Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=2024

Using C7 Pro under Win7.

Trying to replicate the excellent results of Kixum's planet tutorial, but falling short in a couple of areas. I am using the Venus surface maps and Earth cloud maps from Carrara's scene library (as well as the starfield).

My result is as per the attached image. Not quite what I want. What is bugging me about my result is that (1) the starfield in the final image looks absolutely hideous; (2) the color of the planet is over-saturated; and (3) the so-called dark side of the planet isn't dark !

Would welcome any and all feedback on these, as well as other areas in which you might be able to offer constructive criticism.

thanks and regards,
Andrew

PS Where is a good place to find better planet maps? I went to the NASA site, and (unexpectedly) was not able to find any.

Adjust your lighting to suit before rendering.
Use Hubble images for a background.
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/

Higher quality  planet images abound--did you use the biggest of the Earth maps that come with Carrara?
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/solar_system

Brian

Here was my try at Carrara Earth.

Quote - Adjust your lighting to suit before rendering.

Can you clarify on this, or give suggestions? .... currently I am just using the default distant light.

Quote - Higher quality  planet images abound--did you use the biggest of the Earth maps that come with Carrara?
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/solar_system
Brian

Although there were lots of pics, I had trouble actually finding the appropriate planetary surface maps in this collection. Any other leads ?

The darker your lighting, the larger scale your planet will have.  Brighter light (almost flashbulb quality) will give the planet a small tennis ball size look.

And no depth of field, unless you are trying for the Mystery Science 3000 look.

ShawnDriscoll, what size scene did you use (ie small, medium or large) ?
(BTW, is there a way of telling the size of a Carrara scene, if - for example - you didn't create it ?)

I have two suggestions.

1.)  Look to see if you  have zoomed in on the planet.  If you have, your view in the corner of the window in the assembly room will say something other than 100%.  If this has happened, then that might be why the starfield is not what you're looking for.

To fix this, zoom back to 100% and move the camera in the scene to get what you wan rather than rendering with a zoom.

2.)  I would suspect that you have 1 of two possible issues with your lighting.

First, you still have ambient light turned on.  If so, turn that off.  You can find it in the scene settings.  If this is still elusive, just ask here in the thread and we will help out.

or

Second, you have turned on some kind of environment in the scene settings and you are rendering with some level of GI turned on.  If so, you can turn off the GI rendering in the scene and see if that fixes the issue.

I have never used any preset environment before so I don't know what the settings you started with look like (nor do I know if you started with a preset).  My starfield was actually generated using the Digital Carvers Guild plug in starbright (probably my most favorite).

Quote - ShawnDriscoll, what size scene did you use (ie small, medium or large) ?
(BTW, is there a way of telling the size of a Carrara scene, if - for example - you didn't create it ?)

I used Carrara Pro 5.1.  So I guess it would be medium in Carrara 6 or later.  My Earth is 6" wide.

Thanks for replying.

Yes I had the ambient light turned on, so I set that down to zero. Didn't help all that much. There were no other environmental settings for the scene - apart from using starfield.jpg as the background map. The settings that I used for this was the same as for the preset space scenes.

As you suggested, I fixed the zoom setting so that Camera 1 has 98.883% next to it. However, when I did a full-size render, the background stars still looked like blobs of jello.

Attached is my latest feeble attempt.

regards,
Andrew

 Thanks for sharing !

.... sharing what ?

Ok, here's the next set of ideas that I have.

1.)  You are (at least I'm 99% sure) rendering this in direct line with the light you have in the scene.  I would suggest moving the light to the right or left.  Then you will be able to see the dark part of the planet.  The way it appears at the moment, the light is just above the camera and the camera isn't at an angle that can see the dark side.

2.)  I'm going to make a guess here and assume that you have put the starfield into the background and not the backdrop?  If that is the case, switch it and see what happens.  My suspician is that you will then just have too many stars.  Try it and let's see.

3.)  You need to reduce the amount of glow in the sphere that has the planetary halo a little bit.  I'm not sure but I also suspect that you may need to adjust the gradients somewhat and I'm also 99% sure that you haven't turned on the "point at" behavior to have the atmospheric glow sphere pointing at the light source.

4.)  I think you need to make the cloud sphere just a tweense bigger (like 1% bigger).  I make that assumption based on the fact that I don't really see any cloud shadows.  However, that could be an artifact of the way the camera and the light is positioned so let's wait on that a little bit before we jump off the deep end.

Lastly, don't say the attempt is feeble.  The bottom line is that there are gobs of little details that require a lot of dialing to get it to look the way  you want.  Don't worry now.  It looks like the hard part of just having something to work with is already done.  Now you just need to dial.

I won't be able to monitor this thread for a while so if you have more questions, it may be 24 hours before I can get back to you.  This is going fine.  Hang in there.

Oh sorry, I'm messed up here with the light thing.  I see you are using a distant light (good choice).  It won't matter where you move that light, what will matter is how it's pointed.  So here's my suggestion for that.

