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Chromattix — Test - Procedural Vue Planets
Published: 2009-03-13 10:30:44 +0000 UTC; Views: 13231; Favourites: 234; Downloads: 0
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It may not be the most artistically breathtaking thing to show in your inbox, but don't under-estimate it - these planets were made using NO image-based textures at all! virtually made from nothing but clever use of filters and functions alone!That's right, 100% pure Vue work right here
The function editor (not that I'm pro at this challenging yet powerful aspect of Vue but have spent hours experiemnting recently) can be used to create some stunning materials as these here which when applied to a series of layered spheres, can make very realistic planets! So imagine how much cooler this would be if I did work my Photoshop magic over it, but that would defeat the purpose of my test here 
Some of the advantages of fully procedural materials include:
- Uses WAY less memory, each planet-object and their materials don't even use one MB of space (lol, bit of a pun in there)
- Dosn't get that "distortion" at the polar areas of the sphere that image-based textures do, so these planets can be rotated and viewed from any angle without weird "polar suction"
- Higher detail, since image-mapped textures lose quality fast as you approach closer, these do too an extent and become a bit blurry, but not in an unnatural "pixellated" way
- Easier to edit, rather than making a new map for a new planet all over again, the proportion of land to sea can be easily be changed, as can the colours of the planets, the level of cloud-cover and how swirly they are and so on.
This is a preview showing 2 of 4 planets I have made for a high-grade resource pack for Vue users that I'll intend on selling on Cornucopia (gotta get a store account first
) like most things there, it won't be expensive, but since this is an original idea that practically every Vue artist will wnat, hopefully it can reel in some pocket money for me, whilist giving Vue user's the best planets available to use in their sci-fi scenes (Most of the space-related stuff there at the moment is really dissapointing 
)A far bigger (and dearer) pack is in the making, it will contain these four planets plus a shitload more! things like Ringed Gas Giants, Suns and even nebulae that I have made directly in Vue - for Vue
Might move to scraps later, depends on how many faves it gets (I don't think it would get much
)
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Comments: 163
When I was making these I didn't really consider the sizes as much as I would now. Since there were no other, physical things to compare them too, it didn't seem to matter even if they were just a few hundred metres across (which sounds about right 
Since I was using the mapping mode "object-parametric" for the materials - it didn't matter if I had to change the scale of the materials, since they would scale "with" the object anyway (I use that mapping mode for almost everything, on my personal plants and other objects for instance) since its great to avoid unwanted scaling issues in materials
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Thank you!
Object-Parametric does seem to work pretty well, I'll play with that.
Thanks!
== John ==
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I know this is an old picture, but it looks great! I tried doing the same approach; I wanted a large planet hanging in the sky over a normal scene, but for some reason with some types of atmosphere, the procedural sphere doesn't show up. I'm still experimenting. I love AO, GR, GI, so that might be part of the problem.
== John ==
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Adding actual planets to a Vue scene can have very different results depending on the type of atmosphere. Standard atmospheres create very weird results. The planet will just be a solid-colour circle taking on the colour used in the fog/haze tabs. In the volumetric atmosphere it can look decent sometimes, but it will show through clouds even if the clouds are lower and closer. Really the best results are done using them in a spectral atmosphere since it "behaves" more like a real life situation.
If they disappear into the atmosphere then there could be too much fog or haze. Or the Aerial perspective may be set too high (but some is needed to help make the planets look like they are beyond the atmosphere, not in it
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Hi, I just stumbled across this link in an effort to find a tutorial on making a procedural earth just exactly as you have. Have you been able post your stuff for sale on Cornucopia yet? Have you produced a tutorial by any chance?
I need to make a very large earth and get in close to the atmosphere. Obviously texture based earths start to look like crap when you try to get too close. I'd love to know how you created yours.
Keep up the great work!
Brian
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I wish I could have created a Cornucopia3D store account to sell these. They would have been up by now. But previous attempts about trying to set one up were just ignored. I saw it as an opportunity to make ones better than these here so I did. I worked on creating heaps of planets of all types over a few months.
