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Description
So.
This was an experiment in dynamic texturing based on incidence lighting.
There are still a few things Lightwave can do much better than Blender. And reproducing the cosmological is certainly one of those things.
From the robust lens flare tool set to the stock incidence angle and incidence lighting features; Lightwave simply blows Blender out of the water for making a simple thing such as Earth with a sunflare.
I should make it clear that I attempted to make this scene with Blender first. I was simply unhappy with the hoops I was forced to jump thru to get inferior results. And all at the cost of insane render times. sometimes over an hour. And that's with GPU render turned on.
The current image you are looking at took around 8 minutes to render. With no composting or post work.
Blender's dependency on it's, admittedly powerful, composting tools for a simple thing like a glowing atmosphere and a lens flare are one of the programs few shortcomings while using the Cycles engine. And I hope these features are addressed in the next release.
I do concede however that Blender, being a free program, is incredibly powerful and a great addition to any artists tool set.
With that out of the way I should tell you why I think this is so much better than my blend earth.
Every surface of each layer of this object from the clouds to the atmosphere is dynamically controlled by lighting and the angle of view.
That's right. In the absence of light the earth's surface automatically lights up with city lights.
Luminosity of clouds and atmosphere are also directly controlled by lighting incidence.
I even made the clouds so that in direct lighting they glow a bright white. While in darkness they are a dark blueish grey. And in between all of the colors of the pinks reds yellows and oranges of sunset.
I will never need another Earth model. This will look perfect at any distance, angle, or lighting scheme.
This was an important project for me. It marks the time in my life when I realize that certain projects require certain tools. Sometimes a mixture of multiple tools. Even if they do the same thing. And I'll probably use a mixture of both Blender and Lightwave to accomplish some pretty cool stuff in the future.
For now. Enjoy earth. As seen from space. I never thought it would teach me so much.

Description
So.
This was an experiment in dynamic texturing based on incidence lighting.
There are still a few things Lightwave can do much better than Blender. And reproducing the cosmological is certainly one of those things.
From the robust lens flare tool set to the stock incidence angle and incidence lighting features; Lightwave simply blows Blender out of the water for making a simple thing such as Earth with a sunflare.
I should make it clear that I attempted to make this scene with Blender first. I was simply unhappy with the hoops I was forced to jump thru to get inferior results. And all at the cost of insane render times. sometimes over an hour. And that's with GPU render turned on.
The current image you are looking at took around 8 minutes to render. With no composting or post work.
Blender's dependency on it's, admittedly powerful, composting tools for a simple thing like a glowing atmosphere and a lens flare are one of the programs few shortcomings while using the Cycles engine. And I hope these features are addressed in the next release.
I do concede however that Blender, being a free program, is incredibly powerful and a great addition to any artists tool set.
With that out of the way I should tell you why I think this is so much better than my blend earth.
Every surface of each layer of this object from the clouds to the atmosphere is dynamically controlled by lighting and the angle of view.
That's right. In the absence of light the earth's surface automatically lights up with city lights.
Luminosity of clouds and atmosphere are also directly controlled by lighting incidence.
I even made the clouds so that in direct lighting they glow a bright white. While in darkness they are a dark blueish grey. And in between all of the colors of the pinks reds yellows and oranges of sunset.
I will never need another Earth model. This will look perfect at any distance, angle, or lighting scheme.
This was an important project for me. It marks the time in my life when I realize that certain projects require certain tools. Sometimes a mixture of multiple tools. Even if they do the same thing. And I'll probably use a mixture of both Blender and Lightwave to accomplish some pretty cool stuff in the future.
For now. Enjoy earth. As seen from space. I never thought it would teach me so much.