Add a behavior to the distant light to point at the planet.  Then when you move it, it will change the direction that it's pointed and then it will do what I have implied in the previous post which is to change the direction the light is coming from.

If you don't know, distant lights work as thought they're at infinity and shine in the direction they are pointed.  Their position in the scene is irrelevant given that they operate as thought they are from infinity.  So that might be part of the issue about how your lighting is or isn't working.  It also means that if you want the soft shadows to truly work, you need to set the size of the light source big.

Sorry about leaving out that tidbit.  Let me know if that helps.

Hey and one last weird thing, I've never used any of the star maps that come with Carrara.  Where are those?  There are a handful of options to deal with stars so keep posting your results and let us know what happens.

At worst, I built an environment I called space lab.  I can't remember what the starfield in it looks like (in other words, I don't know if it's any good anymore, I built the stupid thing in Raydream about 12 years ago).  If it comes to it, we can figure out a way to get it posted in the backroom or something so everybody can have a shot at it.

Maybe a tuturial for a space environment is a good idea.  I will have to think about that one a little bit.

Is it possible that you put the starfield in as a background instead of a backdrop?  The background is displayed on a large virtual sphere and often causes such a blurring effect on an image close to the size of your finished image.  If that is what you are using (like a 1024 x 768 image for the starfield behind a final render of 1024 x 768), then you should use a backdrop, which is a 2D plane which remains perpendicular to the camera, behind your screen.  The jpg will then be clean and clear.

If you are using a smaller jpg than your final render, try tiling it as a backdrop.

One thing - the backdrop will remain static when you move your camera.  With a starfield this should not be a big issue unless you are animating.

If you are animating, you could try tiling the jpg on the background sphere.

Klebnor

Hey Kix, thanks for your dedication in helping me get this right. It's a great learning curve.

Quote - Ok, here's the next set of ideas that I have.

1.)  You are (at least I'm 99% sure) rendering this in direct line with the light you have in the scene.  I would suggest moving the light to the right or left.  Then you will be able to see the dark part of the planet.  The way it appears at the moment, the light is just above the camera and the camera isn't at an angle that can see the dark side.

Done, although this does not seem to have made much difference.

Quote - 2.)  I'm going to make a guess here and assume that you have put the starfield into the background and not the backdrop?  If that is the case, switch it and see what happens.  My suspician is that you will then just have too many stars.  Try it and let's see.

I think I might have resolved this by setting "tile" on for the starfield.

Quote - 3.)  You need to reduce the amount of glow in the sphere that has the planetary halo a little bit.  I'm not sure but I also suspect that you may need to adjust the gradients somewhat and I'm also 99% sure that you haven't turned on the "point at" behavior to have the atmospheric glow sphere pointing at the light source.

Done, but once again no dramatic difference.

Quote - 4.)  I think you need to make the cloud sphere just a tweense bigger (like 1% bigger).  I make that assumption based on the fact that I don't really see any cloud shadows.  However, that could be an artifact of the way the camera and the light is positioned so let's wait on that a little bit before we jump off the deep end.

I had already set the cloud sphere at 101% and the halo sphere at 102%. > Quote - Oh sorry, I'm messed up here with the light thing.  I see you are using a distant light (good choice).  It won't matter where you move that light, what will matter is how it's pointed.  So here's my suggestion for that.

Add a behavior to the distant light to point at the planet.  Then when you move it, it will change the direction that it's pointed and then it will do what I have implied in the previous post which is to change the direction the light is coming from.

If you don't know, distant lights work as thought they're at infinity and shine in the direction they are pointed.  Their position in the scene is irrelevant given that they operate as thought they are from infinity.  So that might be part of the issue about how your lighting is or isn't working.  It also means that if you want the soft shadows to truly work, you need to set the size of the light source big.

Sorry about leaving out that tidbit.  Let me know if that helps.

Thanks, but I'm not sure that this bit has really helped.

Quote - Hey and one last weird thing, I've never used any of the star maps that come with Carrara.  Where are those?  There are a handful of options to deal with stars so keep posting your results and let us know what happens.

At worst, I built an environment I called space lab.  I can't remember what the starfield in it looks like (in other words, I don't know if it's any good anymore, I built the stupid thing in Raydream about 12 years ago).  If it comes to it, we can figure out a way to get it posted in the backroom or something so everybody can have a shot at it.

Maybe a tuturial for a space environment is a good idea.  I will have to think about that one a little bit.

The starfield.jpg file is under Scenes/In Space in the Carrara folder. There only appears to be one.

Once again, really appreciate your help.

Attached Link: The Ultimate Gimp Planet Tutorial

http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutorial/The-Ultimate-Gimp-Planet-Tutorial/40845

Then I create the background around that image.  It's easier and I think it comes out better.  I make the backdrop as high a resolution as I can depending on what surface map I used for the planet.  Look at my gallery for some examples in some of my newer uploads.

