pictures of earth....yawn.

[Dave Allen]

Please forgive the lens flare.

[Dave Allen]

Stars don't look right. Still working on that. Maybe I should of put em in work-in-progress?

Anyone have a good star field solution?

Thanks,
Dave

[annaleah]

Clouds look fake also....
Maybe add a transparency map to them.

[Dave Allen]

Yeah I have to pump up the transparency map on those clouds. Some areas should be opaque while other areas are transluescent.

The lower image had a screwed up illumination map (different setting for the land compared to the clouds, thats why the clouds appear darker)

I like the height of the clouds though.

I added a alpha channel to the city lights. They turn on in the dark and turn off as they approach the sun (Based the incedence angle to the sun)

[starbase1]

I think the stars are OK apart from being a bit too large / bright.

With the clouds, yes a bit of transparency around the edges would help a lot.

How are you doing the bump? It looks a bit strong to me...

I tackled this kind of thing using techniques described in a Dave Jerrard book, (Lightwave Applied?). His technique was to get one cloud map, your main one, and stick it on a layer just above your earth sphere. You then make a second cloud layer to go just above this. Your second later should have less cloud than the first, but in the same place. (Sorry, I'm not explaining this well!)

Suppose you have a cloud map image. Select the clear areas leaving the cloud alone. In photoshop or your favourite image application, then grow and feather the selection, and cut it away.

This gives your clouds some actual height.

For stars I personally use Ficatech's Hyperstars, a seriously cheap plugin well worth it if you do space stuff a lot.

Before I got this I had a scene with about 3000 little lens flares in all the right places for stars! Never did get around to setting the right colours though...

You can see my Earth with these clouds here:
http://www.starbase1.co.uk/astropix/cislunar4.jpg

Hyperstars in use in this image:
http://www.starbase1.co.uk/astropix/stationnnnn.jpg

(But its very configurable in terms of real or random, colour intensity, brightness, etc etc).

Hope that helps:
Nick

[ravantra]

Clouds look like cake frosting.