The Omega Project - Artwork: Planets & Sector Maps

Nerroth · Post by **Nerroth** » Thu Nov 18, 2010 12:38 am

I'm trying out the MÃ¦sra Prime pic as the wallpaper on my PSP. Looks good so far!

dderidex · Post by **dderidex** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 8:35 pm

Out of curiosity - what are you doing these in?

Just pure Photoshop, or are you using something like the ProFantasy Terraformer or Fractal Terrains products?

Rick Smith · Post by **Rick Smith** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 8:48 pm

Just Photoshop (CS3) and a handful of homemade and found texture brushes. Pretty simple and easy to make, technique wise. The hard part is making the planet convincing...and that's pretty simple by way of practice and research.

Rick Smith · Post by **Rick Smith** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 7:22 pm

I also meant to say that I did check out those programs you mentioned. They're nice, but they're limited in what they provide, simply because you have to make due with what someone else (the programmers and artists) deemed is important to the image making process.

With building the planets yourself in Photoshop, you have complete control over the lighting, how the background may interact with the planet and many other variables.

I'm also not extremely keen on seeing so much raised detail on continents as many of these programs provide. Things tend to lose definition in the massiveness that is space. Something so crisp as a knife-edged mountain range doesn't make a whole lot of sense in my mind. But I think that comes down to personal preference and technique.

dderidex · Post by **dderidex** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 4:58 pm

They seem like they have quite a bit of flexibility, though.

I've certainly done some of my own planets, in Photoshop, and they do come out alright...it just takes a lot of time.

The reason I was wondering is that the post over here on the Profantasty blog, showing the fractal generator with terraformer plugin looks a LOT like the type of planets I've seen done.

If it really did make that kind of thing fast to do...wow!

Rick Smith · Post by **Rick Smith** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 5:07 pm

I'd like to try them...just to see what their capabilities are, but i don't have the extra cash to throw at them at the moment. And considering I already have Photoshop - which I use most of the time for my illustration work - I feel that the extra programs laying around would be wasted on me. Heh.

My planets take about a half hour (simpler ones) to an hour (lots of continents, etc.) max. That's minus the star fields or other space effects like nebula or system stars or moons.