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Eclipse
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Eclipse // Work in Progress
Post by Davin // Nov 28, 2007, 2:46pm
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Davin
Total Posts: 59
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I was asked to make a graphic of a planet with its atmosphere and the sun coming up over the edge of the planet.
We are still working out the basic design and I believe I have no more texture work to do (even thought the textures you do see are hard to see).
I made the sun out of an array of local lights (to get the earth to cover part of the sun up) and just set them to the glow after effect.
I just used a random planet texture I made in PSP, and clouds also from a texture (I may just use a few tiny particle arrays for the clouds for the final render) and I used a plain color sphere with angle transparency set to 90º, 0 in the center and .02 on the edge. I added in some spot lights to get some better lighting on the planet and atmosphere and that is really it. |
Post by jamesmc // Nov 28, 2007, 3:09pm
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Looks near ready for the astronomy Photo Lab. :) |
Post by i_maker // Nov 28, 2007, 3:36pm
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i_maker
Total Posts: 156
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I can almost hear "Also sprach Zarathustra" playing in the background... Very effective image! |
Post by butterpaw // Nov 28, 2007, 4:52pm
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butterpaw
Total Posts: 831
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Aww.. tell the truth.. you stowed away on a space shuttle .. :D
... but seriously, it looks very fine!
^_^ |
Post by Luis Saavedra // Nov 29, 2007, 4:16am
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Luis Saavedra
Total Posts: 71
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I think it looks beatiful! a really nice shot for a big screen! |
Post by Matski007 // Nov 29, 2007, 6:27am
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Matski007
Total Posts: 539
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fantastic!
when I need to do a shot with a sun in it i Used a projector light and volumetrics, if u like i can show u |
Post by W!ZARD // Nov 29, 2007, 5:40pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Nice work - I'm a big fan of space art.
One technical point - the planet Earth has a diameter of about 12740 Kilometers, the vast majority of the atmosphere is under 100 kilometres deep so in comparison to the size of the planet the atmosphere is really thin.
This means that yoiu can't actually see the thickness (or lack of) of the Earths atmosphere from space, certainly from the distance your 'camera' is at in your picture.
Check out the famous picture of Earths entire globe taken by the Apollo astronauts - there is no indication of atmospheric depth at all in that picture.
The transparent sphere you have to represent your atmosphere should be so close the the same size as the sphere you have for the planet that it is effectively invisible.
Lastly, the Earths atmosphere attenuates - gets thinner - very quickly with altitude - I forget the exact figures but something like 80% of the air is in the lowest 20 kilometers so the higher altitudes are really thin. Your picture shows a distinct edge between the atmosphere and the vacuum of space which is very unrealistic and is a detraction from an otherwise fine piece of space art.
Realistically speaking the vast majority of people will not notice this - only the pedantic purists like myself will spot this.
Hope this helps
WZRD |
Post by Davin // Nov 29, 2007, 10:14pm
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Davin
Total Posts: 59
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Thank you, it looks like they like the image as well, here is a larger version with a few more minor tweaks.
I fixed the oceans, a little more tweaking on the light glow and shrunk the atmosphere a little bit.
Matski007: Also I would like to see how a sun is done using volumetrics and a projecter light so any help would be great since I tend to do a lot of trial and error with some things.
W!ZARD: Aye, I agree, but this is the way the image was developed based on what they were looking for, I had a better (more realistic) atmosphere that I compared with actual shots of the earth from space, the atmosphere is an almost completely unnoticeable soft edge from this angle but is noticeable from another angle. I an image have of earth from space (included below). Also the angle of the sun with the camera angle you would not see any part of the planet illuminated, in order for the sun to come over the edge and see part of the planet illuminated would require the camera to be right up next to the planet. So this is an artistic piece and not so much a realistic piece. Thank you for the comments.
Still I think it looks good, but later in a few months if I look at it again I will want to change it. |
Post by W!ZARD // Dec 2, 2007, 12:10am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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W!ZARD: Aye, I agree, but this is the way the image was developed based on what they were looking for, I had a better (more realistic) atmosphere that I compared with actual shots of the earth from space, the atmosphere is an almost completely unnoticeable soft edge from this angle but is noticeable from another angle. I an image have of earth from space (included below). Also the angle of the sun with the camera angle you would not see any part of the planet illuminated, in order for the sun to come over the edge and see part of the planet illuminated would require the camera to be right up next to the planet. So this is an artistic piece and not so much a realistic piece. Thank you for the comments.
Still I think it looks good, but later in a few months if I look at it again I will want to change it.
Lol - yeah I think that's common with space art - it certainly is with my own space art!! We all want to see what we expect to see to a certain degree and that's a big part of what makes space art so much fun to do and so beautiful to look at.
I cerrtainly don't mean to be critical of this picture - I think you've done a great job :D |
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