Then the file got corrupted and I lost EVERYTHING! 
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I'm in the same boat as infrah, just found out about vue.
was interested specifically for space scapes, this excites me as to the possibilities
U know of any decent tutorials? before i go looking.
Or u be willing to skim through some quick tips?
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Vue can potentially be of big help in space scenes but it is mostly geared towards landscapes. There are some people who know what it takes to make good space renders in Vue but it is very tricky and I don't often see Vue space scenes that are any good to be honest 
Still, the best space scenes I can think of rendered in Vue with no postwork necessary would be ones like [link] [link] or [link] to name a few, they wouldn't have been easy though since while Vue comes with a lot in regards to landscape resources - it doesn't have very good space resources, stocks or your own work is usually the best way to go
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Ahh you still doubtlessly have the knowledge accumulated in the experiments
still a bitch tho
U got any recommendations of a superior space scape program? ive been lookin around but most recommendations are for terrain heavy programs, sadly, pretty much expect im outa luck... gonna have to do this the hard way...
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That's true, it just will be a real bitch spending the months re-doing everything, with Vue because procedural materials have a random nature to their feature, some of the effects you get can be by pure chance and I got some nice ones that I probably won't be able to replicate exactly again
There isn't really much for space scenes, what many do, even me most of the time is just create it directly in Photoshop. Whether I choose a 3D program or not depend son what I feel like using at the time and how realistic I want it to be. Photoshop made planets can look pretty good and that's what many use
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Haha I've had that sentiment many times over lost work... more often than not the following endeavors surpassed to originals, it is sad though to know something that gave you that warm pride and satisfaction is gone forever 
Guess I will just stick to zbrush and photoshop, i did seem to be hoping for an all in one mega program haha quite naive!
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fuck i just found out about vue. i never knew it was possible to make somthign like this!!!>!!?!?! wOw amazing ! !
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Most Vue users still don't know how to make realistic planets using just procedural materials on ordinary spheres like here. Since this I greatly enhanced their detail, but the file got corrupted so now I lost all those months of work
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very nice work mate!, since its procedural...can you name an animation say zooming down through the cloud layers and up the coast then onto land and over mountains etc? when does it lose detail? i havent played with this in VUE yet
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I'll admit that it starts losing detail once you get closer than here (but that's in a fairly big render though, so if it's a small thing like an animation, you could go closer) Since once really close, you can sorta see evidence of the mathematical algorithm's (I'm not sure if that's what it's called, so lets say "the stuff that makes the pretty colours" 
Terrgen 2 still holds the position for best planets where you can view from as far as space or as close as ground-level. These here were just created for those who want nicely detailed planets for outer-space scenery, but without the hassle's of texture-based materials (like huge memory for high-res maps, or that "distortion" that they create in the polar regions) I've finished the proposed packs a while ago, but I'll admit I've been slacking off when it comes to making a cornucopia-broker account (since I have a pack of 40 atmospheres I made for that purpose too, and more ideas for down the track
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oh very nice! this terragen2, can it do any sort of animation? because im trying to do a cinimatic or atleast get the basics of the cinimatic done, and i cant seem to find anything thats good at doing a space scene fly by type thing without requiring 90hours of nodeling/texturing/scene prepping..etc :\ I'm sure you are familiar with and his works with me on some concept planets etc? that is sort of the planitart look im going for. But yeah say if terragen 2 can render animations and set up proper animations that would be ideal. what are your views on this situation?
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Yeah, TG2 can also do very good animations too. But it may be a bit more complex to pick up on though, and that program also has a slower render engine too...Still, here's an animation I saw on their site [link] and here's an older one that used to be on the official site, but I could only find it on youtube [link] which shows how well it handles animating from space to ground level 
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your comments are monstrously long
but your work is absolutely gorgeous
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They always are 
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well,i got lost like two lines into it:i know nothing about the technicalities of 3D art
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hihihihi 175favs so far..i think you wont be scraping this...looks pretty good,i also very much like the discussion with hoevelkamp has some tips hidden in it..well guess im gonna give vue a second chance.meeeeeeeeeeu,mrh
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Lol, I wasn't expecting it to make it past 50
If you have Vue, you shouldn't give up on it, it's great especially if you want to make a Terraspace scene
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Amazing planets, I love the way you got your procedural maps to work so smoothly, I've always found it a pain in the arse to make procedural planets (although I have attempted it a few times with some success).
