This is a picture I made with help from my thread in Terragen 2 Discussion: Making Gas Planets. I decided to post it here and see what you guys think.
There is an converted obj from http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/models.html in it.
Looks good. I would have moved the spacecraft a bit further into in the image. That's just a personal preference. See if you can add a little more detail into green clouds, maybe a sub-color. Good work.
Hmmm. Well, I've got to say that your suggestions are useful, but don't expect me to render the picture again. My dad doesn't want to spend money on these pictures because each one takes about ten hours to render on a 2.5 gigahertz computer and are about 14 million micro-triangles... but advice is appreciated, and maybe if I change the picture enough I can make another render. ;)
Classic battle between the father and the son. Dad wants he son to be an engineer, the son wants to be an artist. I appreciate your difficulty. My dad wanted me to be a land surveyor. I kept having to point out that the carefully located irons on the lot corners all tend to move downhill. Erosion...
He used to show off my programming to his buddies though. :o
;) I'm learning some programming too...C#. Anyway, a problem I've had is that I think the planet isn't bright enough. Why should the edges be so sharp?
You may have to adjust the density of the atmosphere. I have not done very many planets, four total? So I do not no what advise to give. I think the NWDA website may have something which will help you.
http://www.nwdanet.com/buy-packs/7-preset-packs.html
The picture has three cloud layers. I disconnected the original atmosphere shader. I've noticed that each cloud layer has a thing that says, "Edge sharpness". Might that do anything? If njeneb can't answer, it would be nice if someone else could. :)
Also, I have no idea what kind of texture to use on the ship. I'd like to be able to but signs like NASA or USA flag, but that seems too hard. I'd like to also get some smoke or fire coming from the engine, which I am sure can be done with Photoshop. But since I have the old Photoshop: Edition 6, can this still be done? Or must you use the new editions of Photoshop to follow tutorials? If you'd like, here are three other editions of the picture. As you can see, all of them have sharp edges.
I've done some neat effects in PS7 and I'm pretty sure PS6 would have the necessary features.