Hey everyone, I was looking over at Nasa's site for some photos of the cosmos I could use for a background in renders and found this little gem.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/index.html

Apparently these are all free and can be used royalty free. They aren't textured but they do have material zones so thats not a really big issue if you can texture/use nodes.

Don't know if it's been posted here before, but incase it hasnt been I thought someone might be able to use these.

Daidalos

Cool models, thanx for the link!

Attached Link: http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

Thanks! One good turn deserves another...

Quote - I was looking over at Nasa's site for some photos of the cosmos I could use for a background in renders

Have you tried Celestia? I've used it for making space backgrounds a couple of times. 

No Bob I'd never heard of it. I usually make all of my space backgrounds by hand in Photoshop. I will def check it out though.

Appreciate the heads up!

Daidalos

Bob real quick question. Can these files be used in other apps to create your own artwork. All I see on the site is that the work belongs to the original creators.

Thanks,

Daidalos

Attached Link: Cubeworld - a gallery image of mine which uses a Celestia background

Good question - I'm assuming the output would be free to use in the same way as renders from a 3D program.  Also, it's open source - you can poke around in the innards of the program and make your own version if you want, so I can't imagine there would be a restriction on the use of the output. That said, I can't find anything which says yea or nay on that score. There isn't a readme file in the latest download package, and their forum is down at the moment. I'll make enquiries and get back to you if I receive a definitive answer.

I managed to sign up at the Celestia forums, and the consensus seems to be similar to most of the freestuff in our community. Give credit where credit is due; if you use one of the many third-party add-ons in your work, check the terms for that separately; and if in doubt, ask!

In other words, if you just want to make some starfields as backgrounds, go ahead, and give credit to Celestia.

Can you output animated starfields using celestia?

Attached Link: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=r2NNozFz2yk

I'm a newbie with Celestia - or more accurately, a surface-skimmer since I've been using it for some time but never in depth - however, yes, there is an option to capture a movie of your virtual travels as well as to take snapshots. As proof, here's a synchronous orbit of Saturn that I captured after only a few minutes' poking around.

Great, thank you.

Hey! thanks for the info, it's all neat.