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Saphirefenix — Cloud Planet lighting tutorial
Published: 2008-10-02 00:20:50 +0000 UTC; Views: 10633; Favourites: 56; Downloads: 392
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Description
You MUST click DOWNLOAD to get the full res image, it is in a .zip, just double click and windows xp/vista should open it for you, with compressed zipped folders application (with xp/vista) you must click the EXTRACT button as it will only open like a folder. Or copy and paste the image into another location.Sorry about the [link] watermarks on every image but... just incase someone tries to steal it.
Tools you need:
Photoshop (I used CS3)
Terragen (Its free but can only render at 1280x700 on free version, no reason you can't just chop a few renders together OR clone tool a texture)
3dsMax is OPTIONAL but HIGHLY recommended when rendering planets, alternatively you can select a perfect circle as close to the sides of the canvas as possible and go Filter > Distort > Sphereize
Nagel Series 11 cloud brushes (optional) [link]
dinyctis planet tutorial (where I learned from) [link]
Image width is 1440x900 so you may need to zoom out a bit to read it properly or zoom in... depends.
My monitor is a high def graphics monitor, and although everything in this looks bright (contrasted) enough to me, if its too dark let me know and I will add an adjustment layer to this and brighten it up. Noting this, as it is just screenshots you should see what I see, but when you try this you may NOT have to lower the brightness of the planets atmosphere, if so, kudos to you!
PLEASE link to this tutorial on the first image you do using it.
DO NOT repost ANYWHERE without my permission, you may link to HERE but do NOT REPOST!
If you see this tutorial anywhere other than here on DA (my account or the galaxy club) please note me, it is greatly apreciated.
NOTE* Eeeek! I have to go make a .zip containing the files and a preview image as the image itself is over 10800 pixels in height (its 25200 ish haha) it is actually 2 and a half tutorials in one so.. yeah.
Comments and questions are encouraged!
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Comments: 25
Wait... All this time you artists have been making textures and applying them to 3d spheres in CS3? where have I been?
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Well SOME of us apply them to spheres in 3dsmax, others use the spherize filter in CS3
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I think I might prefer the 3ds max sphering idea.
I don't know enough about CS3 (I usually use GIMP when I DO do images) to get it right.
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I like 3dsmax, as it applies a great sphere and makes the texture stand out more, unlike spherising in photoshop.. it just looks better in 3dsmax.
I hope you do try it, I would love to see what you do with it.
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*deep breath*
My problem is finding the textures I like that look good to apply to the sphere without it looking unreal. I should probably just try a random texture and go from there but I still need to find one that makes me happy.
I'm going to try it out. Also for any future tutorials Turbosquid has a "Max" from before autodesk got a hold of 3ds max. Gmax is the programs name it's pretty much the exact same as 3ds max 8 so yeah spread the word to those who don't have the money to buy 3ds and don't want to pirate.
Also that little 3ds max thing is something that seems to have gone unsaid with space artists. Without your tutorial I never would have guessed that you people used max in that method if not only occasionally.
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yeah, thats why I went over to terragen, I have yet to find a texture I can use without changing it, and believe me, my painting skills are horrible (hence why I can never paint a damn nebula lol)
I remember Gmax, thats why I got 3ds, as back in the day I was planning on becoming a part of a C&C generals mod team and wanted to learn how to model and skin, never got around to it, but I decided to try it out and really REALLY enjoyed the outcome. I also make asteroids in 3dsmax, make a sphere, add a noise thingy ma bober mess around with it, get some nice asteroid impact crater bit maps, go throw some of them onto the asteroid using displace and voila. Rotate until you find a good side and render.
Well 3dsmax isn't used by space artists much.. I don't think so anyway. You will see Taenaron putting 3dsmax into his credits sometimes but I always believed it was for asteroids.
I was actually looking to create 3d planets and make animations etc. at the time I discovered this technique and I just tried it.
Some of my works I got lazy on and just spherized in photoshop. But that was before I got my new computer.
If you have access to terragen I suggest you try it, just zoom out, change the feature size, slap a bunch of random colours into the surface layers and render 1 or 2 as high as you can in the free version then you can clone tool them together in photoshop or a similar program.
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Yeah i don't know I think i'll wait until I can get a new computer before I do any of that.
I'll stick with learning 3ds max before I buy terragen (heh heh heh) to make it so it would be worth the purchase of both 3ds and terragen. And Photoshop is a similar thing but i can't decide if I like GIMP better or if CS3/4 is worth my purchase. Or perhaps i'll use elements which came with my tablet lol I can't decide!!!!
But yeah I have no doubt you'll be seeing more stuff coming out of me xP
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haha, awesome, got a tablet!
(ROCK ON)
lol
I cant wait to see some work, and 3dsmax isnt that hard to learn if you are just doing planets, make a sphere, make it have 200 segments, open materials, throw your texture on, bump map it with that texture by 10, and boom.. render..
BUT, if you think you will just use the spherize filter more anyway, then don't worry about 3dsmax...
Its up to you though lol.
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Photoshop doesn't like me much so i think i'm going to have to use 3ds max and then import it >.<
Yeah.. You watch me and I'll watch you XP
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haha, I thought I was already watching you.. I do that a lot with artists I like.. its like wtf.. they got a piece in science fiction art of the month but I didn't even see it posted, go check their page and im not watching them and they have like 100 new awesome pieces and I feel bad.. lol.
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Yeah happens to me too sometimes i won't lie. Like I'll wind up watching someone on accident while thinking of watching another person XP
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lol, ive only done that once so far lol.
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it usually happens when you're on dA at like 3 am in the morning and you have no business being on. xP
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EXACTLY!
When you have like nothing to do.. and your just bored lol. Thats about it, I think it was phoenix... something, I liked a piece of his work and I thought I watched him but it was some completely other guy, I think it was like.. his colab partner and yeah... lol
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Wow, nice tutorial! I'm sure people will find it very helpful. ^^
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woah, didn't see your comment show up in my inbox lol.
Sorry about that.
Thank you for the comment, I hope they do.
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Yeah, the clouds and terragen textures are my babies, makes me feel unique as I created them myself.
I didn't use a tutorial for any of those or I would just link to them (3dsmax tutorial was on google.. holy shit that was horrid to try and figure out through that quality)
but clouds I discovered myself, I went to hit sphereize and selected shear by accident and went.. heeeeey!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAIT A SECOND!
And then I messed around for a couple minutes, and discovered this technique.
As for terragen, its basically throwing together a bunch of crap into a surface map and hoping it looks cool.
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haha, no prob, cant wait to see some new planets from you with some clouds.
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Wouldn't just be easier to use the Photoshop Spherize (or whatever it's called) filter to make the planet?
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hahahahahah!
Quicker, easier, yes. But 3dsmax renders the planet in greater detail, can add bump maps so it actually looks like a three dimensional object, can add displacement layers for craters etc.
AND if you get really fancy, you can add the whole atmosphere in 3dsmax, which doesn't look nearly as good. but yeah....
And it accurately wraps the texture around the planet and makes it look more spherical, a comparison image will show that sphereising in photoshop does not look as sphereised as 3dsmax.... so yeah.. anyway...
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I swear.. it does!
That and you can roatate it so you get the side you want. Plus in photoshop the way you do it is by selecting a sphere, it then stretches the edges back and around and thats it. With 3dsmax you get the whole texture on there, and if you want you can get really fancy and make a sphere shaped texture through transparency as I thin 3dsmax can handle that and then it wouldnt even have those edge lines.
You can actually see there are like 8 corners overlapping on the top and bottom of the planet, as it is stretched around like a sphere...
anyway...
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