Hi Blender Artists! This is my trial for making a moon. Tried several lighting, texturing and compositing methods to reach this result. It’s by no means perfect and there is always room for improvement. That’s why I posted it here, to get your remarks and critique. Your comments and criticism are welcome. Thanks in advance.
haha, that’s excellent! It’s a bit too bright to the right though, what normal/spec/texture maps did you use?
Thank you, but I doubt it’s excellent 
It’s looking great! My only criticism is that the bump map seems a bit too strong in the second render. I would reduce that to resemble something closer to the first render, since it looks a lot more like a NASA photo in that one, but still keep that nice rim light.
I think that the textures look much sharper now. My only idea would be to place something(a spaceship, spaceman, meteor, etc.) next to the moon for scale reasons. If it is just floating like this with nothing around it but stars, we don’t have any idea of scale. Hope that was helpful.
Happy New Year.
Actually the second render is more realistic. If you use telescope, even a small one, the surface’s shadows are quite strong as they are in the second render. What kind of bump/normal map did you use?
I didn’t change the bump mapping values in the second render. I used a sharpen node in the composite editor to make the texture features a bit clearer, as they were looking blurry in the first render.
Thanks for your feedback.
Let me work on the moon itself first. When I get a good moon I can move on to work on its surroundings
Thank you for your feedback
I didn’t use a separate bump map. The bump map is the same as the texture map.
Thanks for your feedback
Thank you all
@hofferen:
Your average tenth-birthday-gift telescope has nowhere near the clarity of say, a satelite image:
Which is why the shadows would appear to be like the second render from said scope, but yeah I do admit that the second render looks cooler.
Dave, the point here is where the shadow is… on full moon or close to it there’s no shadows. Try finding a photo of a half moon. Most realistic would be to create something in between. The lit area should be flat, but when close of the area between lit an unlit (can’t remeber the right name for it) has actually even more harder shadows than the second render.
They’re all amazing in my eyes
Dave, If you look at the render, you will see that the camera is close to the moon (you can notice the moon’s “ball” shape).
If they camera was far, the camera will have an orthopedic-like feel to it (like the one you posted).
So if the camera is close to the moon, its features always look sharp and clear. Look at these:
If I was trying to simulate the “far” moon, I would not make it sharp, but if the camera is close to the moon, its features have to be a bit sharp and clear.
Verb, are those really “close to the Moon shots”? Those look awfully lot like the view from a telescope. Granted, a lot sharper than average tenth-birthday-gift telescope, but when compared to some hundreds more expensive equipment’s view, they don’t differ that much.
edit: Or did I understand your explanation wrong… that they are “from far” shots? 
Anyway, it think you still have the feeling of being close on your renders.
Meh, those photos only look sharp because of the crater and the terrain is as flat as always and the sharp width is smaller too.
Still not convinced.:rolleyes:
Sorry, I don’t understand. Convinced of what?
That the moons shadows are how you showed, are the same as the second render…
Ah ok. I think we might be talking about bit different things. You are talking about the actual sharpness of the surface details maybe? As I’m talking about the shadow sizes made by the surface displacement, or the lack of thereof.
Both renders miss the strong, longer shadows that are needed on the terminator area (finally remembered the name for it), but the second render’s sharpening effect brings them at least a bit more visible.
I do agree that the contours of the details are too sharp or a bit too contrasty when compared to real view, especially when moving away from the terminator.
The lighting looks ok to me. Personally, I’d lose the hazing on the edges… the moon doesn’t have atmosphere, and the texture on the surface looks more like that of an orange than a crater pocked moon. I recommend working on getting some (alot of) distinct craters in there, whether modeled or normal mapped.
OHH, okay, i getchya now.:yes:
Sorry if i sounded like an arse before (lol)
I think a lot of these details depend on the effect you’re going for. I’ve worked a little with the moon; you can check out these renders, which I designed more or less as close-range shots. I would probably refrain from using a large amount of bump effects, unless you have an extremely large map and are rendering at very close range.
I wouldn’t use a glow around the moon, unless you’re going for a more artistic look. It makes the moon look as if it has a visible atmosphere. Something else I noticed in your renders is an overly-bright specular (?) effect. Otherwise, it’s looking good!