Hi!
This is my first finished project using Blender. I did several small test projects, but never finished them because I didn’t got the look I wanted. So take a look at this one.
But keep in mind that I only enhaced the color-map a little bit (green areas) and I created the ocean mask by myself. The other textures I’ve used are downloaded from here.
Here is the picture: Terraforming Mars
That is one hell of a first post. Excellent planet atmosphere and lighting. I’ve been struggling to get a planet like that for a long, long time. Good job !
Have you done any 3D before ?
Good job man, this is VERY well done. If you animated this you would certainly be the master guru 
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-uli
one small comment: as it gets closer to the shadowed area, it seems as if the clouds were one bumpmap with the surface instead of hovering above them. (To me at least.)
Do you have any previous experience in 3d prior to blender? Because that is one hell of a planet.
He did say he made several test projects that he didn’t put up. But on the image it’s one of the best planets i’ve seen to date here 
Good job mate!
I like how you added a noise map to the spectaularity, very well done there, though I think the spec area is far to big.
And the clouds are definately to highly bumpmapped.
aside from that, only one real comment.
The cloudes lack shadows. easiest method to do them is to plop them as another layer in the color sphere, as a reverse emit map set to like, 25% or less. this of course, means that rotating the cloud sphere is out of the question, you’ll have to use the manual “XOffset” buttons to move the clouds.
But GREAT first post, and that is definatly better then most planets I see come from blender. (Better then many of mine even 
)
Wow, great stuff man
those bars are distracting and flatten the image. Remember your rule of thirds, the image should not be centered like that, your eye bounces back and forth, you need to offset the spacing so your eye can flow through the image. The mars planet is nice, it could use some more atmosphere though.
very nice, though i like what ^^he^^ said.
great planet.
great work!
Thank you all for the comments!
The main goal of this picture was to create a technical good looking planet and not to make the picture atmospherical itself. It should look good even the planet is in the center of the picture. Maybe I will will make a new picture which looks more dramatically.
From time to time I play around with 3D programs but never make very big projects due to lack of time.
On my homepage you can see more pictures of planets I’ve made (here). The first tries were made with the Linux program FracPlanet and POV-Ray. Then I tried something with my copy of Cinema4D R6 XL (there are more planets made with it, but they are currently used in a project, which is still in development, so they are not added to the page yet). Then I tried Blender to make some banner pictures for a browser-game clan.
I also tried to add shadows for the clouds, but the results looked weird…
Maybe I try the thing to fake them on the color sphere. Thank you for the hint!
it works well. Then I read a lightawave planet tutorial, and relized they do the same thing! LOL
I’ve updated the picture a little bit. Please use the link in my first post.
MUCH better.
Very VERY nice work man!
