Supernova

[jbest]

I was trying to create a supernova here, but didn't find myself so succesful. I couldn't get any glow on the sun  I added a planet to add to the fiery scene. It doesn't look bad, but it doesn't look like a supernova Any suggestions, comments or critics are welcome.

Small note: The picture got a little blurred when I converted it.

[Mahnmut]

Hi Jbest,very  impressing colours,
but not yet gone nova.
I am not sure, but I think, the sun is to big to glow very much.

I´d try to use a smaller but very bright (10^7 at least) lightsource (or more than one), put it in the middle of another planet, uncheck the surface of the planet but give it a thick layer of clouds.
That´s how I created the lightsource in my dyson-image.
When you play enough with the clouds and atmo that could well give some nova-  effect.
Best regards,
Jan

[jbest]

Hi, the second version is here. It's horrible! The terrain looks bland, and it looks like there's a crescent sun. Here's the statistics of the lighting (quite heavy):

Two suns, one behind the picture, and one behind the planet. I think the one behind the planet crept up behind it. I'll have to make a third version. But what I was trying to get was some sort of sun rays, but couldn't get them!

Sun behind the picture has a strength of 6.4 and sun behind the planet has a strength 29.7.

Two light sources, one just a little bigger than the other, and near the same place (focused on the planet). Both strengths are 1e+007. (One color is white and the other is orange ... oops.)

Planet in the middle of the picture (pretending to be the sun) has a haze glow amount of 10 in the atmosphere and haze glow power of 7. It's color is deep orange.

I think I accidentally put a new cloud layer in. I meant to put it on the "sun" planet.

I'll also post the .tgd since I think I've pretty failed on this.  

[Kadri]

Maybe you can look here too:

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=10643.0

I didn't make a good Sun i like for now. I will try it in the future ones more.
I hope you can make one you like

[jbest]

Hmmm, I'll try using it (basing a new version off it )

EDIT: It looks great, Kadri! However I don't just want rays, but also some sort of glow. I'll do that myself  
I guess in order to do a glow on the planet you'll need two suns or something ...

[Mahnmut]

Hi Jbest
I f you allow I take a look at the tgd, maybe there is just a little bit missing,
maybe the numbers I told you where wrong too.
Don´t despair!

Ok, I just changed some little things, mainly the planets distance, otherwise the strength of the lightsource would have needed to be more like 10^18, my fault. Switched on ray traced shadows in its atmosphere, put the lightsource in its center.
Play with the atmosphere, lighting, tweaks, clouds...!
I hope you don´t mind me intruding, but it was really not so much missing.
Best regards,
Jan

[jbest]

Oof, man. (I mean Jan. ) You did a way better job than I did. I'll use it to create another (far) better version than my previous tries. Thanks a bunch!

[RichTwo]

I'm not to say it's the best way - but I used a background image of a real star explosion. The scene is in the darkness of space: have a look.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2111841&user_id=170899&np&np

It was all rendered without major postwork.  Getting there is not easy: you have to postwork the background image heavily because telescopic images look like crap simply pasted on.  Blurry, too many stars and glow - you got to pick carefully.  Not everything works.  If you have a good photoed app like Photoshop, it'll help.

Good luck! 

[jbest]

@Rich2 - Never thought of that (though I should've have). The idea here was to try to figure out how to create a supernova here, using pure Terragen 2. Images of course do give a quite interesting background. In this picture I'm trying to get the sun exploding, not a multi-colored explosion  . Also, to get an image of that, it would probably be fake anyway  . Thanks for the idea!

[jbest]

Darn it! I render the new image for 5 hours only to find the entire background is streaked with red and yellow lines! What happened?

Forget it! I think I'm going to have to start from scratch again.

EDIT: I found the problem. The displacement amplitute of the new terrain (which i edited) was too much. It's rendering again, this time properly! More interestingly, this new render is going much faster than the previous one ..

[jbest]

Well here it is! Took only 1 hour 14 minutes to make. The supernova is quite purely Mahnmut's. I did do the thin red circle around the supernova to create a "plasma wave" of some sort  . I just created a sun behind the planet (the supernova) with a strength of 60. Didn't really do much more with lighting. Worked with the clouds (which I'm still not terribly happy with, I'm thinking cirrus clouds would create a sort of "distorted" effect here). Changed the noise flavor of the terrain as well, as well as increasing the lead-in scale of the terrain to 4e+006. Also the fiery glow on the planet next to the supernova is Mahnmut's. So I'm giving him quite large credits to this picture!

[jbest]

By the way, Mahnmut, how did you get that exploding effect? I still can't quite figure out.

[Mahnmut]

Hi Jbest,
I like your new foreground, flat but interesting.
i wouldn´t have expected that my "prototype" comes out that nicely.
Just wanted to show you the basic principle, you can change (and I bet increase) a lot of it.
What you are looking at is just a strong lightsource in the middle of an invisible planet with visible atmosphere, illuminating it from within.
By tweaking this atmosphere, most of all the cloud layer (thickness, fractal,or by adding more cloud layers) you can build your own customized supernova.
I tried to generate a corona for an eclipse-image that way, but I surely wasn´t the first one to use that method.
Best Regards,
Jan

[MacGyver]

Last one looks pretty dangerous!