Video link: View it at Flickr.
I do wish I could figure out a way to get a few more octaves out of the noise texture…anyway, hope to keep working on it.
You may want to try the Clouds texture in place of the Noise texture. It has more controls and noise styles.
excellent, Maybe an inverted mushroom cloud someplace to zoom in on. May I also suggest some flashes of lightening.
Looks really good. Sense of motion and also you captured just the right camera angle to give a sense of velocity and disorientation that someone should feel in space. Very well done. I am thinking I would have had a moon rise as you orbit.
The planet feels Neptunian,I like it.
cool, very nice.
Thanks for the comments.
walshlg: I’d like to try lightning and I have some ideas for it; thanks for the idea.
atom: Thanks for the clouds texture idea. I think my first step is to use nodes rather than the traditional texturing system.
I have been working hard on lightning textures (using procedurals). Not much luck so far. Also I would like to thank you for the Camera Lense number. I was noting recently with my own planetary animation that my 35mm lense was resulting in out-of-round planets. I am trying to deal with a non-definite night side line. The multiple cloud layers are resulting in the line being diffent per sphere. It is pissing me off to no end… since it shouldn’t be there.
I am working hard to ignore it and move on but… I can’t shrink the cloud layers anymore. I’ve never run into this in my other software packagaes (Maya 2010, Lightwave).
Great Work and much appreciable. But you could have done better. Go for some light brushes and use light textures…That could probably help you. Overall it was nice…
nice! the audio track really went well, gave it that eerie-ness, and… dead-ness? i mean, the planet is burning and all…
edit - hmm, tragic-ness too…
Subtile an minimalistic but great admoshere. tragic-ness indeed.
I’d love to get a blend file. I’ve been trying to make something like this as shielding for a spaceship, but I can’t get it just right.
Really nice animation and the audio really adds to the mood of it. The lighting is exceptional too. How did you get the rim lighting on the sphere BTW?
pg
Could you show us you lighting setup. I am making an earth animation an I can’t seem to get the lighting right. 
Thanks.
pg