Terracell planet creator by Rob Allen

[Rob Allen]

Unfortunately my time has been dwindling lately due to other priorities.  I've decided to release the tgd due to the fact that I may not be able to resume my work on this project for a while.  It isn't complete by a long shot, but it's something, and you can pretty much use it to make realistic looking planets in space (they will still need some clouds tho).  Anyhow, here it is along with a render:

[Will]

Thansk for the .tgd, I'm sad that you can't continue the project as it showed a lot of promise. Heres hoping you get back to it one day!

Regards,

Will

[old_blaggard]

Thanks for sharing the tgd.  You've done some great work for the community - I hope you'll be able to come back sometime in the future .

[Rob Allen]

I do plan to, but I don't know when...

In the meantime, maybe the community can contribute to the project in my absence.

[Mohawk20]

Just to let you know, WOW! This last image looks great. I think it's the base from which people can make they own planet. So this should be enough... a good time to take a break.

Thank you for you work so far, it's amazing!

[RealUser]

Rob, thank you so much for this!

[edlo]

Ok guys so aside from everyone running away happy with Robs TG file, we can continue this effort by collaborating and improving on what he has put so much work on. So he can no loger work on this but there are lots of people interested in this and although I am still not happy with the "Terracell" name I will contribute with my piece of the puzzle.
First of all and very important is that Robs file its untouched meaning all components are there, just modifications to the settings to get rid of atmosphere patching and improving on the saturation. Also a bit of tweaking on the colors to display more realistic continents.
Besides that I added the cloud layer which was not there and set it up to produce a believable global distribution.
The cloud layer its a 2d cirrus layer as there is no point to slow the thing to a crawl by putting in a 3d layer that will not even show difference at this level.
So here is a quick render 42 minutes and the file

[RedSquare]

Well edlo those clouds look really nice, but will they 'conform' to Rob's original design brief? (Self imposed).

Among these benefits are the ability to add multiple and colored light sources, render realistically from the surface of the planet as well as orbit

Not in any way denigrating your contribution you understand, as a useless user,I am merely passing an observation. 

[Mohawk20]

Well edlo those clouds look really nice, but will they 'conform' to Rob's original design brief? (Self imposed).

render realistically from the surface of the planet as well as orbit

Well, I like this improvement very much, but you have a point. From the planet surface, I guess another layer of 3D clouds would be preferred. I don't know how much they will slow down a render. I am rendering an animation where the viewer jumps between planets. Closing in on the planet with the 3D clouds, the render starts to take more time more because of the terrain than because of the clouds.

Worth a try IMO...


Keep up the great work!

[edlo]

Well edlo those clouds look really nice, but will they 'conform' to Rob's original design brief? (Self imposed).

Among these benefits are the ability to add multiple and colored light sources, render realistically from the surface of the planet as well as orbit

Not in any way denigrating your contribution you understand, as a useless user,I am merely passing an observation. 

Have you done a render from the surface ? It doesn't render good from the surface as it is, then Robs file doesn't conform to his own original design, clouds or no clouds at this point it is only as Lunarcell is, worlds from space, by my testing so far either you optimize it for space view or for surface view. So there now you can go ahead and start working on those glitches 

[edlo]

Well edlo those clouds look really nice, but will they 'conform' to Rob's original design brief? (Self imposed).

render realistically from the surface of the planet as well as orbit

Well, I like this improvement very much, but you have a point. From the planet surface, I guess another layer of 3D clouds would be preferred. I don't know how much they will slow down a render. I am rendering an animation where the viewer jumps between planets. Closing in on the planet with the 3D clouds, the render starts to take more time more because of the terrain than because of the clouds.

Worth a try IMO...


Keep up the great work!

Glad you like the result, as you are rendering an animation that will use what we learn here you can now add 3d clouds Ill be very interested to see if you can fix the patchy look it gives to the world from space

[Mohawk20]

Glad you like the result, as you are rendering an animation that will use what we learn here you can now add 3d clouds Ill be very interested to see if you can fix the patchy look it gives to the world from space

Well, I have very ugly planets, with very small features, and no continents. So I did not use what we learned here... yet. I have thought of some improovements for the next planet I make.

I only used it as an example for render times. The patchy look stays because I did not give it enough attention, and am rendering at relatively low resolution and quality to get those 1800 frames rendered within this month...

You will be able to see it when it's done, and then learn from it: How not to do it...

[Will]

My only concern is that oneday this will be replaced by a more advanced version of the planet shader.

Regards,

Will

[Dark Fire]

It would have to be much more advanced than it is now to beat this.

[Mohawk20]

My only concern is that oneday this will be replaced by a more advanced version of the planet shader.

Well, you never know, perhaps this will become the new planet shader...