New Addon Planned -- Piscea

[PlutonianEmpire]

19,349 light years from Earth lies the star Piscea. It has 8 planets, formerly moons of a gas giant that drifted away. The 2nd planet out is a lush and fertile planet called Pisces. This is where a nation of extremely xenophobic fish was born.

Sadly, after about 16,000 ly, stars disappear in celestia. Any idea when it'll be fixed soon?

[Michael Kilderry]

Probably not soon,

You'd be better off putting the solar system a little closer to the Earth rather than waiting for the problem to be fixed.

- Michael

[PlutonianEmpire]

Probably not soon,

You'd be better off putting the solar system a little closer to the Earth rather than waiting for the problem to be fixed.

- Michael

Alright. Thanks.

I have a longer storyline than in the 1st post. If anyone's interested, here it is.

Enjoy.

**The central star was old. As old as the universe itself. Piscea had shed her outer layers long ago revealing a blue hot white dwarf star twice the size of Earth, destroying all but the outermost planets, who slowly drifted away after the star only kept half it's original gravity. The moons of one of the gas giants stayed.

**For the first 3 billion years after the shedding of layers, Piscea emitted deadly radiation, vaporizing the surfaces of the remaing moons, causing an eerie, incandescent fog to constantly lift and swirl. Slowly, Piscea cooled to the point where life could evolve on one of the worlds.

**Pisces, the largest moon (now a planet, since it's only parent was Piscea herself), was a bit far, but still remained in the habitable zone. Slowly, the eerie fog settled, rendering the surface calm. It was only by luck that a large group of comets and asteroids landed on Pisces, providing the necessary ingredients and resources for intelligent life. Over the millions, Pisces evolved into a lush, fertile planet much like Earth, but cooler.

**In the southern artic waters of Pisces, an aquatic species gradually grew to sentience. Their bodies grew in size. Eventually, they reached maximum size, and began acquiring humanlike qualities....**

**Their scales are blue. The Pisceans look a lot like the Zoras from the Ocarina of Time, but they have hair, and their tails are extensions of the tailbone, which goes down to the ankles. They are also very sexually oriented, resulting in a high reproduction rate. (If you think that Earthlings reproduce too fast, wait until you meet the Pisceans.) Their reproductive system is interesting; Instead of laying eggs, the eggs stay in the uterus, where they grow and hatch, then the women give birth. They can breathe both in water and in air. They don't wear clothes because their scales are their clothes. Their favorite color is blue, and they loathe any other color than blue, but different shades of blue are acceptable. If it's not blue, they destroy it. There is only one exception. Example: If a planet is entirely green, they wreck it. BUT, if the green-world is orbiting a blue giant, they spare it.

**Their weapon of choice is nuclear. They will get their hands on nuclear weapons of any kind when ever possible. They are very xenophobic. If it's not orbiting Piscea, or if it's not on Pisces, they nuke it. Again, there are exceptions, like the "Green Planet" exception provided above. Despite their apparent evils, they are very artistic. The skyscrapers on Pisces are among the most beautiful in the entire Milky Way, and can reach up to 4 miles high (Pisces is a bit bigger than Earth), and they just love ice. If a white planet is entirely ice, they terraform it and colonize it immedieately. Also, they fight with each other constantly. But, from a human perspective, the way they fight with each other is quite often hilarious. (Think of the Pisceans as an entire nation of "Three Stooges.")

**The Pisces Empire is doing well. They are learning much more about their solar system than ever before. Their population is in the billions. They have recently solved environmental problems on Pisces, and the climate is slowly returning to normal. They have recently developed hyperdrive technology, and they can now travel to other solar systems.**

[PlutonianEmpire]

I've just completed the main planet, Pisces, which is 2nd from the sun.



This planet is where the Piscean Empire resides. it's the only habitable planet in the system.

What'd you think?

(EDIT: I still need to do the night texture though)

[kikinho]

The texture only needs more detail. If it had higher detail, it would be better. Good kind of textures are textures with the size of 2048x1024 or 4096x2048 with much detail. But it's cool, keep your work. Piscea history is also interesting.

[PlutonianEmpire]

The texture only needs more detail. If it had higher detail, it would be better. Good kind of textures are textures with the size of 2048x1024 or 4096x2048 with much detail. But it's cool, keep your work. Piscea history is also interesting.

It is a 2048x1024 texture, so i think I can get some nice detail on it. Problem is, i don't know where to start!

[kikinho]

You can start in continents, adding details to mountains, land, volcanos... To add detail, you can use Photoshop, and use, for example, Earth textures with the size of 8192x4096 or higher, or use Google Earth.

I don't use Gimp, so I don't know nothing about it.

Using Google Earth, you can approximate to the level of detail you want and save the image, later go to Photoshop and use the detail of the image to your texture.

I use now this method, and my planet textures have high details, with some interesting features. Google Earth is, for me, the best program to use Earth images to create my textures.

Later you can add some detail to the oceans and clouds.

The continent of Piscea is great, but it'll be greater if it have more detail.

To finish the message: Detail is the key to make good textures.

[Rassilon]

I would actually strife more towards using bumpmaps for your detail....Its easier and looks more realistic....

Section off your land using your spec map and add some noise to it....If you use Photoshop then use the Eye Candy or the Xenofex plugins...Use HSB Noise or Xenofex clouds filter....Make sure the resolution is no greater than 2-5 pixels and not too distinct unless your planning on doing a rocky type planet....

[PlutonianEmpire]

The planet already had a bumpmap when the above image was taken, but taking rassilon's tip, i took the existing bumpmap, promoted the oceans to a new layer (to preserve the coastlines), and added noise and softened the noise a wee bit and increased the bump height from 0.52 to 3.5...



After seeing that, i reduced the hight down to 1.6.

[Rassilon]

Yeah that looks better...I would try now to improve the clouds....which is pretty hard without using third party plugins....I would give my terraform tool a whirl...It outputs TGA but it should be pretty easy to convert to PNG....