Planet lighting and shadows

# 1 06-02-2004 , 11:22 AM

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Location: Harwich, UK

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I am trying to make an Earth scence (I know it has been done a thousand times before) but im having a few problems.

1) Creating a night side, I saw fredriksson's node setup but din't quite understand it. Also, I have animated the Earth rotating .... just wondering if this will make it harder to make a night side

2) Sooner or later im going to have a moon orbating the Earth, I want it to come from the dark into the light. The problem is that even when it is behind the Earth it still looks too bright. Not sure why the Earth isn't creating a good enough shadow.

3) Do you think I need an atmosphere, im not sure. I don't know if you would see the atmosphere so far away .... what do you gys think?

_LIVID

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# 2 06-02-2004 , 11:31 AM

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u will certainly need an atmosphere shader from what i can see.
as for the moon being bright even when behind he earth, u can decrease the diffuse ro whatever other slef-illuminating node u may have.
animating the earth will not neccessarily make light/night harder,
u just have to control how the facing side of ur shader reacts. (HINT *sampler node> facing ratio to difuse)
good luck.

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# 3 06-02-2004 , 11:34 AM

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..... are you sure your a n00b cos most of that was over my head.

_LIVID

"You can live for yourself today -- or help build tomorrow for everyone" _LIVID

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# 4 07-02-2004 , 02:46 PM

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Location: Auroville, India

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hi, just finished with applying an atmosphere to a planet - and got some good results after getting some good advice:

use the Ramp Shader and work with the Transparency and the Color ramps and the Special Effects/Glow intensity. apply this shader to a sphere slightly larger than your earth sphere. also, what worked in my case is to set the sphere Double Sided off.

HTH

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# 5 07-02-2004 , 04:48 PM

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Right, my Earth is a sphere which has a layered shader. One of the land and the other layer is the clouds.

I tried to make another sphere and make it transparent and have the glow turned up. There was no effect, is it because it is totaly transparent. I want to just have a glow on the layered texture but I could'nt find the option.

_LIVID

"You can live for yourself today -- or help build tomorrow for everyone" _LIVID

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# 6 08-02-2004 , 04:57 AM

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If you make your shader completely transparent the glow will not show. Set Transparency to none, and in the Special Effects section, toggle Hide Source to On. Your glow will then appear. And don't forget to look at the shaderGlow node to tweak some glow effects.

In my case, using the Ramp Shader, i played with the Transparency ramp because i only wanted a glow on the edge of the sphere.

good luck

A conscious power has drawn the plan of life...

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# 7 17-02-2004 , 03:15 PM

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That worked but it made it look like a light bulb, I was hopeing more of a thin film around the edge . A sort of haze, I have heard some people mention Mental Ray but I don't know how to use that. Could anyone out there point me in the right direction?

Cheers for your time

_LIVID

"You can live for yourself today -- or help build tomorrow for everyone" _LIVID

Optical Minefield
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