PREVIEW: Beta Hydri fictional planetary system

[RHAS]

I have taken the comments on my previous work seriously and will try to make my new project even more realistic.

here are 6 screenshots of my upcoming celestia add-on: Beta Hydri













ROB SANDERS PRODUCTIONS
http://members.chello.nl/r.sanders20/productions/

[Beowulf01]

WOW that looks reall good, how you do the textures?

[Rassilon]

The gas giant is quite nice...In response to making realistic looking planets and also to make them look different from anything ever seen I tend to use photos of actual rocks, sides of builldings, cement driveways, tree bark etc...Natural textures make the best planets...

[RHAS]

WOW that looks reall good, how you do the textures?

Thanks, the textures are obviously the hardest part of making such an add-on.
I play allot with the textures in paintshop pro.
I dont have a certain way of doing all my textures, but i have found some usefull techniques.
1. combining existing textures to make one new one using layers and transparancy.
2. taking excisting textures and apply some paintshop effects to them.
3. take excisting textures and change the hue and saturisation.
Furthermore look on the internet to find some.
I found a nasa page filled with celestia textures, they had for example fictional textures and bumpmaps for a fictional qaouar, tattooine etc.
Change those fictional textures a little so they are not recognisable as a default celestia texture and of you go.
I also found that some other applications use cylindrical maps like some worldbuilders. Use those aswel edit them a little and the result should be stunning.
I made allot of textures the past few days, the ones i dont use i will post as a map pack when this add-on is finished.

For example:

The texture i used for the yellow/orange planet in the first screenshot



I changed the hue and saturisation untill the result was like in my first screenshot

[RHAS]

The gas giant is quite nice...In response to making realistic looking planets and also to make them look different from anything ever seen I tend to use photos of actual rocks, sides of builldings, cement driveways, tree bark etc...Natural textures make the best planets...

hmm never tried that.
thanks.