WIP - Space Archaeology Mission Map

[Azélor]

I really like your starfield !

[Abu Lafia]

I really like your starfield !

Thanks a lot Azelor, glad you like it! Since i know from your comments that you have a lot of geological and general "scientific" knowledge, i'd love to hear if there are any flaws if you could spare the time (because astrophysics and geology aren't exactly my field of expertise XD).

So, i redid the planet (the old one was only a placeholder). I generated a heightmap with this nice Planet Map Generator. then i tweaked some hard edges (blurred it a bit) and "gradient mapped" one copy with a sandy gradient, and bumpmapped the other copy which i then "overlay" over the other (like i learned in arsheesh's eriond tutorial). This was my basic texture. I put a part of it in the bottom right of the map so you can see how it looked like. I won't take it as the third map but i'll call it the next generation dummy .
Then i mapped the texture on the sphere (this time i made some different adjustments in the options menu) and voila...
Planetclear.jpg
A nice desert planet ... digging in the sand for traces of ancient alien civilizations will surely be a lot of fun down there If you have the right coordinates...

Planet.jpg space_archaeology_wip2.jpg

The steps i made are a little tough to reconstruct in detail because of my notoriously messy workflow (but i'll give it a try soon because i personally like the outcome)
The mapping of the labels on the sphere was a pain in the @$$ but finally it came out something similiar to what i had in mind.

Cheers,
AL