Saturns rings in 3dmax ver6

[astro1]

Hi i am new here, but heres goes, i trying to get my materials looking ok
in my 3dmax ver6 project of saturns rings, but they will not come out correct. As anyone tried this out in max and got it right,?
Any body got a link for any tuts on this problem.?
Regards Astro1

[Rassilon]

There may be a better way but one way to accomplish rings is using a torus ring flattened and a texture of the entire ring, sort of an O in the center of your 1024 x 1024 or 512 x 512 texture. Make sure the texture is a png with an alpha transparency of all except your O in the center. This can be best done with the gimp. Map your texture to the diffuse channel and the opacity channel at 99 %. Export as 3ds and you should have a working ring. Problem is you will need to model the entire planet in max otherwise the ring will not 'wrap' properly around the planet you plan on using it with in Celestia. There is no proper depth sorting of meshes yet.

Using a complete 3ds model of a planet will also limit you from using atmospheres and night textures. You can however possibly overlay the model with another planet in the same position but again once entering the bounding box of the mesh in Celestia you will not see it properly displayed.

[selden]

Ras,

You haven't been keeping up with the changes in Celestia

Starting with Celestia v1.3.2 pre10, separate 3D models are sorted when defined in SSC files. Intersecting objects are partially obscured, for example.

Shadows aren't handled quite right, though

[saturns rings in 3dmax.]

Thank you Rassilon for your help, I tried out the torus, but got a better effect by Using a tube with almost zero height. The rings are a lot better by using the transparency and diffuse maps, will keep on at it to get a better effect.
Regards Astro.

[Rassilon]

Ras,

You haven't been keeping up with the changes in Celestia

Starting with Celestia v1.3.2 pre10, separate 3D models are sorted when defined in SSC files. Intersecting objects are partially obscured, for example.

Shadows aren't handled quite right, though

I am referring to the event of overlaying a model with a planet to add atmosphere...Unfortunately you will still see the model under the planet when you get close enough to the surface...I do notice that the model and the planet seem to merge as one mesh in a way now which is nice...but on the surface of the planet there is still a flickering that occurs revealing the inner portions of the mesh....

On the other hand if you were to make the mesh a higher radius I think this would not occur...