Help with spacescape

[warfighter67]

Hey guys, I got inspired to make a cool spacescape earlier... I swear it looked better in my head . There are a few things I am seeking help for on this image. First of all, the moon-like surface I made is flat, if anyone could give me tips on how to give it depth, I would highly appreciate it. Also, I was looking at Goonfella's gallery and saw his epic spacescapes, with ships, satellites, asteroid belts, nebulae, etc etc, all that stuff. It would be really cool to have a tut on how to create such complex 3D objects, along with the textures and such. Although since space ships can vary in many areas, only a complex 3D (starter ship) tutorial with great ways to get the textures would be accepted.

here is my image:

P.S. too bad the Shape3D plugin can't make complex shapes.

[Sozo]

I say this a lot, but I swear: I do want to make tutorials for some of my spacescape making techniques. As Rick says, the problem is "just doing it."

There are many many space tutorials on DeviantART, though most are geared towards Photoshop. You can try looking there and converting the steps from Photoshop to PdN. Also, there are a few space tutorials here on the Paint.NET forum that I bet would help you out. However, the ones I've looked at are unfortunately rather broken by the forum move.

[warfighter67]

---How do I delete my posts?---

Edited April 5, 2010 by Weylin

[warfighter67]

Yeah I checked out many SS tuts here, but the one with good nebulae I couldn't follow correctly, I found it kind of hard to understand

I'm not sure why you think S3D can't make complex shapes ?

It's all a case of playing around with different settings to find what you want.

The 3D Object plug-in on Torus can give great results too.

Dood that's a nice pic!

I was trying to make a satellite... I was doing okay until I tried making the solar panels.. the scaling limit of 5 really hurts xP.

I'll try and see what I can come up with now, your picture gave me inspiration

Edit: Here's what I got.... I really need to brush up on my texture skills... (no pun intended)

Edited April 5, 2010 by Weylin

[Goonfella]

Thats not a bad start Weylin. Welshy is right about S3D. I made the spacestation in my sig mainly using S3D. Also this plug in combined with 3D Object is how I made the ring shapes. Just play around a bit, I think you`ll be surprised what you can achieve.

For a good spaceship texture I used this PS tut -

http://www.psionic3d.co.uk/tutorials/shiphull.html

Again, it means finding workarounds but I guarantee it will make you better at PDN.

For the texture in your spacescape you could try using a few distort plug ins to make it more `hilly'. Perspective, Point warp and power stretch would be a good start. Also try using the Lasso Select tool to shape the horizon so it is not as flat.

I started out by doing every space tutorial I could find both PDN, Gimp and PS. You soon pick things up. Here are a few PS tuts to wet your appetite -

http://www.designshard.com/video-tutorials/space-and-planet-photoshop-tutorials-to-create-amazing-space-scenes/

Have fun. Any questions just ask. We are all here to help.