If I have to do it in Carrara, I use 3 maps and three or 4 spheres.  The first sphere is for any water or ocean.  The second sphere is fr the land masses.  For the land masses, I make the sphere about .08 inches larger os it just barely blocks out the firt sphere.  I modify the landmass texture map so there are pure white spots on it where I want he water to show through.  Then on the landmass sphere, check White is Invisible, and add a Mixer shader to the bump channel of the landmass sphere.  In the Mixer, sure the bitmap that you used for the landmass for the first source. Next, put in a value of 1-1000 for he second source and select a Multiply for the method.  Next create a third layer just a tiny bit bigger again for the clouds.  Select or create a cloud bitmap, and then another for the halo which is just a plain color at about 98% transparency and with a subtle glow. Some folks choose to use an Aura under the spheres effects tab, but then you get shadow issues.  I usually do not use a distant light.  Mostly because natural sunlight doesn't behave like that.  I either use a sun light and place the actual source where the sun is, or I use a spot.  Play around to see what looks best for your particular scene. 

Oh yeh..  Almost  forgot.  If you decide to go the easy way and do the backdrop in a 2D app.  See about picking up Alien Skin's Xenofex II.  It has a plugin called constellation which is great for making starfields.  Just make a series of layers with starfields and then change their colors brightnesses etc...  Add in a few nebula layers and it looks fantastic.  Xenofex is a plug in for Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro (my favorite).

Pertaining to your render  I would also move the camera farther off to the side and make it much higher than the planet on the Z axis.  Reduce the bump a tiny bit too.

I hope this is helpful.

Rich

PS I will attach one of my images for you to look at.  The planet was done in GIMP then brought into Paint Shop Pro where I created the starfield and used the planet as the top layer.  When you design a planet this way, Make sure you are creating it on a BLACK backdrop.  BTW  If you don't have GIMP then you can get it free on the net.  It's 100% Public Domain Freeware.  Just Google GIMP.

I use the Glitterato plugin from Flaming Pear to add star fields.

I haven't heard of that one.  Do you have a link to it's homepage?

http://www.flamingpear.com/download.html

Also look for Lunarcell on that list for making planet textures and atmospheres.

Can you move the camera and render again?  I need to see a different angle to try and figure out what's going on.

There is an excellent chart here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo

That talks about the Albedo of an object, which is how much it reflects light from a light source.

There is a chart that shows all the different types of material and how they reflect light which should help with your lighting settings to get more realism.

Earths Moon which is dry and sandy has an Albedo value.

Maybe someone can create a chart for Albedo Values vs Reflective values in Carrara.

I experimented with moving Camera 1 to numerous different positions, and then rendering. The attached image is the best render that I could come up with. As you can see, the dark side of the planet still isn't really dark.

Thanks and regards,
Andrew

It still looks like you have the ambient light for the scene turned on.  How many lights are opu using?  What are their positions, and what type are they?  Could you take a screen capture showing the scene in the assembly room, and send it up?  Then we could probably help more.

Rich

I see.  The glow is bouncing off the planet.  Turn down gamma in postwork or maybe there is a way for the planet to ignore light coming from the glow object?

I guess I should read the tutorial, huh?

There is no reference in the tutorial to "postwork", that I could see. Furthermore, ignoring the glow object would defeat the purpose of the whole exercise. There is a suggestion at the bottom of the tutorial to play around with the glow, the aura and the bump map to get the desired result. Well, I just about went blue in the face tweaking these aspects, but all to no avail.

Aura is the key in Carrara.  It "glows" just the atmo and not the planet.  Some have had success with using Fresnel also.  It all depends on where your lighting is and its direction.

Anyway, there is no "1 rule" to making planets.  It's a subjective activity.

I'm beginning to see this, but getting the dark side of the planet to actually be dark is becoming quite daunting.

Just to make absolutely sure, here's the ambient light that I'm talking about.  Select scene (bottom of this image), look at the ambient tab and turn it to 0.

Yep, that's how I "turned off" the ambient light.
Kix, any chance of you making available one of your *.car files that you have used to render a planet ?

I'll see if I can post the file (sans maps) in the freestuff section.  When I do that, I'll post here that it's up with some description of whatever I cook up.  Not having the maps will be a little weird but at least it will be of some help.

I posted the planet in the freestuff section.  As soon as it's approved, it will be available.

It's very different in that the planet is completely procedural and looks quite weird.  I did this in order to make the file small and also because I didn't want any issues with copyright for the maps that are used in the tutorial.

I also added a final sphere for the starfield.  Kind of a last minute thingamabob.  It looks stupid but it was fast, cheap and ok for just learning.

So, to be clear, this is a super dorky thing but it's just a learning tool.

Thanks, Kix, will look forward to it.

File posted.  Enjoy.

Thanks, Kix. I will have a play and study it :)