My extrasolar planets (don`t laugh too loud)

[Dave F]

I don`t have a powerful PC or graphics card but these amateur images I made are OK for my own personal enjoyment. I make my own planet templates and superimpose a landsat image to get the topography. I use Celestia to spherize it and add clouds. They are in my textures-medres-level0 directory.

I`d value your opinions on:-
1) The colours of land and water. Is the blue realistic (earthlike)?

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/9928 ... rrapn7.jpg


2) Is the topography realistic? It`s quality has faded somewhat from the original. I added a gaussian blur to the water which soften the edges of land.

http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/7376 ... ekybl7.jpg


3) Are my nightlights OK? Too bright? Too white? I can add as few or as many as I like.

http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/5649 ... htspk8.jpg


4) Is this a nice pic or what?

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/3916 ... idewf9.jpg


I`m not sure my spec/bump maps are showing too well,if at all. Maybe I did something wrong. Anyway,thanks for any comments - good or not too unreasonably bad I hope .

[Dollan]

I rather like your texture. Could you possibly post an image of just the texture? It would make it easier to make a few comments. But what I can see, I like.

What is the resolution? 2k? 1k?

...John...

[Dave F]

I rather like your texture. Could you possibly post an image of just the texture? It would make it easier to make a few comments. But what I can see, I like.

What is the resolution? 2k? 1k?

...John...

Thanks John. I`ve enjoyed your work ever since I discovered Celestia. I got the image from Visible Earth. It`s kinda cheating but it gives me the results I like. I re-scaled it from the original which was larger. My image is 1k res.

I downloaded one of your add-ons and see most of the textures are 2048x1024. I will work on 2k and hope it improves my images.

Thanks for your comments.
Dave F

[Dollan]

Okay, I see why it looked fuzzy to me, yeah. But still, I like the effect you've garnered here. A warm and aris world, but yet with large oceans. I think this is a great start, and moving up to 2k textures can only be an improvement!

And frankly, I don't see such sampling as cheating. Using various methods, from cloning to simple regional sampling, I tend to use a lot of images located at The Earth Observatory. I then go into either Paintshop Pro or Photoshop and do some color correcting, as well as selective editing to remove most or all man-made artifacts (roads, towns, etc.). And, frankly, I'm still learning a lot. I only wish I had more time to devote to Celestia.

Can't wait to see new versions of this! And I like that last shot a lot. But then, I have this weakness for planetary images with accompanying moons....

...John...

[osmium]

Hi Dave,

These are nice images, they remind me of the old Skylab footage, kind of slightly washed out... or old film print.

Even though I 'in principle' know what you have done, and Dollan, and others , I have never attempted doing something like this myself, well done

Dollan, just a question on your method , you say you colour correct your images, do you work off a template i.e colour chart? or just go by instinct?
just curious...

Cheers

Osmium

[bdm]

3) Are my nightlights OK? Too bright? Too white? I can add as few or as many as I like.

I think they are a bit bright, yes. Compare them to "earthnight.jpg" in your standard installation. Many night lights on that Earth map are rendered as shades of grey, not brilliant white.

I like the textures, by the way, I think they are well done. I like seeing other people's work.

[bh]

Yes...they look very nice Dave.

[Dollan]

...Dollan, just a question on your method , you say you colour correct your images, do you work off a template i.e colour chart? or just go by instinct? just curious...

For the most part, just by instinct. In PSP there is a nice function called the one-step image correction tool, or some such thing. Usually, if I have an image with high color, utilizing this will alter its appearace sufficiently to put a nice spin on a new appearance. But more often than not, I simply eyeball it. Of course, half of the job is to see what the thing looks like in Celestia, especially once a cloud layer is on top of it, and a haze layer is put in place.

Using the haze function (which apparently doesn't work with all video cards; Selden would probably know why and which ones) can really put some nice finishing touches on a planet, I think.

...John...

[Dave F]

A couple of png`s at 2048 res which I put in my textures/medres/level 0 folder. Don`t yet know how to make 8 tiled images for level 1. Added new topography and the quality improved IMHO. Guess these will do until I learn more stuff. Hope you like them.
Dave F