Space Nebula

[Dune]

Thanks. I don't always comment in debt, as I don't always have valuable (in my eyes) feedback. But some renders are interesting enough for some 'encouragement', if you will. Or acknowledgment. It's a bit disappointing if you post something you've spent a lot of time in, and hope to encourage or help others, and you get no comments at all (perhaps because there's nothing 'wrong'). Like a singer getting no applause, and the audience just leaves. It's not important, but you feel like; "Why bother posting?"

[Jo Kariboo]

There are so few people on this forum for several years who comment and post images that we should not accuse their comments of insignificant because we consider that they do not make us move forward. ! Comments remain and will always be relative. It often happens to me to make images without plants because I have the taste that to work the ground or the atmosphere... and even if one told me you should put vegetation that would not be very useful to me... and then is it really serious? Terragen remains for me and many more than a simple hobby, nothing more and especially not art!

[DocCharly65]

Thanks. I don't always comment in debt, as I don't always have valuable (in my eyes) feedback. But some renders are interesting enough for some 'encouragement', if you will. Or acknowledgment. It's a bit disappointing if you post something you've spent a lot of time in, and hope to encourage or help others, and you get no comments at all (perhaps because there's nothing 'wrong'). Like a singer getting no applause, and the audience just leaves. It's not important, but you feel like; "Why bother posting?"

This is something I 100 % aggree!


A little bit I must admit I'm happy that Kadri and you talked about "that thing with the object", because I didn't know how to describe that I had a strange feeling about it but could not describe, what annoyed me... 

But the starry background is a dream!

[Stormlord]

@All
Well, it was just a reflection of my own opinion (as I wrote).

@DocCharly65
Thank you!
And if the starry background is a dream, then here comes the anoying nebula without "that thing with the object".


Star Forming Region Pleyades

STORMLORD

[DocCharly65]

Great!

[Stormlord]

Here comes my latest nebula, a virtual look inside the center region of the Virgin Nebula.
It's a real beauty and I love the colours and the stars inside the center of this space scene.

But to be honest, I don't know if there are now to much stars inside the nebula?
Maybe only a few would be better? You be the judge...


Virgin Nebula Center Region (Clean)


Virgin Nebula Center Region


Virgin Nebula Center Region (Zoom)

It's my real first attempt to create more complex and realistic structures in my space scenes.
So this time I started to embedd more complex structures just by adding faint dust lanes and also dark matter structures inside of it.
In the result the whole nebula looks much more visual in its apperance and adds more three dimensional depth into the whole sight.

And for all those of you, who have no clue how to do it, here is the way I did it...


Poposhop example

By the way, the original 4K Photoshop File now has 390MB in total, it's heavy stuff to earn such a result!
Hope you like it! As usual, critics and comments are welcome.

STORMLORD

[Dune]

No criticism whatsoever, I love it! Beautiful structures. It's not really my line of work, but I am very tempted to try stuff like that as well. Thanks very much for showing.

[Jo Kariboo]

Superb image and beautiful depth. I prefer the second. Just a matter of taste like that I'm not a big fan of star filter effects.

[WAS]

Looks great. I like the second one. 

Also I feel nebulas look much cooler with stars. They are more commonly star nurseries than remnants of stars.

[Stormlord]

Superb image and beautiful depth. I prefer the second. Just a matter of taste like that I'm not a big fan of star filter effects.

There are no star filters which I use in my images.

I've got rendered stars. I rendered all possible different components as single layer and combined them in Photoshop for a maximum of flexibillity.
So I have a whole collections of options like different glows, stars with/without streaks, with lens reflections, rings, lights, colour modifikation, ect...


Rendered star with it's different layers

STORMLORD

[Stormlord]

@Dune
Well...it may not be your line, but its good for your portfolio and it's fun, because it makes so much joy to create them!

The last space picture which I have in my line, is from my point of view the best TG space rendering, that I've ever produced so far.
I'm not sure if I go with it as a final, but it's really close to it. I see that from scene to scene it's getting better and more realistic.
I make new experiences, learn in new ways and at the end stands a very beautifull space rendering! I really love it!

So come on... create also space scenes and let's go further together! Jordan likes it also very much to create space stuff.
So Denis, Kadri, Stormlord, now WAS (Jordan), YOU and others next, would breath new life into this side of Terragen.


Current Rendering (Got only an old Pentium IV with 2.66GHz, Rendertimes are terriffic)

STORMLORD

[Dune]

Thanks for your enthusiasm and stimulating words. I can imagine it's fun, and I might delve into it. First have to read up on how to start the renders. I remember it's rendering a lot of whirling colored clouds with light sources and mixing in Photoshop in principle....

[Stormlord]

Yes that's the basic process Dune!

Here is the thread from Denis Sirenko to start with.
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,23403.0.html
The process, how Denis creates his nebulas can basically be found on page 10 in his thread. That's the base on which one can start, the rest is pure phantasie...

I start to render a big background nebula with 2-3 colored lights in it for illumination. Followed by a lot of black and white nebulas, which I embedd into the scene.
These are the dust clouds, faint structures,  dark zones and also the fine lightning swirling and curling nebulas. I end up with a pure and clean nebula as backplate.


The basic process illustrated


Backplate examples in Photoshop

Some of them I have already posted here in my thread. Finally I add some stars, galaxies and dive into it. Then it rests a while...
When I am sure, that I am satisfied with it, I release it. I've made a few which I didn't posted, because I wasn't really lucky with them.

But wait... I have one in stock which is really great and now 99,9% final! This one will come up next...

STORMLORD

[Dune]

Thanks Stormlord. Sunday, so I decided to have a go right away. Started with a simple setup with 2 cloud layers, and a third in 2D for stars, some warp and an additional color PF, plus a few light sources. Took only half an hour to set up. It's starting to look nice, but it's taking very long to render! So I doubt if this will be my preferred 'hobby' before I have my new machine
So, just to show something, here's half the render after nearly 5 hours.

[Stormlord]

Dune...
I work with an old Pentium IV with 2.66GHz and 8GB RAM, that's it.
So what did I do to optimise it, to stick as long as possible with my old machine?
I THOUGHT... JUST KEEP IT AS SIMPLE AS YOU CAN!

So I looked into the settings and tried it again in a different approach.
First I kicked out all unecessary node stuff from my starter atmo. My goal, just colourfull clouds with 1-2(3) lights within, that's it.

Then it's about cutting render times. I ended up with these settings (See my pics, they are absolutely sufficient).
Defer atmo activated ->MP at 0.1, AA 3, GI in the clouds still/low, 1/64 samples and the speeding up was terriffic!


Speedy settings

Let me remark this... at the end it's all about just clouds (no geometry!)
If you have 5-15 backplate nebulas, then you can mix them and combine them in Poposhop as you like, endless combinations are possible as everyone knows.

Why rendering background stars, it consumes only rendertime. I rendered only a few great starfields (small-medium and big stars) and later negative multiply them in PS.
When you got a few ready to go starplates which are big enough, then you're done... Just cut out a portion and mix it in. Fast, simple and they're looking great at the end!
I have also some rendered stars with different glows, strikes and halos. These are the big ones in my pictures. I rendered them once and now I can use them for eternity.


Different stars

STORMLORD