How to create authentic Earth?

[Hannes]

You'd better not use the lake for a complete earth globe, that's more suited for smaller/lower POV's. If you really need transparent water, it's better to use a sphere with the size of the planet, and offset (displacement offset) that through a (no color) surface shader for level adjustment. Take care to uncheck 'shadows' of the sphere.
But for a planet-sized worldview I'd forget about transparency anyway and just use the reflective shader and a global mask (spherical projection) on the main planet. Waves won't be seen from this distance, unless they are huge.
And are you testing the setup by making an animation each time? Better to render some crops to test first.

Agree completely with Ulco. You won't need a water shader from that distance, just a reflective shader. And yes, forget about the waves.
Look at reference NASA images and try to imitate these. This is what I've done here some time ago (mostly image maps, just a little additional procedural clouds).

[Dune]

I have to smile about your logo, Hannes 

[zzu]

That's a sweet idea, Dun. But can I get some advice of how to create the reflective shaders with ocean mask?

[zzu]

You'd better not use the lake for a complete earth globe, that's more suited for smaller/lower POV's. If you really need transparent water, it's better to use a sphere with the size of the planet, and offset (displacement offset) that through a (no color) surface shader for level adjustment. Take care to uncheck 'shadows' of the sphere.
But for a planet-sized worldview I'd forget about transparency anyway and just use the reflective shader and a global mask (spherical projection) on the main planet. Waves won't be seen from this distance, unless they are huge.
And are you testing the setup by making an animation each time? Better to render some crops to test first.

Agree completely with Ulco. You won't need a water shader from that distance, just a reflective shader. And yes, forget about the waves.
Look at reference NASA images and try to imitate these. This is what I've done here some time ago (mostly image maps, just a little additional procedural clouds).

Nice rendering, and you stole NASA's logo haha. How to get realistic cloud patterns? I'm having headache about this.

[zzu]

My new rendering with procedural clouds, looks so much better haha. Anyone has any other suggestions for improvements?

[zzu]

New High Res one. Ok, How can I add city lights to the planet? Is it as simple as adding a shader?

[Dune]

You can add a surface layer in the row towards the 'planet' node, preferably near the end, uncheck the color, add an image map shader with the ocean mask set to spherical, and attach that to the mask input of that surface shader. Now add a reflective shader and attach that to the child input of that surface shader. That should be the idea. You can delete the breakup shader, won't do much on that scale.

[bobbystahr]

I have to smile about your logo, Hannes 

ditto, gave me a morning chuckle

[bobbystahr]

New High Res one. Ok, How can I add city lights to the planet? Is it as simple as adding a shader?

I've used this image as a luminosity map...I think it came from a TG user but I can't recall who shared it.

[zzu]

New High Res one. Ok, How can I add city lights to the planet? Is it as simple as adding a shader?

I've used this image as a luminosity map...I think it came from a TG user but I can't recall who shared it.

thanks, pretty sure this map originate from NASA

[zzu]

But how do I add the luminosity map?

[bobbystahr]

But how do I add the luminosity map?

To be honest, I've not had a lot of luck doing planets...I seem to have a block in my brain preventing comprehension but this post ought to get others with more skill chiming in.

[Ariel DK]

Hi zzu, this is very simple, but must to work fine. It is the same principle that the clouds, take a image map, and break up with some procedurals details. you can play with many things, like the color, the scale of the details, etc.

For others interested users, I am actually working in a "dynamic" city lights shader. as Bigben suggested sometime, the idea was create a anti-sun vector, relative to the planet position. of course, nothing of that will be necesary if the clouds can be rotated with the planet. (another of my wish for TG4)

[zzu]

Hi zzu, this is very simple, but must to work fine. It is the same principle that the clouds, take a image map, and break up with some procedurals details. you can play with many things, like the color, the scale of the details, etc.

For others interested users, I am actually working in a "dynamic" city lights shader. as Bigben suggested sometime, the idea was create a anti-sun vector, relative to the planet position. of course, nothing of that will be necesary if the clouds can be rotated with the planet. (another of my wish for TG4)

It works! thank to you. I'll be doing a full render and post the image at here!

[zzu]

Here's the planet I rendered yesterday. I think it looks really nice. However, when I render another image I found the texture's kinda off, should I wrap the topo with spherical or Y direction?