I am almost finished with the tutorial by Andrew Price on making a realistic earth. I think the render looks good but I would like to add an effect not covered in the tutorial.
http://www.blenderguru.com/videos/create-a-realistic-earth/
I would like to make the clouds fade a little into the dark side instead of disappearing just as the night begins just to get more realistic with my render. I started playing with some nodes on the cloud object similar to the day/night object. I got clouds to show up on the night side but I am having trouble figuring out how to control how far the clouds fade. Any ideas? I"m thinking something like an alpha mask like in Photoshop with the gradient tool. Feel like I’m so close.
This is what I have from the tutorial
And this is my results after playing with a color ramp, mix, and material node like we are instructed for the night/day object
