How could I create photo-realistic planet textures?

[The Noob]

Hi,

I am new to this forum and I would like to ask anyone if it is possible to create a very realistic planet texture with paint.NET, anything from earth-like to gas giants

I would use such textures in the free space simulator Celestia which can be found here:

http://www.shatters.net/celestia

I have been a member of their forums now for a while and have seen other people's textures (some are very realistic!)

So I ask if it is possible that a tutorial exists which explains how to do this. I know paint.NET can be quite limited in tools compared to other raster imaging software out there, but the ones like photoshop and paint shop come at a price and I haven't got the money to throw around on such a piece of software.

What I do have is the patience to create such textures, these things can take hours or days, its like a mini project, but the end result is fascinating, to get an idea take a look at this topic in Celestia (Complete With Screenshots):

http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14004

If anyone knows of a tutorial or has one please let me know

Thanks

T.Noob

[Rubrica]

So you use Celestia as well? It is a wonderful piece of equipment, isn't it.

As for the textures, we have some people here who are absolute geniuses when it comes to planet texture. I would advise asking people such as flip, Sharp and as well this could help: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=27083

Although that is mainly on creating a textureless, 2D image, not a texture.

[Goonfella]

I have had Celestia for some time

Can`t beat a wizz round the universe when your bored can you? I installed Celestia before I got into PDN. I tend to concentrate on PDN a lot now though and have not used it for a while.

It`s perfectly possible to create photo realistic textures for planets - take a look at my latest one for example.I`m not aware of a PDN tut for this ( feel free to correct me if I`m wrong though).

However there is this PS one which could be converted to PDN -

http://www.solarvoyager.com/images/tuto ... planet.jpg

Best of luck :wink: