The Colony

[nvseal]

As the title suggest, the premise of this image is that the lights on the planet are cities/settlements of a new colony. I only wish I had a nice looking model to add to the scene. I'm interested to here what critiques/suggestions any of you might have so feel free to give them.

[rcallicotte]

Two general comments - First, this is a great idea.  Secondly, are you prepared to go outside of TG2?  I believe you will need to use Photoshop (or similar packages) to add what you'd like.

Specifically, I think the planet is too bright where the star is shining the brightest (left side) and the city lights (these are city lights?) should have a more conformed look to specific terrains and conglomerations of cities.  It's likely that there aren't just tiny dots, but many grouped together to represent communities.  See this example - http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/earth_night.jpg

[nvseal]

Actually, I like the brightness. I completely understand about the city lights and actually thought the same thing. Conformity is a difficult effect to achieve; not so much because the conformity itself is so difficult, but because a logical conformity is th real key (as you can see in the picture).
Here is a quick fix I made.

[Mavcat]

I think yellow lights will make it more realistic,but its better now nice idea

[rcallicotte]

Wow, nvseal.  I like the city lights now.  Keep working on it. 

We could colonize a new solar system.  Hurry.   

[bigben]

I'd also be tempted to drop the intensity of the lights a bit, possibly to somewhere near the level of the terrain in the twilight region ... and maybe even add a very weak fill light to make the dark side of the planet just visible.
Not quite as visible as this image.. http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/images/eol/2003/nyc.html

[Will]

Nice, I agree with bigben a fill light might be nice.

[rcallicotte]

Cool idea.  I'll third that.

[nvseal]

Here is the version with a fill light. And I changed the city colors to be slightly yellow although I think I might change them back to the blue/white.

[Oshyan]

The latest version looks very good. I think the yellow lights work better. The fill is very subtle but a good addition. I would not make it any stronger.

Great result here IMO.

- Oshyan