Either way, awesome planets
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Thankyou, most of it was trial and error, there was also a lot of mixing" materials too - particularly the main planet itself with the continents and oceans. However they are actually a set of 4 concentric spheres each just a wee bit bigger than the one underneath, and certain materials are applied to certain spheres (one for the planet, two different cloud-layers and one volumetric one for an atmosphere)
I saw your Criahr system deviation, that's OK (I was expecting worse with how you said it was a pain to do lol 
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Hey no problem, you certainly made two very wonderful procedural texture planets
Hah yeah, my Criahr system deviation was made like in 2006 or so, so it's not very great to say the least
But none the less, your two amazing planets certainly outclass my skills at creating procedural planets ^^
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Absolutely positively killing. Can you please share some?
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Share em? no way!
BUT! I will give you the basics of it, and that is I think I started with a terrain fractal, since in the function editor there's a lot of options not available in most functions (like "smooth area altitude" and so on) as well as a turbulence node...Basically the clouds were edited from something like that, much of which was lucky experimenting too. All of that is only for the transparency function though, eveyrthing else is rather just a basic white material applied to a sphere slightly larger than the planet itself
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wow! that is so amazing, great angle of the earth, just wow...
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Ooh cool, i made earth in vue using a VERY high res texture from nasa, i've never thought about doing it procedural.
But i'm pretty sure it's almost impossible to make the shape you want so.. no "real" earth :/
i've gotta try that
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Thankyou, well making procedural planets sure is hard and time-consuming and was mostly trial and error 
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Oh, it's not released yet, I still need to get a cornucopia store account first, which I've been procrastinating since when I tried a year ago they hit me with this wall of stuff to fill out and it was so hard and confusing...maybe this year I could answer more (since they asked for your card details and such, I didn't even have any a year ago
I'd like to make some free resources for Vue here too one day, but the "better" ones that are really original ideas like this are ones I know I could make heaps off over there, so they'll be paid-resources (worth the money, I spent weeks putting this pack together 
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Thanks, though that's not Earth itself, just a fictional planet that looks like it
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well you certainly fooled me there
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Hmm, intresting vue test. However, I find vue much more useful for "in atm" large planets. (as was my daily dev which was pure vue) When you zoom out too far with their normal planets, vue is pretty crappy. Especially the sun. However, you did well. Nice work
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Way ahead of ya my man
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Reminds me of a line in one of the songs by "Red Hot Chilli Peppers" that goes~
"Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement"
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star trek^^ and ur welcome
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Wow, that's pretty amazing! I can't wait for the gas giants, suns, and nebulae!
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Thanks, I won't submit every render of the planets etc, but maybe For the non-main parts, I'll submit a deviation containing different sub-images that showcase a differnet part of the collection of 3D models
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The vue is a powerful tool you seem to master pretty good more and more these days.
Keep on it mate, you'll be able to get even better quality planets further on
For gods sake man.. "Might move to scraps later, depends on how many faves it gets (I don't think it would get much )" When you gonna stop beeing such a DAMN FAV WHORE, thought you was passed this ages agoe, you dissapoints me
So lame hahahhaha.
You're established here mate. Now you should fetch comments instead of favs, or atleast realize that the comment is the real of value here.
Quit your favhunt soon pls.
/rob
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Thanks, for a long time I just used it for the conventional landscaping purposes it's mainly intended for, but now that I have a far better version of it, I have more options to experiement and see what can be done in the program alone, especially when it comes to making fully procedural (non image-mapped) textures as here
As far as faves go, I wasn't expecting for this to make it past even 50
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