. I guess you might want to tweak the opacity map (a bit of max talk... if you use other software, drop a note on that). If you follow the Deks' tutorial setup I suggest de-couple the color of the falloff gradient and the opacity for better control. Now this is assuming you have a separate atmosphere "sphere" outside your surface one.

Another thing you want to do to "liven" up your planet is to add specular to the ocean and clip it with the alpha map that I keep nagging about in the tutorial.

Got questions ?! just post them here and I'll check in know and then.

Cheers
//Dr.Asz

[Lonewriter]

looking great.

[mJAstro]

Something that stands out to me a little bit is the coast line you have around each continent. I would suggest breaking it up a bit (making it less uniform) and also making the color vary with location. The color of the water from a distance will vary depending on the depth and the material beneath the water (sand/rock/vents/coral beds etc). The blue marble maps are a good reference for this sort of thing. The way you have it now the coast lines look the same depth of some of the deep ocean locations. I also agree with Asz and the alpha map. Good start no doubt

[MartinL]

Thx a lot for the info, i did not have the atmosphere on a separate sphere, i had it on the same map as the surface :o, now with the atmosphere on a sphere for it self, i get as you said much better control, and also looks better :thumb:

I still work on the texture, but not sure how much more i should do with it, i did try to add a little more details in the ocean floor, but it just don't show up anyway, but i did put in a specular for the ocean, and whoa a big difference.

I also redesigned the so called dessert area, it just was not good enough before, i went out and found me some mountain picture taken from orbit and tweaked it a bit, and i also found some from the dessert area, those two i then merged together to look like a mountain/dessert combination.

Well here is the new texture (original one is 8k.)

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/8681/planettexturebh1.jpg

I at least think it works out well so far, just have to say it again, great tutorial!! :thumb:

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/718/planet12iw5.jpg
Rendered in 3DS Max with Vray.

[homerpalooza67]

holy cr**!! :eek!: :eek!: that looks just like earth (but with different coastlines ;)) INCREDIBLE!! ill have some crit for you later :D

[edwardgtxy]

hmmm, need some suggestions. still seems to be a little weird... but i cant figure out whats wrong with it?

[aszazeroth]

@MartinL
Now that looks great. Might I inquire how big resolution the cloudmap is ?! I really like the surface/land texture and the oceans look great too. Perhaps you might consider adding a shoreline and some more shallow seas/continent shelfs to break things up even more. The atmosphere looks really nice, a bit like the Apollo shots. Might be a little too white at the lower part, but I like it that way too. Great that you like the tutorial, always feels good to inspire people, like so many have inspired me before. Pay it forward, so to speak.

[aszazeroth]

hmmm, need some suggestions. still seems to be a little weird... but i cant figure out whats wrong with it?

Hmm, double post :P

Well, drop the bump, work a bit on the atmosphere ... re post =)

[ranger]

mine is comming along reeely slow
got one continent done so far :P