A bg for use in opening (one of my first)

[Azaron]

This will essentially be one of a couple of splashes used in the opening sequence. The star sucks, I know that, but the rest I'm mostly happy with. Any ideas?

[Mr Flibble]

I'd say fewer stars, and far less around the sun as its bright light would render them invisible.
The planet is great though, good work on the blue corona (is that what its called?)

[vict0r]

Looks really good, but fewer stars! Now, it looks more like tv noise than stars. And the blue thing(sun?) looks too non-circular. Plus, add some more details to the planet.

[gameboy]

Actually, what I would change would be that the stars should be light blue. I think that makes it more beautiful. But it's just my opinion.
But what the heck am I complaining! It looks very good! The space-ships are especially cool!

[Azaron]

Took out a lot of the background noise in the star field.
The system star is actually somewhat passable now
The stars have a bit of color to them now, and the planet is closer to being the desolate, uninhabitable wasteland it should be

Great responses, btw. Any more out there, throw them in.

[voh]

My 2 cents - spaceships don't hover completely horizontally in space - especially not in relation to each other

[ManicMatt]

Wouldn't it look a bit crap if they were just pointing in any direction?

Also, this technology presented here far surpases any knowledge we currently have, so there!

[voh]

Well, if the camera is aimed at the ship, the horizontal nature of that one is acceptable

But the space station/satellite thing just looks very, very odd being at the EXACT angle (of 0% slant horizontal ) as the space ship.

I make sense, and you know it

[Ashen]

I was just about to post the same thing about the ship ...

The spacestation-thing, I think would look better oriented to the planet it's meant to be orbiting (assuming it is meant to be in orbit), like this:


Other than that, I like it. You could maybe vary the brightness of the stars some more, which should make the field look less 'dense'.

[Paper Carnival]

I like this, except the stars. I'd advice to use fewer stars, as well as some starts bigger (and brighter) than the others.

[Phemar]

What Guybrush said. And I'd also reverse the gradients on the space-ships. They kinda hurt my eyes

[Haddas]

I had a go at it. For better or for worse i still don't know.

Fake edit: Damnit. I'm late

[Becky]

For an idea of how to vary the size/brightness/whatever of the stars, have a look at this tutorial by Greg Martin. http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_star_field.html

I tend to think his starfields are  too OTT, but it'll give you an example of how you can vary it

[Andail]

Jesus, Haddas, it's space, not a discotheque

[DonB]

Altho I really like the new red-light (lol, not the famous district) space background looks very, very nice.. I don't think the spaceship fits in, I think you should keep the old background, I really liked the atmosphere of the spaceship witht hat background, really oldschool, like it..

So. IMO..

or..

keep old background with old spaceship, just make some less stars, it's a little too much stars on old background imo.

or..
keep new background and make new spaceship with some other angle and colors.. (this one got the right amount of stars imo)

[scourge]

Nice background. I think Haddas's background is perfect, just remove most of the stars, keep about 5-10% of the stars. Like Andail said, it's space.

[Privateer Puddin']

something like one of these perhaps, did different coloured stars and then white ones

[Darth Mandarb]

For an idea of how to vary the size/brightness/whatever of the stars, have a look at this tutorial by Greg Martin.

That's an excellent tutorial but I too find his star fields a little to "busy" for my tastes!  But the technique should be noted!  I'm glad somebody else has that link!

I think the main problem I have with this background is that I get no sense of "depth" ... space is so vast and I like space backdrops that convey that sense of incredible depth and openess.

Through a lot of experimenting (years literally) ... what I've discovered is that black just doesn't work.  I use a very deep blue ...

Like this:

- changed the background from black to deep blue
- altered the stars (adding some blurring to create depth)
- added some 'special' stars to give it more life
- changed the planet's glow.  I think (may be wrong!) that the glow around a planet is determined by the color of the planet.  Earth is 90% water, thus is glows blue?  This planet seems "lava-y" so it would have an orange glow?  I'm no astronomer!
- made the start have a bright corona as well.
- changed the shading on the space station slightly
- added a slight glowing cloud system

I know the deep blue background isn't technically accurate/realistic but, to me at least, it conveys vast depth better than black.

Hope it's helpful!

[vict0r]

Thats amazing darth :o Try to do something like thing Azaron


EDIT: What happened to your jolly christmas avatar darth?

[ManicMatt]

Allow me to explain. Darth is mourning the passing of John Spencer, the actor.