Post #4by selden » 24.04.2003, 01:08
So far none of the artists among us have created any planetary nebula objects.
I tried using a 3DS sphere with a translucent surface texture, but it really looks awful. I think doing it right will have to wait until Celestia can do what is called "volumetric rendering".
The canonical planetary nebula, for example, is a spherical shell of gas. It looks like a smoke ring because we're looking through more material near the edges of the sphere than we look through at its center.
In the meantime, I suppose someone could use a "billboard" object to place pictures of some of the planetary nebulae in appropriate locations.
Selden