earth tutorial, the right one?

[Hoedus]

Hello all,

I know there are dozens of planet tutorials, here. I found a great one few weeks ago but cannot find it again, I remember it was greatly detailed and well written. For what i can remember it used a texture of earth, a second one for moutains, a third one for clouds. If somone sees what which one I'm talking about that would be great.

What I would like to do is this:

but a bit faster. Any idea of how to proceed? How can i make it animated? I saw that on pdn I can do an animated gif, and even animated png, but is it the right way to do it?

Thanks for your help!

[Sarkut]

This may be the one that you're thinking of.

[jerry533482]

You might like adding an atmosphere to your Earth: 100% PDN Planet Tutorial v2!

For animation, here's the Animated image plugin: Animated Image 2.1 - AGIF & APNG

Regarding the actual animating, the only thing I could recommend is create a few dozen duplicates of your Earth texture (the map with everything on it), run Shape3D on each one, but change the settings a little for each individual frame. Shape3D has a load of settings and nobs, so you'll have precise control over your planet. If you want the atmosphere in your animation, you're gonna have to keep a copy of the final composite glow over each frame, then merge each glow down with each planet layer, or you'll end up with an animation that shifts between a glow and a planet every fraction of a second. Sounds hard, but with enough determination, I'm sure it's possible.

100% PDN animations have been done before, with galaxies and solar systems. Check these out:

Galleria, pg 2 (# 31)

This one was not made by me.

A galaxy tutorial I writ a while ago.(#18)

I did make this one, and I got away using only layer rotate/zoom; since Shape3D was unnecessary.

Hope this helps.

Edited July 20, 2010 by jerry533482