I understand how it's supposed to look, I just need to find a good way of doing it in 2D



Thanks man, I appreciate it

Great tutorial!
Well for the bump effect you need some kinda 3D compution, I see no way around. But I know with Gimp you can do such 3D bump effects with setting light source even though it's meant for 2D image editing, and when Gimp can do it, I'm kinda sure in Photoshop there's an option as well.

This flicker link will get you into a set of nice space images. Check out one to the right from Star Trek.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86013774@N06/7878989882/in/photostream/

ah, great, some new backgrounds for my desktop
also reminds me on http://imgur.com/r/spaceporn and http://imgur.com/r/earthporn a friend told me for nice backgrounds. Was a bit irritated by it's name at first, but the images are great!

What about doing some great skyboxes. Did any of you ever create one?
Last year I experimented some creating one with blender and gimp. Found a good technic for preventing visible edges when mapped to a cube.
In blender 3d just create a cube, subdivide it a few times and then use the "to sphere" modifier and cut one side. This side then can be used as a lense when mapping images.
Applying some nebula to multiple of these lenses and rotating them to what ever orientation you want, gives a completely smooth, seamless result on all edges and corners for the skybox when rendering the cubemap.

That sounds great. We will have you do that if someone ever codes a combat engine for Supremacy.

Ah no, it was more of an idea for you artists watching the nebula and planet backgrounds.
Ok well, don't mind, I'll get back to that another time.

Backgrounds made with refined techniques:

That looks amazing.
Well done.

yeah, quite cool, but still the atmosphere looks a bit overlit, make it shine wider to the inner but all more transparent maybe

Man..I LOVE IT! It really looks spacey to me. <3

Really amazing vjeko! Very 3D

Thanks guys.

Are those the planets for all the major races in the game?

Well only for the Cardassians and the Romulans (and generic minor race), but I can make Qo'Nos, Earth and Founder's planet.

Take on Qo'Nos, I'm not quite happy on how Praxis turned out

Qo'Nos is fine.

Not at all my friend. I'm not satisfied how it turned out and would want other people's opinion. It's not a 3D model and that's why it's difficult, If you watch closely I did make an interior but it's hard to imagine how it would look and how the shadows look.

I bet that is hard, don't know how to draw the inner either.
Nontheless it would look much cooler to see some over the border. You could try some overlapping and scaling plus shadowing for the inner opposite while not let one see the complete inner. And remove the other moon parts, if they were still there, they would fall down. Searching the web there's far less remaining from praxis. Further the edges could look a bit less sharp with more irregularity.

HTH

Agree, each cracked edge doesn't have to be the exact fit of the other since it exploded in many pieces. If it is in two parts, then why not separate them in a larger fashion and draw some interior, making round layers in different shades of grey, almost white at times, a dark hole in the middle, where the nucleus was (doesn't have to be round since it 's all in pieces) and/or blur it with pale dust clouds, add some artifacts like rocks and boulders of different forms in between the cracks and/or out around in a unorganized pattern. This would hide the inside faces and cover up for everything.
I know it must be a heavy job to do but I believe it would have a much better effect. If it's ever feasible. My suggestion...along with others.


Sorry VinculumOne, I was writing my message while you posted. Nice idea also.

A new take on Praxis:

hey, that looks cool!
a bit unrealistic with lava and dust but very cool so nm


I'd not have noticed, but now that you tell, nice to see I'm not the only one sometimes taking a bit longer for writing a message!

A bit of an volcanic action:

Excalbia and Genesis planet in formation reconstruction:

Hey! That's a swell idea you had there for Praxis! I was thinking something similar but extinct, no burning nucleus.

Excalbia and Genesis are nice also friend!

So you think it's better this way:

Also, my take on the Bajoran wormhole:

Not that it's better, but it depends on at what time the picture was taken. If it has been a long time since the moon has been blown, it is logical that the nucleus is extinct and does not show any heat anymore, so all that should be left would be this dark spot in the middle.

I think you caught my idea of adding dust and rocks. Thanks. It's coming real good.
Can you cover the moon's broken half a little more with this dust and particles? Also, can you add bigger boulders nearby, like chunks of moon, floating (1 or 2 would be enough, more is better) check your PM.


Nice work on the wormhole, vjeko!

I like the wormhole forming.

If the remaining mass of the moon is large enough it would, by gravity, become more spherical over time.

The ever increasing talents of vjeko1701

Since I love the movie D7 (Ktinga Classs) refit, I am really working to detail this model.

Here is a closeup of the "Grappler" on top of the neck.