Poi, the thing is the planets are looking totally unrealistic and the green connections don't make it better, that's my opinion :S
And apos, nice work

Here's what a terragen planet would look like (quick render):



You can make some pretty amazing surfaces if you have enough patience to add a lot of shaders. I only threw in six for the sake of fast rendering but I'll add more if people want.

You are probably going to want to look into the rule of thirds for the placement of major features in things like wallpapers. Your colors are all too similar and you should probably look into using and utilizing some complimentary colors to break up the monotony. The planets are slightly boring as they are monochromatic. You could try adding some nebulous dust around some of the planets, re-place the main features to abide the rule of thirds, utilize some complimentary colors, and possibly try to un-2d-ify your background since the background looks like a boring 2D thingy, which takes away from making the planets seem gargantuan and significant.

I liked that, it looks like video game graphics. Change the background to an other color and make the staredit engraved in the planet and it should look even more awesome. (Not sure if it would look better, but make the small planet darker.)

(Personal opinion)

Tinypic resized the first version I showed earlier, here is how the original was:

Link

Take two:

In my eyes this simply looks to random... colors at the bottom right, only one color at the top left and two green striking planets... maybe it's the concept, but I don't really like it and I advice you to change the entire background to more colors in general but much less used... like, many black spots like on the top left, but here and there some more colors like bottom right. However, only one background color would be better and I would love to have more realistic planets, but prolly that's just me.

Right now I'm really just working on the background and composition, I felt that was the most lacking. I do want to continue practicing making space scenes though so hopefully you'll like my planets later on Here is take 3:


(If you would like me to move my stuff to a thread in the Art+ forum I don't mind)

Now, this is looking better in my eyes, but both planets the same color... , maybe make the one behind a bit darker? Just suggesting.

Getting better. The connection between the planets was a neat concept, but unfortunately it didn't look very good.
You need to get your background darker and maybe the planet surfaces less bland.

I'm really disliking those planet's textures, they're quite bland and need a lot more variation. The bright green is OK I guess but I'm also not a big fan, tone it down maybe.

EDIT
's a ninja baby

I just found out my monitor is quite dark. I tested it on my brothers laptop and even the background was fairly bright. Its going to be hard working on stuff thats too dark for me to see heh :S

I decided that I would do a full render of this planet I posted earlier.



Dear God, that was a mistake. Terragen's rendering speed for entire planets is so shitty that it took 4.5 hours just to render a static image. Guess a landscape generator isn't tailored for these things. With the full size render I noticed a disappointing lack of detail on the surface, probably because I didn't use enough shaders and terrain maps.

Planet + shitty starfield:


???

Here you go Dev, started practicing planets:


Edit: added rings + minor changes

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Aug 10 2010, 4:10 am by poiuy_qwert.

Here is background image number one. I'll probably do more as I need more photoshop practice.

Could we PLEASE get some 1920x1080 up in here?

Some images are 1920x1440, You can simply crop it.

Qwert, your planets remind me of, like... Nerf... and the walls in my room... and the surface of an orange... not like planets... And in your last few pics, the colored nebula looks random and fake, like video games where explosions are just multiple billboarded circular smoke puffs overlaid... In your first image, the nebula looked randomly-generated, lacked any kind of depth variance (which real gas in 3D space would have), etc., etc..

</constructive>

Actually the "nebula" was the opposite of random, though its not too easy to understand Its a star nursery or supernova remnants or some such. You'll notice its a large yellow cloud with two green "shockwaves" emanating from the center, and high radiation red particles are being blasted out either side in large jet streams. I'm not really sure how to go about making more depth to it, the red stream on the bottom is supposed to be going a little down and towards the screen, while the top one is behind most of the yellow+green clouds going a little up and into the screen. Any help there would be appreciated!

Edit: Oh, and I updated the planet in my last post.

Yo aristo, how did you do the nebulae in the bottom two images? I'm guessing it's just a brush but is there any trick to it I should know? Most of my star fields have been pretty bland, not that I've made many.

Now, poi and cecil, these are hot