What I'm using Fractal Terrains for
As promised elsewhere, here am I showing the community what I've been using Fractal Terrains for:
For those who didn't read the promise, I'll explain that I'm using these planets as visual aids for the creation of a science fiction universe. They help me visualize the environmental conditions in each location (Celestia allows me to specify locations, and even go there and "look around", sort of), thus aiding to instill added credibility to the stories. This particular planet will be the location of the first of those stories (or maybe the second).
I created in FT the overall map, with a personalized climate shader, a bump map whose elevations are only barely visible in the highest resolution (the planet is larger than the Earth and its overall topography isn't very dramatic), and a few other visualizations that I treated and combined in image editing programs to create the night lights and the specular map. These images were then inserted in a star system I created in Celestia and the result was rendered there just to show you.
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| De Diversos |
I created in FT the overall map, with a personalized climate shader, a bump map whose elevations are only barely visible in the highest resolution (the planet is larger than the Earth and its overall topography isn't very dramatic), and a few other visualizations that I treated and combined in image editing programs to create the night lights and the specular map. These images were then inserted in a star system I created in Celestia and the result was rendered there just to show you.
Comments
Celestia... Don't know it but it sounds like an interesting piece of software.
Keep us updated on your SF project.
Keep up the excellent work!
Regarding the questions...
No, the shader is not part of FT. FT comes with a predefined shader and you can download others, but I made my shader myself. It's a .JPG picture accessible through Map > Show other shader > Show Image Climate > Load image from disk.
A bump map is a monochrome image that includes topograhical information. It ranges in shades of grey from white to black, white being the highest areas, and black the lowest ones. In Celestia it's used to generate shadows along the terminator, giving your planets a 3-d appearence. Without a bump map (or a normal map), they look just like smooth balls. In FT it's accessible through Map > Show other shader > Show bump map.
For image editing, I use Photoshop, but there are plenty of other programs that can be used to do the same things.
Hm... you may want to check the Celestia forum (just google that expression and you'll drop in it). It has a lot of information about everything that is needed to produce the planetary textures. Apart from that, there are also a lot of tutorials. You can pick up a technique here, a techinque there, but the best learning tool I know of is trial and error.