Jupiter

[Johnny9ball]

Would anyone like to go to Jupiter with me.

[lilrayray77]

Wow that's great, nice detail.

[esper8]

Where`s the big black Monolith?

[cobaltman]

Would anyone like to go to Jupiter with me.


I'd better refrain from that. Might make me "stupider". You know how the saying goes...:D

Nice pic. By the way, what's a Monolith, anyway? I've head the word before, but I don't know for sure what it is.

[jameswillmott]

The Monolith is a big black block from the book/movie 2001, A Space Odyssey. It's like an extraterrestrial swiss army knife.

[starbase1]

Nice arty look.

If you want accuracy you should consider changing:

1. Angle of illumination. The sun is always very close to the plane of Jupiters equator.

2. Those satellites - It's difficult to judge, but if you are that far above the orbital plane, they much look too big to be to scale.

3. Also too close in to the planet.

4. The colours on the real thing are a lot less saturated, and generally lighter. See
http://www.mmedia.is/bjj/planetary_maps.html
For more accurate ones.

Nick

[Johnny9ball]

The image is more about having an Arty look than accuracy. I made the moons a little larger so they would be more visible. I tweaked the Jupiter image to be way more saturated. I adjusted the light for a more dramatic angle than just straight on. I also gave it an atmosphere haze which it probably shouldn't have since its a gas giant.

[starbase1]

The you acheived your intended effect admirably!

The limb effect is not as unrealistic as you suppose, when seen from side angles. Take a look at some of the shots of Saturn from Cassini! If you lowered that layer a little it would be prety much perfect

[Johnny9ball]

Yeh I guess its all about perspective and he camera used in the image. I mostly wanted to try a planet and just see how cool it could be. Different camera and different perspective can give dramatically differently images. In the end I was wanting to make something dramatic and cool not something accurate. Art is subjective and that's what I love about it.

[massmusic]

just curious about space based objects....Does it make sense to add radiosity?

[starbase1]

You may be surprised to hear "yes"!

Satellites near to giant planets will get significant light from them - think of how you can see the dark parts of a crescent moon, lit by light from Earth.

In the case of of something like Io near Jupiter this is a lot stronger. You can see it very clearly too on some pics from Cassini of Saturn's satellites.

It will be a lot simpler and faster to fake it with an extra light shining back from the planet in almost every case.

The major exception would be Saturn, where ilumination of the planet by light from the ring system is very complex!

Nick

[massmusic]

I'm not concerned about render times (right now) just want an acurate looking space scene as mine tend to look...like someone shot on video as opposed to film if y ou know what I mean.

Part of this has to do with saturation of colors.

So to radiocitize (did I just invent a new word?) a space scene would I use a HDRI of an acutal NASA image?

[Gyphon]

The stars in the bg are too evenly distributed. You can also get a better idea of how they should spread by looking at a NASA image. If you look up at night you will notice a thicker band of stars that stretch east to west. This is the same thing you should see in the bg in your pic just many moreof them, as you are technically not looking through an atmosphere.

[starbase1]

If you are after a still image with good stars, take a look at my web site - I have some very high res star backdrops you are welcome to use, (done in povray! ooops!). You might want to turn down the brightness if you use them - they would not notice much with a big bright planet in the field of view...

For radiosity - just use the normal radiosity option. It will probably only show on the back of a moon facing the planets lit side. If you only have one in this position try something like a 15% Jupiter coloured spotlight pointing back from the planet.

Did you squish Jupiter? It's polar diameter is about 7% less than the equatorial, this will help realism.