Planet test.

Tom the Mighty

Hey, my first post!

Just a little project to see if I can create a half-way realistic looking planet or moon. Thinking about adding a thin atmosphere . ...or even a very thick one.

Any suggestions? Comments? Critiques?

Specs.
Programs: 3DS Max 2011 for initial model (so difficuuult) and animation, and Mudbox 2012 for the normals, diffuse and specular maps.
1200 tris.
UVW: 2048px

Used a sunlight and rendered with Mental Ray at 800 x 600 res for 900 frames at 29.9 fps.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Bpp2Y-iAg[/ame]
Diffuse Map:

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Specular Map:

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Normals Map:

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Vailias

Terminator is too wide. Surface details seem random. Colors are interesting but I don't really follow the geology. Specular is far too consistent and way too high. If you're going for a dusty moon type feel, look into the minnaert shader model. It can help sell it.

Also consider using a bump offset node to add surface depth and better self shadowing on the model.

Tom the Mighty

thanks! will give it a shot

Oniram

if u are using max for the animation part of it.. set your tangents to linear so it doesnt speed up and slow down as it starts and ends

Joshua Stubbles

I can't tell if there are meant to be clouds or not?? If so, be sure those are on a separate geometry layer. Also the texture itself doesn't look very convincing, even for a rocky planet. Early last year I made a tutorial for the planets I was creating for our BSG mod. They're certainly not perfect, but they look decent enough.

(click image to enlarge)




A definitely agree with the specularity issues that have been mentioned. The bump map could also probably get knocked back some. It's quite intense, which makes the scale look off, like it's a really small object.