Alien planet

[Hannes]

A challenge after Xing posted his question:
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,29508.0.html

As far as I remember, I tried to create a ring planet for closer shots before, but I couldn't find, what I did. So I tried it again.
I created a set of 3 rock objects in 3ds max I used as populations and another pop with the internal rock object for the smaller ones. The ring in the background is a plane object with diffuse and alpha maps. In the foreground I used a cloud layer. It's a solution someone posted here before, but I can't remember who it was.

Actually all things are in the scene. Nevertheless I rendered different elements and comped them together later. So I had more control in the end and rendered the rock pops for example with the PT renderer and the rest with the legacy one. Saved me a lot of time.

Something else: since instances in populations can be set to be randomly rotated only in one axis, I edited a lot of instances and rotated them by hand in all axes. No fun...

[DocCharly65]

Great work Hannes!

Something else: since instances in populations can be set to be randomly rotated only in one axis, I edited a lot of instances and rotated them by hand in all axes. No fun...

I've faced the problem too some time ago. I solved it by increasing the number of pop instances and give each a different angle in the other axes. And it seamed that my PC prefered handling several smaller pops than less big pops. Perhaps this is helpful?

[Hannes]

Indeed it is. Next time I'll try that as well. Thanks, Doc!

[Dune]

Cool render. Interesting workflow too. I must try some comping with my glacier, but have to find out what to use as render elements and layers.

Regarding the rotation: You can pop them onto a heavily (but not excessively) displaced plane, so they rotate with the displacements' normals. That way you get rotation in several directions.

[Hannes]

Good idea, Ulco! Thanks a lot.

[crisb]

very cool..

[Balletdude]

very cool, reminds me of the title sequence to Star trek Voyager

[aknight0]

I really like the lighting on this one, you did a good job matching the dusty look of the original, and the colors are nice.  Great detail on the planet surface and clouds as well.  When I tried I had trouble matching the lighting angle from the movie screenshot, the angle of the light on the rocks doesn't seem to match the position of the terminator shadow on the planet.  Maybe my camera angle was just off.

[Hannes]

I really like the lighting on this one, you did a good job matching the dusty look of the original, and the colors are nice.  Great detail on the planet surface and clouds as well.  When I tried I had trouble matching the lighting angle from the movie screenshot, the angle of the light on the rocks doesn't seem to match the position of the terminator shadow on the planet.  Maybe my camera angle was just off.

Well...
Actually I thought the same. With the original position of the sun the rocks didn't look quite right.
So I cheated. When I rendered the rocks I moved the sun a bit. Heeheehee...
Maybe they did the same for the movie? Who knows?

[WAS]

I wonder if you saved much time actually, as the base default planet actually renders a second faster in PT then it does in SR from a orbital shot.

Nice scene though.

[masonspappy]

Echo others - the scene is very well done.

[Hannes]

An update. I edited some more of the rock pop instances to make them more random orientated, added two moons and a ship.

[Dune]

Great!

[WAS]

You're so talented with Terragen, Hannes. Also always love the CA.

[Hannes]

Thank you, guys!!